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- Since then I've built and exited three software companies. I've raised over 500 million in capital and invested in over a hundred companies as a first investor, as an angel investor. And then now I buy about a company every month right now.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a very special edition of the Money Mondays. Our guests flew all the way here from Canada, right here to the ranch. We're inside the RV Motorhome, parked at the Wild Jungle as we speak. We just did an animal tour, met some 15-foot snakes, some camels, some zebras, and everything in between.
But this guest, normally I would want to talk to for hours. But as you guys know, we keep these podcasts to under 40 minutes because the average workout is 45 minutes and the average commute to work is 45 minutes. So this episode will be just under 40 minutes just so you know what you're in for so you can listen to the whole thing and go back and make sure because there's gonna be some interesting clips for this one for sure.
This gentleman coaches way more people than I do. And I've got a really big mastermind. He does group coaching, one-on-one coaching, masterminds with 600 people, 1,000 people, numbers I've never heard in the coaching space. And that he does on the side for fun because he likes teaching people. He has an actual business, which most coaches don't have because they're mostly coaching for coaches. He has an actual business, which is what I love about him, where he buys software companies.
And he actually goes invest in companies or acquires companies. He right now has a best selling book that you can find on Amazon, which we'll get into. And it's ranked in the top 10 on the whole planet. So I don't want to make this humongously long intro, which I'm already doing because normally you guys know we keep these intros really short so we can get straight to the money. But it's really important because I want to make sure you guys really dive deep into this episode. This gentleman, I need you guys to give a warm round of applause wherever you are in the world to Mr. Dan Martell. Oh.
Thanks, bro. So good. It's an honor, man. I'm so pumped to be here. This is fun. So as you guys know, on this podcast, we go over three core topics, how to make money, how to invest money, how to give away a charity. What I want to do quickly is if you can give us your quick two minute bio so we can get straight to the money. Yeah. Quick two minute bio. Grew up in chaos. Ended up in juvenile detention twice by the time I was 16. Rehab for 11 months. It saved my life. Changed everything.
Discovered computer programming at 17, turned out to be kind of a big deal. The internet was born around the same time, 97, 95. And since then I've built and exited three software companies. I've raised over 500 million in capital and invested in over 100 companies as a first investor, as an angel investor.
And then now I buy about a company every month right now in my big band software. It's 100 million holdco and we're just buying revenue. So this money Mondays is like my jam. Perfect. I'm pumped. All right. So let's dive right into it on the make money side. Since you have 600 people you're coaching here and a thousand people coaching here and coaching all these CEOs.
Why should someone out there hire a coach, a mentor, read books, watch YouTube? Why should they go to events? Why should people be consuming content and learning? It's a cheat code, man. I mean, I struggled. I did two companies, 17, 19, 21, just kept failing. And everything shifted for me when I hired my first business coach, this guy named Bob.
I was 23, didn't have any money, didn't have a business. I think I had, it was a year commitment, 1500 bucks a month. I had 3000 bucks in my bank account.
So I only had two months to make it work. And I didn't tell him this. I just, my math was, if he's good, he's going to help me make some money so I can pay him for the rest of the year. And within our first year, I started this company, Spheric Technologies, and within the first year we did 940,000. So like I just, you know, in reading every day, feeding my mind, going to events, I mean, this is where I've seen you all over the place and just investing in knowledge and
It's a cheat code. If you want to get better, you've got to become better. And the only way to do that is get around people that are going to show you ways to make more money. For me, it was sequencing. I just didn't understand. I was willing to do the work. But, I mean, you can be really motivated and excited. And without direction, you'll just be really motivated and excited in one spot. Right. So oftentimes, CEOs might have an ego or they might think that they know everything. Right.
How do they get past that to go bring on a coach or a mentor for themselves? Assume everything you know is wrong.
Just literally like when I start businesses, Dan, I just assume that my assumptions are wrong. And then I try to run as fast as I can to verify my assumptions. And I usually rank order them based on the riskiest assumptions. So I think it's just a perspective when you know that the crazy good idea you have has a chance of being wrong. Then it's not about being upset if somebody gives you feedback. It's literally I'm on the journey to validate what I know, especially in software when you're building innovation, right?
