Podcast appearances and mentions of ty lopez

Jason Wojo: Founder and CEO of Wojo Media, a visionary behind scaling over a thousand businesses to six figures and 58 businesses to eight figures. Introduction Jake and Gino introduce the episode with their usual banter, discussing the New York to Florida connection and their guest, Jason Wojo.Jason's JourneyJason shares his story of starting as a high school student working in a café to founding Wojo Media. He discusses his challenges, including a revoked basketball scholarship and a stint in culinary school.From Culinary School to Entrepreneurship Jason talks about his transition from culinary school to eBay flipping and eventually discovering Ty Lopez's course on social media marketing.The Struggles and LessonsJason shares his struggles with authority, getting fired from multiple jobs, and his rebellious nature. He explains how he used these experiences to fuel his entrepreneurial journey.Building Wojo MediaJason details the growth of his business, from charging $200 per month for social media management to running a full-scale agency with 255 clients and a team of 52.Scaling the BusinessJason discusses the importance of scaling a business, hiring the right team, and the evolution of his services from website building to comprehensive digital marketing.Insights on Leadership and GrowthJason provides insights on transitioning from a solopreneur to a leader, the importance of delegation, and the value of focusing on what you do best.The Importance of Offers, Ads, Ecosystems, and KPIs Jason explains the four pillars of his business strategy:Offers: Creating irresistible offers that drive action.Ads: Running effective ad campaigns across multiple platforms.Ecosystem: Building a comprehensive marketing ecosystem.KPIs: Tracking key performance indicators to measure success.Personal Insights and Future PlansJason shares his thoughts on life, relationships, and his plans to travel and see the world. He talks about the importance of doing what makes you happy and not succumbing to societal pressures.Upcoming EventJason promotes his upcoming event in Miami on July 27th, a two-day workshop with 700-800 business owners focusing on offers, paid traffic, landing pages, and KPIs.  

In episode #2660, we explore unorthodox marketing tactics for 2024, sharing insights and examples of unique strategies that can help businesses stand out and attract customers. We discuss Eric's friend Ryan Chan, who wraps his Teslas and flies planes with his company logo to promote UpKeep, his maintenance software company. Neil highlights success stories from companies like FTX and Ty Lopez, emphasizing the use of unconventional marketing tactics for brand exposure and revenue growth.   Additionally, we delve into the significance of focusing on long-tail keywords for SEO, emphasizing how they can lead to higher conversions. The episode concludes with tips on cultivating a larger following on social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. We emphasize the importance of creating engaging content, conducting interviews with influential figures, and utilizing Twitter for testing and engagement.   Don't forget to help us grow by subscribing and liking on YouTube!   Check out more of Eric's content (Leveling UP YT) and Neil's videos (Neil Patel YT)    TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: (00:00) Today's topic: Unorthodox Marketing Tactics for 2024, How to Grow Your Followers in 2024, What Kind of Keywords Should You Really Be Targeting with Your SEO? (00:30) Example of a company using unconventional marketing strategies (01:55) Discussing the effectiveness of unconventional marketing tactics (02:58) The impact of owning a luxury car on business and recruiting (05:00) The importance of long-tail keywords in SEO (09:35) Focusing on revenue-generating traffic in SEO campaigns (10:16) Implementing programmatic SEO for higher conversions (10:41) How to grow your followers in 2024 (11:11) The importance of consistently creating content on social media platforms (11:48) The ideal number of posts per day on different social networks (12:56) Using Twitter as a testing bed for content engagement (13:35) Growing followers by being interested or doing interesting things (14:32) The benefits of interviewing influential people for content (15:35) Treating each YouTube video as a seedling for long-term growth (16:19) That's it for today! Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe!   Go to https://www.marketingschool.io to learn more!   Leave Some Feedback: What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review.   Connect with Us:    Single Grain

Ty Lopez went on a bit of a sabbatical during the covid times but now he is back and bigger than ever. You'll learn how he was a big deal in Hollywood and on social media.

This is a public service announcement! How much water do you drink in one day? Is it enough? Most of the time. . . we are not intaking enough water for our bodies. I drink about 3 liters of water a day and I was dehydrated. I thought it was enough and my body requires more to be at its peak potential. Today I took a spin class and I saw that there was this one gal who did not sweat at all. It's probably because she was dehydrated and had nothing to sweat out of her body. If you don't have water in your body. . . then you can't sweat. It's not rocket science. :) It's really simple. Questions you can ask yourself:How much water do I drink in 1 day?How much water did I drink when I woke up in the morning? Do I require a towel when I workout? Do I sweat when I workout? How much water are you drinking in a day? Do you hydrate when you wake up? DM me on Instagram with a “

Are you looking to make positive changes in your life this new year but feeling overwhelmed by all the self-help options out there? Join us for an eye-opening episode about the dark side of the self-help industry and how to avoid falling prey to fake gurus. We'll share practical tips for setting and achieving your new year's resolutions and help you navigate the crowded world of self-improvement to find genuine solutions for your personal growth. Tune in for a thought-provoking and informative episode on the power of self-help and the importance of being discerning in your journey to betterment.   Subscribe and leave a 5-star review! ----more---- Donate to support the show by going to https://givesendgo.com/redpillrevolution   Our website https://redpillrevolution.co/    Protect your family and support the Red Pill Revolution Podcast with Affordable Life Insurance. This is attached to my license and not a third-party ad!   Go to https://agents.ethoslife.com/invite/3504a now!   Currently available in AZ, MI, MO, LA, NC, OH, IN, TN, WV. Email austin@redpillrevolution.co if you would like to sign up in a different state   ----more---- Full Transcription    Welcome to the Revolution. Hello and welcome to Red Pill Revolution. My name is Austin Adams, and thank you so much for listening. Today we are going to be discussing all about the dark sides of the self-help industry and discussing whether or not, I think New Year's resolutions are bullshit, which apparently a lot of people do. So we will discuss that and then we'll also touch on a more recent event today event, a breaking event, breaking news as some would say, which is that Andrew Tate has been arrested for sex trafficking. Among other things, but mainly sex trafficking. That's kind of a big one. So , we will discuss that as well. And it kind of ties into the whole self-help thing because if you didn't know it, uh, Andrew Tate basically has an empire of people that pay him monthly for his advice. Uh, maybe you don't take advice from predators. I don't know. So we will discuss that. We'll discuss the crazy circumstances as to how that actually happened, but mainly today is all going to be on my journey through the dark realms of the self-help industry, some good things, some bad things, um, some recommendations for you. And then we'll talk about resolutions as well as Tate being a human trafficker . So stick around for that. Uh, and, uh, we'll go ahead and get started. But the very first thing I need you to. Is, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. I would appreciate it so much. It takes two seconds out of your day, gets you some good karma, which is a very, very expensive commodity in today's world. Go ahead and click that button. You'll be able to join me every single week for conversations just like this. So again, thank you so much for listening. I appreciate it. Head over to the ck uh, red pill revolution.dot com or directly@redpillrevolution.co.com is for losers, and you can sign up for the ck you'll get all of the articles, topics, recommendations I'm making here, uh, maybe some articles that I'm writing up about it. All of that and more for free. Free doesn't cost you anything. Uh, red pill revolution.dot com. And if you'd like to be a paid subscriber, you can do so there as well, but you get all the content free at the very bottom and allows you to sign up to become a paid subscriber and I would appreciate it. Um, that's all I got for you for right now. So again, thank you so much for listening and let's get started. Welcome to Red Pill Revolution. My name is Austin Adams. Red Pill Revolution started out with me, realizing everything that I knew, everything that I believed, everything I interpret about my life is through the lens of the information I was spoonfed as a child. Religion, politics, history, conspiracies, Hollywood medicine, money, food, all of it. Everything we know was tactfully written to influence your decisions and your view on reality by those in power. Now I'm on a mission, a mission to retrain and reeducate myself to find the true reality of what is behind that curtain. And I'm taking your ass with me. Welcome to the Revolution. All right, let's jump into it. New Year's is upon us, and that means one thing, well, probably a few things, but one thing in particular that a lot of people talk about this time of year, which is New Year's resolutions. Now I put out a, uh, I put out a story today asking people what they thought, if they're going to do resolutions, and to no surprise, I think recently. I believe that resolutions New Year's resolutions have beginning some hate more recently than than ever now. If you recall like it, it was a, probably five, 10 years ago, new Year's resolutions were a cool thing to do. Now all of a sudden New Year's resolutions are apparently lame. I, I don't get it. Why? I, I don't know. I don't understand it. I, I have some insight from some people who talked about this, uh, that gave me their feedback as to why they would not be doing a New Year's resolution this year. So we will talk about that too. But, um, overall the overarching thing seems to be people who think that, uh, basically the overwhelming response that I got regarding this was that if I'm going to improve my life, I can do it at any time of year. That was the overwhelming, the overwhelming response that I got to this story. So I think there's some merit to that, although, , although , although I do think that also, um, I, I think that everything goes in cycles. I think that, uh, there's a, there's absolutely a time and place for resolutions. Some people do it on their birthdays, some people do it on a yearly basis with New Year's, and I think that's okay. Right? I, I think that it's an opportunities for self-awareness, right? If, if you know anything about meditation, you know anything about mindfulness, it's about finding a way to make a mental note when you can improve on something, whether it's your anger, whether it's frustration, whether it's habits that you want to create, waking up early, whatever it is, it's about finding a way to find mental notes and get mental clarity and improve your life, right? Whether it's in the moment by being a better person, by, you know, walking away when maybe you wanna say something back to that person who is a jerk. Whatever it is, it's about finding those opportunities for selfa. That's my thought on New Year's resolutions. I think that there's a time and place for it. I think that people absolutely, I I, I don't get the hate with resolutions, honestly. I think that there should absolutely be a place for people every single year to sit down, sit back and take a look at their life. Right? Every single year there, there's a literal number attached to it, right? A full rotation around the sun, and so I, I absolutely think there's a time and place for it, but do your thing, right? If you're that person who's just like, All year round is just making their life better. Good for you, . I think that's awesome, but for everybody else, it's a time and place that, that just kind of gives you that kick in the ass when you need it. Sit down in making your resolutions now. Now I think there's some better ways to do it because I think a lot of what's happened more recently is the consumer is, is consumerism aspect of New Year's resolutions. Right. I think that there's absolutely, you know, the, the same way that Amazon goes crazy, right before Black Friday, you see all the gyms like , the gyms, the New Year's is their Christmas, right? So don't get sucked into that, right? If, if you're not going to pay for a personal trainer in the middle of the year trying to, you know, Lose some weight, then maybe don't, you shouldn't buy a, a 10, uh, round package with your local gym to do so. But I definitely think that there's a, a, a good element to it as long as you approach it the right way. And I think that's kind of a general theme to self-help in general. Right? You'll see, you'll see what I have here, a bunch of books, right? So I'm, I'm, I'm quite versed on this. I've, I've read literally name a self-help book, name a guru, whatever. I, I've, I've heard of them, right? I was in a, uh, a highly, um, competitive industry of sales for a long time. I, I trained salespeople. I helped them, you know, find their way in, in the world of that. And, and it almost goes hand in hand. I ran book clubs about self-help stuff. So it's like, I, I have a, a decent resume when it comes to talking on this. So we, we'll get into some of my recommendations, some of the things that I would stay away from. Um, but primarily the, the overarching theme here is like self-awareness over self-improvement. And I think that self-awareness and, and learning to be more self-aware allows you to improve overall throughout your entire life. And obviously the biggest number one thing that people will tell you to do to become more self-aware is to meditate, right? Is to do yoga, to find ways to be mindful in the moment. Because, you know, I've, I've talked about meditation and how it's improved my life in positive ways before, but. I'll tell you again because I think it's worth, I think it's worth having a conversation about, um, for a lot of people you have this constant stream of negativity in your brain, right? You have this constant stream of like, you know, self-doubt and um, imposter syndrome and all, all of these things that go on inside of your head. There's a constant stream of things and, and, and what meditation and mindfulness allows you to do is actually recognize that. Now, one of the gurus I'll talk about a