So to me, I just, my ego stays at the door. And I'm also big on like proactively asking for feedback. In the book, I actually teach this whole conversation style called clearing conversations. And the big premise is if you proactively ask for feedback, then you'll always create the release valve for other people to feel seen, heard, and appreciated. Because I mean, a lot of animosity is built up when people feel like you just don't hear what they think. And then they start acting weird around you and you're just like, what do you really feel about that decision? Right.
So what I do with everybody that reports directly to me is I use this conversation question to just make sure that I'm always getting the feedback. So ego for me stays at the door. I'm always looking to learn. I'm the most curious person in the room, ask a lot of questions. And that seems to be a winning recipe. Most of the zillionaires and billionaires that I've ever met ask a lot of freaking questions. Dude, they don't want to talk at all. No. They're literally reading all the time or asking questions. There's a reason why. We're going to break that down really quick.
Why would it matter for a billionaire to ask someone who's got $5 million, $10 million, $50 million, $100 million, $200 million, less than them theoretically math-wise and financial-wise, or has no money but is a really good expert in something? Here's why. Imagine you do a billion-dollar company, and you learn something that helps you by one tiny little percent. You know what 1% of a billion is? It's $10 freaking million. A lot of money. Beaucoup d'argent. And guess what? If you go from $1 billion to $1.2 next year, it's $12 million. $12 million.
And then 1.6 billion, it's $16 million of new added info from this one little thing you read in a book or asked a question or got some advice, whether it's a social media influencer, a business person, the waiter, there might be something that they learned from them that literally changed the entire course of their business forever and ever and ever from one little tiny percent. And that's why they ask questions. It's interesting because I'm going to pull up this quote because it was one of my favorite things I heard in the last week. But it's,
This conversation reminds me of one of my mentors said to me, he goes, why would I talk? I already know what I know. Wow. Right? But that wasn't even the quote. He just said that. I remember he said that. He goes, yeah, I already know what I know. It was about, he goes, somebody who is the loneliest. If a man knows more than others, he becomes lonely. Think about that. If a man knows, like some people and you know them, they don't shut up. Right.
It's like that must be a lonely existence when you're always the person talking and you're not learning from other people. There's no connection. But yeah, why would I need to talk? I already know what I know. Fascinating. All right. Someone is finally ready. You know what? I do need a coach. I want to hire a mentor. How do I choose...
who to hire. My whole thing is I want to find people that have exhibited, proven an outcome, a area. It's like, I don't ever put one person on a pedestal either, but if I'm trying to get my fitness in check, if I'm trying to get my money in check, if I'm trying to get my relationship, I want to find people that have visible exit. Like they've done the thing that I want to do. So I work with Ed Milet right now. I want to get, you know, really understanding the media side of stuff. The guy's got one of the largest podcasts in the world. He's a beast. He's a
great, I mean, literally one of the best speakers in the world. And so that's who I hired recently to support me. And that's just how I've always done. I've always had a coach since my first coach, Bob. And it's, it could be a relationship coach. Like we, right now I probably have about five or six people that I pay for their knowledge. Both. I've got a parent coach, Sean. He's awesome. He only specializes in teenagers. My kids are 11 and 10, but I want to be ready for when they start sassing back. Right. That's just being proactive.
I've got a family coach, Brooke. She comes and lives with us. Like imagine, I have a coach that comes into our house, lives there. Really? Yeah, wakes up with us, watch us interact with the kids and then pulls us aside and kind of give us some cues. Fascinating. Yeah, and I have like fitness coach, I have a wake surf coach. I got, I mean, to me, I have an unlimited budget for investing in myself. And what I would tell people is go on YouTube, go on online podcasts. And sometimes people don't even coach, but I offer them money to get the help.
So one of my favorite things to do is ask people what's their hourly rate. So I did the other day with this guy, Derek, he's like a mindset top Instagrammer. And I said, Hey man, what's an hour of your time costs. And I'm willing to pay 30 grand an hour for somebody to like teach me something about a thing I want to go deeper on. Cause I want to know the books they've read, the people they've been inspired by. And he goes, uh, what do you want to talk about? And I sent him the list of questions I had prepped.