little bit later is Tim Ferris and Tim Ferris, just with this one little idea changed my mind and, and helped me out a lot. And we'll talk about the gurus I think are bullshit in a little bit  cuz there's definitely some of those out there. Um, but Tim Ferris talks about the monkey mind. Right. Tim Ferriss talks about, uh, realizing that there is a side of your consciousness that is unhelpful and it's the one that you don't give enough attention to, but is constantly there, and that's your monkey mind, right? So through meditation, through mindfulness, you can start to realize that that's there and start to improve on it, right? Start to realize that I don't want to have that constant stream of negativity. I want to take a deep breath and think of something positive, right? And, and orient myself in a direction that's positive rather than self-criticism, right? And so, so there's absolutely that, and that's, that's one thing that I think is great, that helps you, at least in the very beginnings of meditation, is the biggest impact it will have on your life and fairly quickly. It doesn't take very long. Um, but definitely. I think overarching over self-improvement, over self-help is self-awareness and behind what I'm talking about here and the recommendations I'm going to make to you, you'll see that in an overarching kind of theme. All right? Now, one thing that is a current event that we will talk about right away though, is going to be the fact that Andrew Tate, Andrew Tate, the, the misogynistic asshole that everybody knows him to be, has come out again. Now, I say again because a lot of people don't know this, Andrew Tate actually legitimately, has been tr like, was arrested for sex trafficking before this, this already happened, right? So, so this isn't new, like a new idea that Andrew Tate is like this, this trafficking individual. Now something that I find to be interesting about the whole situation. Let's, let's back up and get the timeline. So, Andrew Tate and Greta th. Thunberg, I always thought it was Thornberg, first of all. So I think this is some Mandela effect bullshit that all of a sudden it's Thunberg. I've, for some reason in my head, it was always Thornberg . It was always thornberg. But, uh, Andrew Tate and Greta Thunberg were going back and forth on Twitter and, uh, Andrew t basically said something to her about his 33 cars in a Bugatti with a 12 in, you know, 12 V engine and, and all this stuff. And, and Greta Thunberg, uh, said something back about, um, please send me an email about it. Small Dick energy at Greta Thunberg, or whatever it was. And that was the big ooh, that everybody called it, uh, because she said that, yeah, it was a pretty good comeback to Andrew Tate. But I'm not going to give any, any, uh, credit to Greta Thunberg or Greta Thornberg, which is her actual name in the realm that apparently I'm from, that I now switched to this one in because I absolutely believe it was Thornberg. Until today anyways, um, so he has been allegedly was, was being charged for sex trafficking and the rape of two women within this year. Prior to that, he's had claims against him of like physical and sexual abuse. One, going back to the time that he was on a reality show and there was a video that came out of him with, uh, a girl where he was like kind of being a little bit abusive sexually. And the girl came out and said that there was consensual and this and that, but he got a lot of, a lot of pushback from that. Um, but he also has actually been ha been arrested in the same way that he was today for sex trafficking. Um, now he was not, he, he was not found guilty. So there's one thing. Now that doesn't always mean that they weren't guilty. Um, I would say that, um, he obviously has some, some places where that misogyny is coming from, right? The, the, the whole idea, the way that he speaks about women, all that whole, I, the whole identity that Andrew Tate has is surrounding misogynistic ideologies. And when you, you degenerate women to sexuality and you, you push them into the, the, the kitchen role and like, you know, all of that kind of surrounds, devaluing somebody for who they actually are. And so that kind of can allude you to believing that he would be capable of something like this. Now, I'm not saying that he is. What is interesting is he was on the drink, or the Dr. Milk Boys podcast or something like that, and he came out and said that, you know, this was like a week or two ago, um, a week or two ago, he said that they were gonna try and arrest him. They said that he, the first thing they did was cancel me. The second thing they're gonna try and do is arrest me. And if that doesn't work and I don't shut up at that point, then they're gonna kill me. Now, maybe he could have been predicting his arrest because he's actually a sex trafficking weirdo, misogynistic asshole, like a lot of us already believe. Um, but also maybe there's something to that idea of what happened to Kanye where all, like all of the cancellations across, you know, every single company, every brand, all of it happens simultaneously in, in this like constructed way. So, I don't know, I, I will let the, the, the Romanian legal teams deal with this. I, I don't know how much belief I have in them. Um, or how, you know, their, their unwillingness to be paid off by somebody who can brag about having 33 Bugattis or whatever he was doing to Greta Thunberg. I don't know. But that's what's going on with Andrew Tate. Now, the reason that this ties into self-help stuff is because Andrew Tate runs something called Hustlers University. And I think that self-help gets a bad rep because of literally people exactly like Andrew Tate, he promises all this stuff. He builds pyramid schemes around, you know, the, this regurgitated materials and this regurgitated ideas that he, he's been taking from little books and, and writings here or there and then claims to say it, you know, talk, talk about, you know, studying religions and, and all of this like bullshit guru ideas. And so, and that's what you kind of see in all, all of these fake bullshit gurus that I'll talk about a little bit later. And I'm gonna call 'em out by name cuz I think there are several. And I, and I followed these people and I paid money for courses and I went to seminars and shook their hands and like, I did the whole deal, guys. I promise  I did it all. Um, so, so I know what I'm talking about. I, I'm, I was in this whole, I like this whole segment of society, this hustle, porn, hustle culture. And, and what you'll find is it's pretty empty. It's, uh, it, it's, it's built around this idea of like, almost like everybody's in some sort of weird manic episode. Um, when they're at these events right now. Now there are some good ones and there are some great books and there are some things that you can do to improve your life, but most of them don't involve paying some random 32 year old asshole who shows off his Lamborghini $2,500 to become a part of a course and then sell that course to other people on his behalf. I don't know, it was a pyramid scheme. The whole thing was a pyramid scheme. That was Andrew Tate's deal. That's where he made his money. Um, you know, it was not beyond popular belief. His professional kickboxing where he probably made a total of $10,000 right now. . I do think that there are some things that Andrew Tate talked about that were, had some merit, right? He talked about cancel culture. He talked about the death of masculinity. You know, he, he has alluded to some things that are, that make sense in today's society. Um, but the overarching theme in, in, in the things that stick out, I, if you