He goes, dude, that sounds like a fun conversation. Let's just have a conversation. So like, I even think just finding people's content you resonate with and asking them what it would cost. Like, I don't know, but like, I think some people are so slow to just like, if you resonate with a person yourself,
Like just reach out to you and be like, hey man, I'll fly down, I'll pay for an hour, I'll donate money to your charity. You'd be surprised how accessible people are. So I just think consuming content from people who inspire you that have an outcome and then trying to figure out if they have a program or coaching thing that you can opt into. It's just so fast. It's just speed.
So last year I charged $100,000, but it was 100% to charity. I saw that, yeah. And I just had them wire directly to charity and I gave them, you know, three, four charity options. I did it again this year. 171 people applied from one post and I had to whittle it down to 12 of like, you know, who are the interesting characters and it's fascinating, like,
Who they are. Like, who the people are and what their companies are. Three of them are in SaaS. They're in your world. One doing $12 million, one doing $55 million, one doing $60 million. And it's just interesting to, like, talk with them. Like, I enjoy talking with them, but I was doing it for the charity part because it helps, you know, with the toy drives and all that stuff. Outside of that, I've been throwing free events for the last 12 years. That's crazy. Elevator Nights is free. So awesome. 54 times. You know, like... And so I like every...
I guess the Ascension model from free to $100,000 and everything in between. When you're coaching, on the other side of the, someone is listening, they want to become a coach or a mentor and they actually have the chops to do it.
how do they decide what to charge? Should I charge 500 bucks, a thousand bucks, a hundred thousand, 50,000, 20,000? How do they decide or how can they try to figure out what to charge? - Here's my approach 'cause I have a lot of people that do coaching that show up in my world. I always say pick a number. Honestly, it's whatever you feel comfortable with today. And most people undercharge, that's just a reality. But here's how we resolve that.
start with a number, fill up your calendar capacity, then double your price. And then as capacity becomes available, that's the new rate. And I always say play with two things, either double your price and reduce the amount of time you spend with them. So some people might do, you know, a call every week, which I think is excessive, but then try to go, hey, how about a call every other week?
My favorite place is to do one call a month. Like all my clients I coach personally, one call, 55 minutes. That way I got five minutes at the end to do any intros or connections. And that gives them all they need to execute. So if you just keep, it's funny because I was flying in the helicopter down here. One of my,
past clients reached out and said, I need you now. And I was like, dude, the number you got is double now. He's like, Ooh, you dragged your feet, man. I told you, but, uh, he's, he's going to move forward. But it was just funny because I literally did the same thing. I just told you, I only got five slots for private. And if somebody wants it and they wait, it's just going to, I just, I only got, I can only put the price up or I can reduce the amount of time I need the 55 minutes. I'm not going to 30. Um,
So that's what it is. I think a lot of people should just honor that because then they'll enjoy doing it. The worst part about coaching is when you fill up your calendar with a bunch of whiners that don't pay you enough that you just start hating it. And then you end up building a business that you grow to hate. And that's no fun. So double your prices and reduce the amount of time with the clients. And you'll find out, especially when people pay more, they pay attention. And here's a big idea. I think if you charge enough, the transformation happens at the transaction.
So the guys that wired you that 100K, which is a steal, by the way, if anybody's like, I didn't know you did that because I would have bought in. 100K on that wire, they got the value in many ways because they just told themselves, I'm worth it. And now I have an ally and I can feel confident because I can leverage their confidence in me and their network in me to go make bigger decisions knowing that I've got their backing. I think that's a big idea that people don't consider.
Yeah, right out the gate. You can feel it in the first month because the first month I'm like group chatting them with all the main characters like, oh, you should meet Dan Martell. You should go do this. Oh, you should do this with this person. Oh, you don't do this, this and this. Like a lot of it's front loaded. I haven't coached as long as you. I've done masterminds for so many years. But the one-on-one coaching I just decided to do last year because I always thought it was too hard to do it time-wise.
until badros cool and i was like no you do one call he's the og i heard him on lewis house podcast a decade ago talking about masterminds he's the one that inspired me and yeah that's cool literally why we're sitting on this ranch this is half this place's events yeah for operation black side is with him but he was charging 50 000 and then he was like i doubled to 100 000 he must have heard dan martell he's like i doubled 100 000 and nobody blinked
He has 49 clients at 100,000. That's 4.9 million a year. That's real money. That's real money, but he treats it like a business. Yep. You know, he's like, they fly in. We do half day sessions. I changed their life. They're doing 1 million. Now they're doing 3 million. I'm free to them. Right. They paid a hundred grand, but I changed it. Right.
Okay. Let's take off the coaching hat and put on the software hat. Someone out there has a business, whether it's a software or in any type of business, restaurant, whatever. And they're deciding, should I raise capital? Should I sell my company? At what point do people start to think about, do I let Dan Martell buy my company? Yeah. I mean, I love to buy companies where the founder has been doing it for a while. There's a lot of history, right? And there's a lot of retention in the customer base. Again, those are the companies I like to buy.
And I think there's, you know, there's a hundred reason people decide to sell and price is just one. And a lot of people think that it's like, oh, it's gotta be the price. It's like, no, there's, you know, co-founder fighting, people's get divorced. Somebody just says, hey, I've just fallen out of passion with this problem. I wanna go do some AI thing.
Why should you sell? I always think about it, even like when I sold my companies, is how many years of perfect execution are they buying? And that's the math. How many years of me doing this can I get paid up front so I can buy back my time so then I can redeploy that resource and that energy and that time to go do something that might be more aligned with my purpose?
So if somebody's willing to buy back, you know, four, five, six, 10 years of perfect execution, then it's worth considering. And I think it's, I just think that too often people don't build the business in a way that they could sell it. And then when they get frustrated with the business or too quick to just be like, I'm
i'm done you know these guys they call you up and they're like hey dan should i sell or you're like well you kind of put it into the cr like you cratered it in the last six months like could you have at least right you went like this and then fell out of love with it went down yeah now you're trying to sell it but i think companies that you build so that you could sell
Not only are they more valuable, but it's also a great company to own and run. Right? So someone comes to Dan Martell, they sell their company and you're like, here's $12 million. You buy the company and they wake up the next morning. Like, what do I do? That's those are the, yeah. How do they figure out what the hell to do when they sell their company? Like they've been doing the same thing for nine years. Here's the question I like to ask people. If you knew you only had two years to live, what would you want to do with your time?
Right. And then you kind of work backwards. It was all in my head. I just actually saw it all. Yeah. And, and I, and I just talking to you and seeing what you built here, I feel like you've been proactive about that.
And the reason why is the way to think about it. And Jeff Bezos talks about this often is a regret minimization framework. Like if today was my last day, would I regret it being my last day? Me? No, zero. I don't think you would either. Cause you, you've been showing up with purpose and being intentional about the life you've created. So I would just ask them questions around that. It's like, you know, and there's also another framework around money to ask people is like, at what point amount of wealth,
would you stop thinking about accumulating more things for yourself? Okay. So like I always ask people like how much money? So like, what if you're making a million a year? It's like, well, I'd probably buy this house. Okay. What if you're making 10 million a year? Well, I'd probably get another home. Yeah. I mean, maybe jet starts for them at 50 million, but there's different numbers. Now, what if you're making 400 million a year? They go, and this is what's interesting is there's some dollar amount where they switch to, well, then I'd want to give to these people. Right. So it's interesting because like,
Everybody has a different number. Some people you tell them, okay, you're making 10 million a year. They're like, well, I give half to charity. So that's, and that's their number. But then I always ask them, okay, well, what charity would that be? Because I believe this is a cool idea. I believe your number one strength, your giftedness sits right next to the worst thing that's ever happened to you. The biggest pain in your life.
And if you were to ask yourself and you're honest yourself, who in this world, what group of people would you want to support helping overcome or get through challenges the most? It's usually people that have experienced that. Most people would want to go and do that with their money. Hopefully, I would hope, because to me it's purpose. And I think a lot of people...
live a life of grind and hustle and they call it grit when it is truly just a grind because you can't without without purpose then it's really just wasted right like if there's no bigger reason why you're doing the work then it really is a grind not not grit so you have a lot of clients that have a lot of freaking money yeah it's cool and some of them aren't happy
And it's hard for people to hear that. And that's part of what the money Mondays is about is to have these very blunt discussions. Why do you think someone that has, whether it's 5 million, 10 million, 50 million, 500 million, whatever the number is, isn't fulfilled. It isn't happy. It's because if money is the primary reason you make a decision, then you're just a prisoner of the money. And it doesn't matter if you have a hundred grand, 10 grand or 10 million. So you think about it. I know I, my buddy sold his company for 160 million and he couldn't bring himself to pay 30 bucks for valet. Yeah.