have a bunch of clips of you calling women, you know, worthless unless they're in the kitchen cooking you food, uh, or, you know, the, the whole ideas that he had surrounding that just, just allude you to believe that maybe there's something, some merit to this idea of, of him, you know, degenerating then down to acts of, uh, you know, trafficking and, and things like that. So, um, anyways, again, my idea. Self-awareness over self-help and definitely don't pay some, any, any random asshole who shows you their Lamborghini, do not pay them any money at all. . And, and it seems like culture has gotten away from this a little bit, which I'm really happy about because there was, I would say probably four or five years ago there was this like whole hustle culture and hustle porn. And like I said, I was like neck deep in it. I've read all the books. Like I said, I got 'em like really little, like a, a handful of them behind me and a whole library of them. So if you, you call it out, I will be able to talk about it. I've read it, I know the authors I, I've, I've gone through it.  and there are some that I'll call out that I like and some that I don't specifically like, but I think that the, the overarching theme is that hustle porn, hustle culture, the Gary vs. The Work Till You Die, culture is going away, which is, I think, pretty positive in, in the way society is kind of shifting, right? I think that there is much more of a look towards things like self-awareness and meditation. Mindfulness than there is around like wake up, snort some coffee and get to the gym at 3:00 AM and then run to the office from the gym and then sit down and work till 2:00 AM the next morning, and then take an hour of sleep and then go after it again. Like there was this, this whole I would almost a decade, maybe like a half a decade, where the hustle, porn, hustle culture, Gary V the, that whole idea of how you should act. That, that, and, and it preyed upon people who were willing and able to do the work. But it, but it positioned you in a wrong way. Right. You, you never need to pay $2,500 to have motivation. Right. And again, I think doing. A New Year's resolution where you sit down for a, a, a half hour, an hour, you look at your past year, you come up with ideas of where you want to be in a, a, a year. I do think that, you know, um, visualization when it comes to, especially things like sports, right? It's hard to like visualize your, you know, you should visualize yourself successful and, and visualization is important. Um, I think writing down your goals and, and, you know, trying to review your past year is probably more important than predicting your next year. And I think that's a part that a lot of people miss when it comes to their New Year's resolutions. Um, so, you know, if you do do resolutions, if you're somebody who's too good for 'em and you're just awesome all the time, like, good for you, I think that's great. And, and not everybody has that type of motivation. Um, and a lot of the people who say that they're doing that are lying to themselves. Now, that's not to say that there's not. Savages out there  that are just killing it every day. And I, I wish I was like you, where I just, you know, but motivation is fleeting, right? Consistency is always key in whatever it is that you do. And sometimes you just don't need this shit at all. Maybe you just need to spend time with your kids. Maybe you love walking your dog and you don't need to wake up at 4:00 AM to do it, right. Maybe you, you need to do more of your hobbies that you enjoy. Maybe you need to, to draw more at night, right? It's like you don't need to work your face off, as Gary V would say, to, to have, because success means different things to different people. Right? And this is like a conversation that I would have my, with my children around this. success to you does not need to mean the same thing that it does to me. Maybe I love cars, right? And there, there's, there's probably very few people that love cars to the extent that you should be spending $500,000 on them. Uh, but , if you love cars and that's your thing, and you wanna save up $500,000 and buy a McLaren, do it, cool. But for the most part, people that are doing those things are doing it because they're self-conscious. They're doing it because they want to be accepted. They want to feel like they're somebody. And, and, and a lot of times what they'll do is they'll sacrifice, and you'll see this with all of the gurus that have been out there for, for however many years, the high Lopezs, the, you know, they literally rent their, rent the car for a weekend, rent the, the, the Airbnb that makes it look like they're in a mansion every time they have to do a video. This is actually a thing I saw people do this, that I met at these type of events where they would rent a car, rent a, a a million dollar apartment for a day. Spend $3,000 on both of them and then create 50 videos that they would release over the next year and a half. And it's this like weird, crazy manic episode that everybody's going through together. But again, I'm, I'm super happy that it died.  So it was The Laws of Success by Napoleon Hill and the Laws of Success is what broke down later into Think and Grow Rich. Now, if, when it gets into like the self-help industry, this book, the Laws of Success by Napoleon Hill is like the, the, the beginning of that right now. And if you listen to a lot of people, they'll tell you that like the Bible's, the OG self-help book. And, and in many ways they're right, right? It it, and, and in, in the best ways, they're probably the most, right? Because it's about being a good person, not as much about making as much money as possible or stretching your 24 hours into the most effective minute by minute, uh, productivity that you can. So it started there, right? I was 16, 17. I went into the military, got outta the military, right? Went into 18, got out at 22, and I went into sales. In sales. When you get into like this high intensity, high turnover sales, I did it for five years. In an industry that was like super cutthroat, you'd have like 85% drop off rates of everybody that you'd hire. Um, and that was like expected, built into the culture. And, and so you'd have to motivate these people because it was a hundred percent commission, right? And you'd teach them how to sell. And most people suck at sales. And it's very difficult to teach somebody with the wrong personality how to sell, but you try it anyways. And in, in many ways, I think almost everybody in those industries are good intentioned. And I think that in a lot of cases, if you find the right people, it can work out very well, but in most cases it doesn't. So anyways, I went into sales and, you know, this'll be my little pick you up. Uh, little story for you. Um, the very first two to three months I was in sales, I, I barely made any sales.  and there was a woman who was a cubicle, like down the, the way from me. And I was 22 years old and I was super frustrated and I thought I was the shit. And  just, I, I couldn't make as many sales as her. And every single week she just crushed it. And so, and this is probably a better lesson than most that you'll get. And so I was trying to figure out what is she doing different than what I'm doing, right. She's saying the same things, she's selling the same products, but she just seems to be closing more people and making way more money than I was. And I was making like almost nothing at. And so what I did is I went and I sat behind her, right? I went and I just sat there for a whole day, two days actually. I sat behind her and listened to what she did and listened to how she approached her customers, and it was, it was more about authenticity than almost anybody would have you believe. And so there was no book that was gonna teach you to be authentic, right? It was just literally sitting there and listening to her. And so now that doesn't mean that I didn't run home every day and read a book that was trying to make me better, to make me more money, to make me better, you know, have a nicer watch and a nicer car and a bigger house. And so I, I, I literally lived this, and I preached this to people too, that like, in order to make more money, you need to be a better person. Now, I think that is still true today. I, I do think that if you bring value to the market, not to sound like some, you know, you'll hear Mark Zuckerberg talk about, you know, just bring value, bring value, add value to the customers. And it's like, yeah, okay, but that's, it's so vague and it's generally bullshit, but add value to the world, right? If, if you get better at the things that you enjoy doing, to the point that somebody's willing to pay you for them, getting even better at them will yield better results, right? So it's if you enjoy something and it can also make you money. Spend a lot of time on that doesn't mean you need to wake up at 4:00 AM and, and you know, throw ice cubes in your face and then douse yourself in a, an ice bath, which ice baths are great. I'll tell you that. I, I still do ice baths. Um, but it does mean that skills over productivity. I think that's the, one of the biggest keys is like skills are far more important than like second to second productivity. So if, like in inconsistency, right? Like if you, if you want to become somebody who's worth more, who can make more money, it doesn't come down to dousing yourself with ice at four in the morning and going for a run, right? And there's some people who will have you believe that, you know, and, and, and maybe in some ways they're right that a kick in the ass does help, but primarily what helps you make more money is being more valuable, right? And I, I talk to people, you know, still that I have around me that I try and mentor that are younger than me. And, and it's about, you know, if you have a utility belt and you go to a company and go look at all the skills I have, And they're only willing to pay you so much for the things that they're asking for. But you can tell them that, oh, but also I can do X, Y, and Z above and beyond what you're offering. So I'm worth this much more to you and your company as an asset because you don't have to hire this out. You don't have to bring somebody else on board, whatever that is. There's different ways to position yourself, but it all comes down to getting skillsets over life hacks, right? Like the whole hack idea that was like a whole, you know, a, a huge thing between like 2010 to 2015 was like 15 ways to hack your productivity, 15 ways to hack your sleep, 15 ways to hack your sex life. Like it was all bullshit. And it's just literally the beginning of cl click. And there's no hack, right? There's no hack to becoming a millionaire. There's no hack to becoming happy. It's about consistency over time, doing the things that you enjoy and getting better at them. And that's not something you're gonna read in these books. It's all about, you know, the, the little small things. Now I do have a few books here that I will talk about, um, but they primarily don't, don't talk about those things. And that's something that I've, I've shifted away from, right? I've, I've shifted away from Napoleon Hill and gone more towards people like, you know, Marcus Aurelius, right? Philosophy is the real self-help, right? And, and, and maybe for some people that looks like religious texts and, um, but for me, I've found that, you know, Marcus Aurelius's meditations is one of the best things that I can start my day with. It's not telling me to wake up and run 20 miles and then, you know, jump in a cold shower and take a swim through a river before 8:00 AM. It's, it's telling me how to live properly, right? It's telling me how to act in front of my children. It's, it's telling me how to be as a, a spouse or a leader or, you know, there there's a lot of things within that book that are so much more positive than any of the self-help books that are out there. Now, again, I do think that there's a place for resolutions. I do think that there's a place for self-help books and a lot of them, especially the ones that actually gain traction and are very successful, they have merit for a reason. They, there, there are things that you can find within those books, and if you spend $15 in a book and five or six or 10 hours reading it and you get one sentence that positions you in a way that you change your life in some manner or, or you better yourself as a result, then that's great, right? That's worth $15 in 10 hours because what else would you have been doing with your time? Honestly, , but it, it, where it really gets dark is the gurus. That's where I think it starts to get really, really weird. Is when it comes to the self-help gurus. Now I'll, I'll talk about some here that I think are bullshit. Were bullshit have always been bullshit and our snake oil salesman with great confidence and sales abilities, but also, uh, you know, just basically screwed over a ton of people right now. Now, a few of these people that I'll talk about, the number one, and this was literally the OG Lamborghini guy, was Ty Lopez. Ty Lopez is the biggest crock of shit in all of the self-help industries. He's the very, very first one who if you go back and you watch some of his Lamborghini videos, sit, oh, I, I'm in my garage with my Lamborghini. It's like the biggest joke. Now what he does is he takes other people's ideas, repackages them, talks about, what is it? I think he said he went to Harvard or he, like, did, he denied his acceptance to Harvard or like some BS and, and tries to be a figure of authority and convince you that if you buy my books in my $3,000 course, you too can rent a Ferrari for a weekend and take a video in front of it, . And that's how he built an empire. Now I'm not saying he didn't make money, he made crazy money doing. But what he was doing was selling a false stream. Right? And there are some courses that he had, and I've, I paid for some of 'em. There was like a Facebook advertising course. There was a, a digital marketing agency course where there's actually skills being learned and, and he would basically just aggregate different specialists across industries into teaching you how to do things correctly and then repackage them and sell them by taking a video in front of his Lamborghini , which again, goes back to never trust anybody who's taking a video in front of a Lamborghini. Um, but he would be my number one. Okay. Now the second one that I would say that I would put out there is, And it hurts me to say this because I, I was, again, deep in this industry, deep in the game for a little bit. Um, back in a different life was Grant Cardone. And, and, and you'll start to see a theme with all these people. They're like literally caricatures. The, the, the, the, um, Ty Lopez in front of his Lamborghini, the Grant Cardone just hyped up with a, a $300,000 watch that he's pointing at in front of a, a jet behind him. Like if, if any part of it feels inauthentic or it feels like a, a caricature run, run as fast as you can away from it. But there are good people now, one person that I think is kind of like a hybrid between the bullshit in, in the way that they're presented to a, a, a large audience, but when you get down to the thick of it, maybe has some