i got a story and it sounds funny but you know these people absolutely okay so that's a person that even no matter what number is in a bank account they will always feel that money is pressure money is anxiety money is concern it's i don't want to lose it now i've got a thing and i gotta protect it so to me when people think that money's gonna make them happier that's such a fallacy because success capital money success is a science it's a process it's an algorithm
But feeling fulfilled, which is what they think the money will give them, that's an art. And the art of fulfillment is a completely different strategy. So my whole rule is that if money is the primary reason you make decisions, you're never going to be free. Most people that start companies, if you say pick the word for what you wanted to achieve in starting that business, it's freedom. But they don't work on what needs to be true or the belief they have on what would be true for them to feel freedom.
And what I would say is you got to stop making money. The primary reason you make decisions, it's gotta be a consideration. But if I'm deciding, it's just like going on vacation. I had to get to a point where I put a budget aside for how much money I spent on my vacations. So it was a forcing function to not think about all the fricking details of like, Oh no, I got to spend this money or I don't get it back. Well, what does that do? That prioritizes it's an investments experiences. Same thing with charity stuff. Same thing with anything. So I think purpose is,
And fulfillment comes as a byproduct of deciding that money is just a tool that unlocks resources. It's never going to make me happy. It's not going to make me feel enough. It's never going to make me feel like I belong. Those are things that at any point throughout the journey, I can decide to actually feel, which is kind of awesome, right? The whole idea of, you know, as Ed says, blissfully dissatisfied. Like, can you be absolutely enjoy and have gratitude for the moment, right?
and not need anything, but at the same time, be aware that you're here, if you're breathing, to create more, to become more. And that's, to me, that's what I work with my clients on. It's like, hey, let's figure out how we get you to a place where there's no neediness of anything for you to feel absolute joy and bliss. But at the same time, let's not forget and recognize that you are a person here that creates. Let's create more. Let's just choose the right things to do that. So when you wrote this book and you came up with this title, what was it?
Was it something that was part of your journey your whole life? Was it something part of your coaching? Like the title itself. Walk us through the concept of it. I've been teaching this concept for 15 years. It is 100% a byproduct of pain. I sucked at it. Dude, I worked 100 hours a week. I was engaged to, I was previously engaged. I've been married now for 12 years. I have two beautiful children. But when I was 24 to 28, I just thought that there was a mode that you had to hustle in and that's where I stayed.
And one day, I think it was like a Sunday afternoon, I was supposed to be home at five and I'm still at the office. I look up at six o'clock and I rush home and I walk into this new house we had just built with my fiance and I find her in tears in the kitchen. And she's just like, she can't even breathe. She's beside herself. And she just says, I'm done. Wow. And she walks away. She went and lived with her parents. That was the last time we were together, seven weeks before the marriage. Whoa. Dude, it was, my whole life shattered in that moment. Yeah.
I got chills. That was intense. Yeah, and it's really hard to think about even now.
It's kind of awesome because I'm so grateful that- - Right, the butterfly effect is much better. - And I'm grateful that she had a backbone to do that. You know what I mean? Like I wrote a letter one time and I just thanked her for who she was and that she, you know, she had enough self worth to say, "I'm not putting up with this." Because here's the crazy part. The whole time I was doing it, building the company, trying to be successful, had to coach, you know, we were doing millions of revenue. The whole lie I was telling myself is I'm doing this for our future. For us, for this family we're gonna create together.
And she said to me, I didn't ask you for any of that. So isn't that interesting that we tell ourselves lies about why we do things for people that if we're really honest with ourselves, they didn't ask for any of it. It's like all this money getting, if you're doing it for your family, why don't you ask them what they actually want from you? I've never had my kids say, I need you to be richer. Those words have never left my children's mouth.
They have said, "Hey, it'd be great if we spent more time doing this. Hey, it'd be great if you didn't travel so much. It'd be great if when we're hanging out that you weren't talking to your friend." So that to me was like a beautiful lesson that really inspired the concept of the buyback principle. And the buyback principle in the book, it states that we don't hire people to grow our business. We hire people to buy back our time. The reason why, and I know you appreciate this because I asked you about the way you structure your companies.
is when we hire people to grow our business, it takes more time. But when we hire people to buy back time out of our calendar, it actually scales. And the more you grow, the more freedom you have, not the opposite. And that's why I think most people end up building companies they grow to hate is because they don't know any better and they just hire for capacity. They don't hire for calendar.
I'm all about the calendar. I don't hire the people like who do you need to hire next? I'd have to sit down and look at my calendar and go this bucket, this bucket. Well, sure. It looks like this type of hire because then I'm going to get 40 hours back in a month. Right. Right. And that's the only way I deploy capital is to free up my time so that I have the capacity to do only things that I love to do that makes me money. And that's how I've been able to build my empire. And then my definition of empire is a life of unlimited creation. I never have to retire from.
Like I don't, there's no retiring from being me. No. Dan, you're not retiring. It's like, what does retirement look like? It's what I do every day that I love to do. Right. So how about we just do that until the end of time, until I take my last breath. Right. And what's crazy, if you actually look at the compounding value of that, if people actually just understood that a lot of the wealth, the money is made on the backend of them, not missing and being consistent and compounding the relationships, their knowledge,
Dude, that's where the real wealth comes from. 40 plus, like for another 40 years, for another 50 years, let's call it another 70 years if you want to live long. That's next level. That's why I wrote this book. All right, guys, I'm going to explain a very real version of this. So five years ago, I hired my CEO. His name is Joey Carson. He was very expensive.
Because he had 30 years in the TV game and I wasn't sure if I should do this I never had a CEO and never had executive and never had an assistant I decided I was gonna bring on the CEO with this huge pedigree. He basically invented reality television He was a CEO for Buna Murray So he created the real world road rules simple life with Paris Hilton all these big people keeping up with the Kardashians all these big shows back then nine years at Fox ten years at Sony sounds expensive because it was expensive and
And made the decision to bring him on for a lot of six figures and a percentage of Elevator Studios, which has no investors or partners. So this is a big decision. Huge. The best thing that ever happened to me. Hands down, the butterfly effect of that was I wasn't a butterfly with my wings clipped inside the office anymore. I could fly. Same exact moment, I finally start the 100 million mastermind. Crazy. $100,000 a person.
100 people. You can do the math. It's $10 million. I sold out in three months. The second I hired out a CEO, I started the match. I might have been wanting to start and I sold out in three months and did $10 million. So was he expensive? Or the cheapest, most elegant investment ever? I mean, this is the thing to that point, Dan, is I think most people...
don't the reason they don't grow I call this the pain line in the book is because growth would equal pain in their calendar so they're sitting on opportunities their inbox like there's an email from a person that could triple their business and they drag their feet to reply because they're scared that if they say yes that all of a sudden their life would go chaotic and they wouldn't be wrong but it's because they haven't brought people like your CEO in and
that takes all that stuff off that allows you to just create more at the highest level. So it's not even that that primary business gets to win at a higher level. It's what do you get to go co-create with other people that has that butterfly effect, that compounding effect. And I think that's why for me, the concept of buying back your time, see most people, and you know, these folks, they spend time to save money for sure.
I'm all about spending money to save time. Hence why I took a helicopter down here to buy back three hours of my time so that I can have dinner with my kids tonight. Again, priorities. And I don't think I would have gotten to that place if I didn't go through the pain I went through to learn that lesson. It's been the biggest gift I've ever gotten.
All right. So we talked a bit about making money, about investing money. Let's talk about the charity side of things. I love this. Why do you think it's important for a business owner or CEO to have some type of charity or philanthropic component to their business? I think that you receive what you desire for others. That's a look at the camera. Okay. You will receive what you desire for other people.
And I think if you're somebody that shows up, we talk about the art of fulfillment. You can go be rich and be a ding dong. And we all know them like wealthy, not happy, probably have tons of vices and nobody would trade spots with them, but they're rich.
I'm interested in the people that have money and they feel fulfilled. And what do I see as an artifact or characteristics of all those people is that the more good they do, the more good they can do because they realize that the purpose of accumulation is having more resources to do good.
So that's my thing is I grew up and had some challenges, obviously, going through juvenile tension and drug addiction and rehab and stuff. So my biggest pain, which I was shamed for for 15 years, dude, I didn't tell anybody that story for 15 years. I didn't want my investors to find out. I didn't want my team to find out.