positivity within it is Gary v. Gary v preached was the, the face of the hustle porn. Right. The, the hustle culture industry, Gary V would just, the, the pinnacle of it taught every single person how to act and, and what the right way was to, to position themselves as a figure of authority in this hustle porn industry. And now where I think that there's some positivity with Gary V is a lot of things that he talked about was gratitude and thankfulness and, you know, some of these things that were interwoven within his hustle porn teachings. Um, but, you know, his thing was like, work your face off and, and go garage sailing on weekends and you too could be a multimillionaire just like me. And it just, it's not generally practical. Right. And, and, and I think too, it goes back to a bigger conversation when we're talking about what I was saying earlier, which is success looks different for different people. Right. Success for me might be, you know, enjoying my time with my children, being a present father. And teaching them things that they can, you know, live a proper life by knowing, right? And, and, and maybe it's also for me is, is doing some hobbies, right? Maybe you like to play the guitar, maybe you like to, uh, go out on weekends and maybe you like to sleep in  and sleeping in looks like success for you. So, you know, and, and don't discount those things. I, I think that there's a certain personality and, and I would say that, uh, I, I would say that, uh, there's a certain personality that needs that, uh, constant productivity, right? And, and, and that's the people that this praise on, right? They praise on the people who feel like they have to, you know, constantly be better. And they're comparing themselves against these guys with a Lamborghini in their garage, taking these bullshit videos with them. Um, and, and that's, that's where the dark side of this gets into is there's a certain percentage of people who need. To feel that consistent growth. And they, they need it to the point where they're willing to sacrifice almost everything else in their life to get it right. Whether it's their, their finances when they can't afford these courses, right. And they put it on a credit card, right. Or, or whether it's, um, you know, paying for, uh, a v I p experience at, at, uh, you know, some type of bullshit seminar, right? There's, there's, there's all of these, these things that are preying on this individual person who feels the need to compare themselves and feel less than, and then pay money to get to a point where they feel like they can, you know, become that guy who's gonna have their own course And there's literally courses of people teaching you how to build a course. It's like, it, it's the biggest crock of shit industry and there's a small percentage of people that do it correctly, right? And so, I'll give you some of mine that I like and, and have followed for a very long time, and that I think, Would be good for you to follow too. Okay. The first one that I like is Tim Ferris. Okay. Now again, it comes back to authenticity for me. I think that when we're talking about, especially in this, this industry where it's people are so vulnerable, where people are generally getting into self-help is because they're in a shitty position, right? They don't like where they're at in life. They're unhappy. They, they wanna be better. They wanna be more than who they are. They want to be like that guy over there who has the nice car, right? And they're willing to sacrifice their children, their happiness, their hobbies, their friends, their family to get there and where, and so it, it produces this like gross industry of people preying on people who want to better themselves in a moment of. Difficulty in a moment where they're vulnerable, where they're unhappy, maybe they're in debt. Maybe they, they can't make any money at work in a sales position. Maybe they're, you know, it, it preys on people. And so you get these cult-like followings, like what we saw with Andrew Tate, right? You see all of these, you know, 17 to 23 year old guys that are paying thousands of dollars to have the pay for the course of a man who was trafficking women so that they too can have as many cars as. Outlaw trafficker of women, . It's like, maybe, again, maybe that's not the guy who you want to, who you wanna position yourself around. And, and that's kind of what you see across the board with these people is like, most of them don't, don't present themselves as somebody who you would wanna be friends with. Right? Could you imagine sitting at a table with. Ty Lopez, grant Cardone, Gary V like, and again, this like hurts me a little internally to say it, but like that would just be a, it's so unauthentic, it's such a caricature of who these men were. And they're not that way when they go home and take their suit, coat off and, and spend time with their wife or their family. And if they are, I can't imagine being in that household. That would just be miserable . But the other ones that I would say, um, is Tony Robbins. Now, Tony Robbins is a difficult one again because he has these huge cult. Lake Fallings literally is a cult leader. But if you understand going into that, that's what he is. A lot of the stuff that he talks about is just positive psychology and like psychological hacks to become a better person. Now there's definitely a culty aspect to it, right? He, I'm pretty sure he got sued for. Burning the bottoms of people's feet by telling them to walk over a fire. Like I, I'm fairly positive that was a thing. People sued him because what they would do is they would, you would come to this event, you'd pay him $43,000, whatever the cost was, and then you would go to this event and there was supposed to be this life, life-changing thing. And then everybody rallies and you go outside and there's all these hot coals lined up outside of this event, and you're supposed to walk over them with your bare feet and just trust. Just trust me that your feet are gonna be fine if you believe they're gonna be fine. And these people's feet were not fine. They , they got the whole body. And I think what they did is they like sprayed it with water or like some type of, um, some type of solution. I don't know of what the mechanics or the science was behind this, but he burned these shit out of people  and their feet and he got sued because of it. Um, so really culty stuff going on there. But if you listen to some of his courses and, and, and read some of the books, it's, it's a lot about. You know, finding, finding out in, in, you know, what is his, awaken the inner giant within you, right? And, and so there's some good elements to it as long as you escape away from the culty ish weirdness. And, you know, I'm pretty sure he was also accused of sexual assault at one point and some other questionable. Uh, positions. Um, I don't know, but that would be one person that I would say maybe if you were going to go down that road, there's some absolutely positive things that he teaches. I've been to his seminar, I've clapped along, you know, I've done the whole deal. Um, and I, and I think that there's absolutely some life-changing things that can happen. And like I said, if you spend $15 in a book and spend five hours reading it, and you get one single sentence that resonates with you, that improves your life for the better, great. More power to you. Read all the books that you want, but don't get sucked into these like culty weirdnesses, because it, it really starts to spiral quick, right? And so the other ones that I would say, um, I do like da, I think this is kind of an unrealistic, and again, it kind