And the moment I started sharing the journey, because speaking to these kids have always been a part of my life. Like I would go two, three times a year to the rehab that saved my life, you know, since I was 18. Wow. Yeah. For 15 years, it was a secret. Even to my fiance at the time, she didn't know to the degree I ended up in trouble as a kid and what that meant.
And, but it was always a part of my life that was in the shadows. And when I put it into the light and started mentoring kids and, and, you know, one of my favorite things to do when I go talk to like, uh, you know, a group home or foster care or whatever with troubled youth is to tell them like, get out, stay sober, stay out of trouble for a year and then find me.
And I will absolutely put every resource I have behind me to make your dreams come true. And you know how easy it is for us. They're like, oh, I want a painting business. Perfect. Click, click, done. Yeah, it's literally like, they're like, can it be that easy? I'm like, it's that easy. And I just learned a long time ago that I think tithing is a spiritual concept that a lot of religions have or whatever. But allocating a percentage of your income to doing good, like a budget, make it part of...
how you operate, that's always felt right to me. So it doesn't matter if I have a bucket of capital and as I find opportunities that align with my purpose, I support them, there's things that I do, but for me, it's even time. I think writing a check's actually quite easy. Showing up with your time, as somebody who wrote a book about that and understands the value of an hour,
That's impressive to me. That's like, if you can show me a project where, like we were talking about earlier, where I know my money and I can put some time and I can see it, dude, all day long. And that's where fulfillment comes from. When you hear the word balanced, when it comes to entrepreneurs, what do you think about? I don't do the balance concept. I do the word integrated. That's at the center of my life. Like balance to me, it's, I think people need to understand there's a difference between rubber balls and glass balls. My marriage is a glass ball. It will not bounce. Okay.
I don't, I don't prioritize things above that. Rubber balls could be like your health, right? I can put on 10 pounds, lose 10 pounds. Um, you know, in relationships with people could be like rubber balls. So I think it's really important to understand, you know, what are things that you need to spend time on and focus and keep kind of supporting, um,
And things that, you know, can ebb and flow. But integration, like I travel with my kids. They're here now. I like bring them to board. I mean, my son was six weeks old in a, you know, in a carry, like a car seat. Yeah. Yeah. On the boardroom table at a board meeting. Yeah. They just, it's just part of their identity. Like, I just, I think that balance is a weird thing. It's like, I don't want balance. And here's, I'm going to leave it at this. I think the one of the coolest things you can do for another person is inspire them. Yeah.
Here's what I know about inspiration. Doing normal, never inspired on anybody. So the definition of wanting to have balance means you will never inspire anybody else because you're trying to just be like,
whatever. It's just, it's the kind of bland. It's like trying to like find the lowest level of equilibrium. I'm all about saying like, how can I like show up powerfully in different areas of my life? Sometimes there's seasons, right? Where it's like all charity. And that's like that quarter. Other times it's, Hey, we're going to go buy some companies and build the base of this empire.
And I think that's, and I see a future where I might decide to take six months off and go travel the world with the family. But there ain't no balance. It's integration. It's all in. It's deciding how do I become the best version of myself? All right, so the last question is one I ask often, and I've never gotten the same answer once, and I'm not going to get the same answer right now. You have this holding company that's $100 million now. It's going to be $140, then $200, then $300, then $500, then $1 billion, et cetera, because of your age and time and math compounds.
One day when you pass away, hopefully it's 80 years, 100 years, 200 years from now with modern technology, whatever that number is, and you've got over a billion dollars. How do you decide what to leave to the children? Nothing. My kids get nothing. Yeah, I've done a lot of research on this. I've been fortunate to have wealth for a while, even before the kids showed up. And that was like my biggest fear. I never wanted to raise entitled children.
And the math is out. The research is out. So there's a few concepts that I think are important to understand. I think the most important thing I'm going to leave my children is teaching them how to create value in the world. So that's like the thing actively. Like I believe every kid is homeschooled. It's just whether the parents are aware of it or not. Even if they go to a public school, like your kids are homeschooled. Are you intentional about what you teach them?
So I'm very intentional about teaching my kids the concepts of character traits and skills and creating value in the market rewards, what you're worth and your belief systems.