of gets back to that caricature kind of idea. But I do think that David Goggins is a positive one. He, uh, now if you don't know who David Goggins is, David Goggins was, uh, uh, apparently this, um, Went into Air Force was a, was a part of TAC P, which if you don't know anything about the military, TPE is, uh, basically they, um, help Colin, uh, airstrikes and, and things like that. And there's a, a special forces unit, but they're not the same as something like a PJ or Green Berets, or they're not, they're just not thought of in that same way. So David Goggins left the Air Force, got fat, started a, uh, started working in the extermination thing and was killing rats and stuff. And then realized he wanted to be a Navy seal and he was like 300 pounds. So he went and just ran like Forest Gump for 46 Day Street. I don't know, it was some, some ridiculous regiment that he put himself through to become a Navy seal. And in doing so, um, you know, he, he changed his life. He became an ultra-marathon runner. He's been on Joe Rogan a ton of times, which helped with his success. And, um, and, and he speaks a lot about. Grinding it out, right? Working your ass off. But he is one of those people that talks about waking up at 4:00 AM don't be a little bitch and, and just run until life's better. And there's an element of that, right? There's absolutely an element of that. But what one thing that a lot of these people aren't talking about is that most people aren't in the position to do these things in the same way, right? Some people have children, some people have spouses, some people have hobbies, some people have, you know, careers and things that they actually need to engage in, in a positive manner. And sometimes that doesn't have to do with, you know, lacing your shoes up and running 150 miles or whatever it is that David Goggins would tell you to do. Now, there's a ton of little bitches in this world, , there's, that does not take away from the fact that there is a lot of men out there who need this lesson, who are soft, who need to go and find something that's difficult and work through it. And as a result, on the other side of that, you will be a better man. That's a reality. That's the truth. And if you, if you sit in your house all day, sit on your computer and don't do anything that's actually physically difficult that you do not want to do, then you will not be as good of a person. You will not have as much energy, you will not have as much positivity, as much happiness, as much to give as to pour into other people's cups as you would if you deal with difficulty. Right? And this is one thing, you know, one thing I'll talk about with my little journey with that is I think I do jujitsu. Jujitsu's been a big part of my life. I think I have my white belt from way back a few years ago over there. Um, and I think Jiujitsu allows for that. Uh, superficial difficulty to be injected into your life because where people start to fall into depressions and anxiety in life is when you don't, you know, and especially when it comes to depression and anxiety, I think you have to, like, you have to recalibrate your system every so often, right? When, when you think that your, you know, talking to your boss causes you so much anxiety that you can't even speak or you're sweating before you go to work, or you just drag going to work every single day because it, it triggers your fight or flight response, you're going to, your life's gonna be more difficult. You're gonna be in that fight or flight response for, for, you know, in times where you don't want to be and when it's not helpful. And if you can recalibrate that system to realize that, oh, I'm not in danger, right? My fight or fight response does not need to go. At this time, because I'm just talking to my boss. I'm just presenting in front of a small audience. I'm just speaking, uh, to my spouse about something that bothers me. I, I think that when I've done jiu-jitsu, it's helped me recalibrate that fight or flight response to realize, oh, nobody's in this moment going to choke me out unconscious . And, and if they try to, I will at least be somewhat equipped to, to fight back. Right. And so to me that you have to find something. For me, it's, it's jiujitsu, right? For me, it's doing some yoga, doing some juujitsu. And those things help calibrate my system in a way to where life seems the, the, the difficulty that I place myself into seems much more difficult than the one that life throws at me, regardless of circumstance. Right? And if you can superficially interject that into your life, you're gonna be better off. . Right? And, and so, you know, I, I highly doubt you look at somebody like Grant Cardone or Gary V and they're actually doing difficult shit. So when you look at somebody who's in these like guru positions, these self-help positions, the first thing that I would tell you to do is look at who they were before they were trying to sell you a book. If all they've done is sold books about how to make money and made money off of selling books, then that's probably not the guy you wanna listen to, right? And that's when I go back to things like David Goggins. When I look at David Goggins and I look at his history and the things that he is done and the merit he has as a result of those things, that should be somebody you wanna listen to, right? Find, be, find a, you know, the, the greatest thing about today's world, right? You look at back at. All of the, um, you know, you look back in a hundred and fifty, two hundred, five hundred years ago, mentors were always a really big thing, right? You, especially as a man, right? As a man, you would find a, an older man who would teach you in, especially in like higher up parts of society and, you know, high income, uh, you know, even back in like Roman times, everybody would have a, like a mentor or a person that they would follow, um, or an apprenticeship or things like that. And the, the reason that that's important is because when you're 19 years old and you have no idea how to act in front of people, or you don't know how to actually engage with people or, or in with life in a positive manner, somebody can help teach you. Now what we find out is back in Roman times, it was a lot of times this weird kind of sexual thing going on there, , but the positive parts about today compared to a hundred years ago, 50 years ago, or 500 or 4,000 years ago, is in order to find these mentors in your life, you can find them online. It's like learning. You can literally go to YouTube and find the, the, the. Single best, I don't know, uh, coder to teach you how to write code, right? You can do that right now, and it's all free, right? In the same way that you, you can find you, you should absolutely find people who are, those you can, that you believe in, that you trust, that you look at their accolades and the things that they've done in life, and you can look at it and go, I would like to be more like that person, right? Whether it's, I want to be more like that person as a father, I follow some accounts that are like that for me, where like, I just see that they're just like crushing it with their kids, right? They're taking 'em, you know, out to do all the fun things and they're, they're being positive and, and maybe some of that's bullshit too, because it's in front of a camera for Instagram. But in general, you can kind of pick up on that and that, and that's what you'll see when it comes to the self-help stuff. All right? So find some mentors, but make sure they're people that you would actually want to follow and be friends with in real life. And look at their accolades prior to when