And then in regards to money, it turns out if you are going to leave your children some money, that the best time to do it is when they're 28 years old. So statistically, if you look at like the maturity, right, too early, they're going to be wasteful. But if your goal, this is why I always find it funny when I read this, I remember calling my dad up and I said, dad, do you have any, you know, desires to leave my sister money when you pass away? Because me and my brothers are wealthy. He goes, yeah, probably. I said, well, you should give it to her now.
he's like why would i do that i said because you're not spending it means you're gonna die with it it'll have a dramatically bigger impact on her life now right now than in 20 years oh and by the way you'll be alive to see her reaction right what a crazy concept yeah and see the impact of that so um and i've told my kids this two things i tell my kids often i'm rich you're not
And when you're 18, you have to get out of my house. Whether I decide to change my mind at any point is up to me. Strong opinions loosely held. But they're preparing. It's so cute. My son's like, okay, well, I'll go first because he's a year older. And then you'll move in with me. My wife always likes to joke if she hears me say that, that she's moving in with them. Because she's not going to let me kick them out at 18. But I tell them because I want them to be ready. But no, I think one of the biggest...
missteps I could ever have is leave them so much money. And I think Warren Buffett says this, he says, you don't, you want to leave them enough money to,
Not enough money they can do nothing, but enough money they can do something. So there is a framework around this, around family offices and the right structure. And the way they say it is have, and this is what the difference between the Vanderbilts and the Rockefellers, is the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts squandered a whole generation of wealth in 40 years. The Rockefellers still to this day support hundreds of families.
And what they did is they use insurance to insure loans. So you're allowed to borrow money from the foundation for business ideas, education in your first home.
And those are the three things. But I'm not going to wait till I die for them to have access to that. So the way I think about it, it's just like if you're born in a country that has like a good infrastructure, like, you know, in Canada, we have free medical services. If you're a Martel, then you'll have a loan for your first business, deposit for a home or education. And that's the way I think about it is. And then how many families can I support? But I'm weird, Dan, because I also don't believe in legacy.
Interesting. Yeah, I just believe that too many people use legacy as a reason to make decisions long term when they should really just show up today the way they should show up. Like, I think legacy is an interesting concept. I don't think that people will remember anything in 200 years from now. They won't, dude. And it's like instead of trying to it's just kind of going back to when my fiance left and said, I never asked you for any of it. It's like instead of trying to build for this multigenerational thing.
why don't you just build to create the most magical moment right now? Like, I just want to be here right now. I don't want, I'm not thinking about when I'm not here. I want to think about I'm here with my kids. I would love, you know, the, here's a great quote. The number one thing you could leave the world is great kids. That's it. My legacy will be, it's like, did I raise children that are creating value and self-sustaining and mature and kind people?
The money, I'm just going to probably give it to whatever charitable organization I'm dealing with and let smart people kick it around. But I would like to give it away before I left also. You see an action. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a fascinating, it's a great conversation. I love, I love that question just about, you know, what would you do?
If you know, with a billion dollars in your kids or whatever you want to do. Yeah. That's why I want to leave my kids. Where do people find the book? Where do they find you? Instagram is my favorite. A lot of people that read the book and they meet and who's here, um, always ask about how we work together. So if anybody's interested, follow me on Instagram, message me EA playbook. I'll send them my sanitized Google doc, no opt-in, no nothing. I'll literally send them the link to the doc, ask and to clean it up. And it's like 42 pages. It goes over everything. Um,
That's my favorite place. Amazon is where people can get the book. I read the audio book myself, added bonus chapter. It was a lot of fun. And Dan Martell on YouTube as well. I've got a big channel there and I'm putting out content every week.
I appreciate you being here. Hopefully next time you come to town, we can do this again because I could talk to you for hours and hours. It's an honor. All right, guys, as you guys know, I don't run ads here. We've been number one on the entrepreneur category for 54 weeks in a row because of you guys, because you're listening, you're sharing and commenting, subscribing and all those things. You have to have these discussions about money with your friends, family and followers. It's critical. It's important because we all grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money.
And we here think it's rude to not talk about it. You have to talk about loans and taxes and the IRS and everything between borrowing money from your friends. What happens if we break up? What happens if this happens? We have to be able to talk about it and have these real life discussions because it is real life. So visit us at themoneymondays.com. Check out Dan Martell. Check out the book. And we'll see you guys next Monday.