they wrote this book that you are going to, you know, spend the money to consume. Cuz again, very likely there could just be full of shit , right? So let me go into, um, some of the books that I would recommend and I'll talk, touch on 'em a little bit and I'll even read some of the stuff that I've, I've brought out. So I have this big ass, uh, pile of books behind me. Um, or at least it was big till I cut it in half. So here are the ones that I would actually recommend that you read. Now, I talked about one, the very first one, which is Marcus Aurelius's Meditations. Now, I, I was very, I did, did not participate in much philosophy in my younger years. I was very much into like the self-help stuff. Um, but I think that there's far more, uh, Far more in the way of learning how to be a better person and learning how to live a life of fulfillment, not accomplishment. I think that fulfillment is the key, and by being fulfilled and finding yourself fulfilled in an industry that you have skills in, you will find yourself accomplished. You will find yourself to be successful. But if you put yourself, like, I, I, like I said, I hired a ton of people to come in and try and sell stuff, but they just weren't the right person for it. And, and they're not gonna find fulfillment in that if they're not good at it, right? It's difficult. And so if you can find something that you find fulfillment at, and also at the same time find a way to get better at that thing overall, it can sustain you and, and you can become very successful. But it's, it's more so about finding something that's fulfilling first and then moving into that thing, becoming something that you can be acknowledged for or become successful at. All. Right. So let's see if I can find any of my little passages here. From Marcus, Marcus Aurelius's meditations. Um, but most of it's a little bit more deep than anything that you would read from, I don't know, Tony Robbins. So , we'll see if I can actually just pick one up here. And, uh, you know, go, go cold off of this, off of some of my notes here. And you'll see here as I show you this, this book, um, when people say, my dog ate my homework, my dog literally ate the front cover off of my book, which I don't know, kind of makes it look cooler. I don't know. Looks weathered, maybe at least. Let's see. All right, I'll just read this first one. Let's see if it has anything to do with something that I would actually recommend. All right, so this comes from Marcus Aurelia's book two written among the quad on the river grande. Um, it says, uh, no think like this as if you were on the point of death. You are old. Don't then let this directing mind of yours be enslaved any longer. No more jerking to the strings of selfish impulse. No more disquiet at your present or suspicion of your future fate. Now I find that to be pretty powerful. Again, I just literally just turn to a page that's deeper and there's more to be, to, to, to look into and dive into personally in that one little thing than you're ever gonna find by diving into a Tony Robbins book right now. Just to kind of put a period on that, um, what, what I have here is like, I, if you did nothing else, but just implement that, right? If, if you did nothing else but learn that, you know, the, the directing mind, I talked about that monkey mind. Right. No longer, uh, let the directing minds of yours be enslaved. No jerking to the strings of selfish impulse. Right? Selfish impulses. Things like wanting to sleep in, right? Things like not wanting to sit down and be focused for an extended period of time to actually work towards a goal that you have, right? And that's, it talks about consistency, right? And, and no longer disquiet at your present or suspicion of your future fate that talks about anxiety and depression, right? Depression speaks on your past, anxiety speaks on your future, right? So just in that one little thing there, you can find so much to sit down and think about than you would ever find from a modern self-help book. And, and if you don't know anything about Marcus Aurelius's meditations, it's crazy. Marcus Aurelius basically had a notebook and, and he was the, the Emperor of Rome and was actually the, the father of the person who you may be familiar he's from the, uh, the movie Gladiator. If you watched the movie Gladiator. The, the actual guy who's in the emperor in Gladiator is based off of Marcus Aurelius's son. So again, even writing something as powerful as Marcus Aurelius's meditations still doesn't make you a great father because his son basically murdered a whole bunch of people and was a tyrant So if there's anything to learn about that, I don't know what it is there, but there's, there's some type of lesson there. Um, but Marcus Aurelius took around a notebook everywhere that he walked and he wrote down just these general one off little idea. And he never had the intention of it being published. He never had the intention of it being public to the general public's eye. He was just writing ideas to himself and, and giving himself clarity through journaling. And that's probably another side note, you know, things that's really positive that can come out of the community is journaling journaling's. Awesome. Highly recommend that you do it. I just have a terrible memory, so, you know, helps to write things down. , um, let's, let's see if there's anything else. Um, the acts of a man with an eye for precisely what needs to be done, not the glory of it's doing, right? There's just, there's so many little quick things in here that have such impact If you take the time to actually sit down and read it. Now, this isn't a book that you'll read like through and through, um, but it is one that you can open in the morning, write down, think about journal on, whatever that is, right? So that's Marcus Aurelius's meditations. And again, I have much more of a proclivity towards philosophy now than I do on hustle porn, right? So, let's see what else I got. Here's a, here's another one, atomic Habits, right by James Clear. This is one that I read recently. And again, this is about picking up skills, not about motivation for the moment, right? Realizing that consistency over the long term and developing habits is far, is worth far more than motivation. Motivation is always gonna be fleeting, right? Especially if you're, you're somebody who goes in ebbs and flows, or you live in, I don't know, a super cold area where it's snowing outside and you never see the sun. So you go through, you know, seasonal depressive disorders or whatever that's called. You know, there's going to be ebbs and flows in your life. There's gonna be shitty things that happen to you, and you're not gonna be motivated all the time. But what you can do is you can set yourself up with habits every single day that you do that give you a positive framework to live your life off of. So that's why I like Atomic Habits by James Clear, is it gives you a very concise way to build habits. It goes into the psychology of building positive habits. Not about hustle till you, your dick falls off or whatever. The other ones used to talk about . It's, it's more about building skills and, and realizing that everything that you want to accomplish is done in, in, in a very small decision. Consistently every day, multiple times a day, more than it is getting super excited and snorting a bunch of cocaine off of Ty Lopez's, Lamborghini, and then all of a sudden you're a millionaire , which is some people would have you believe, right? And so one of the things that I really like about, uh, James Clear's, uh, book, and let's see if I have it behind me, um, is he talks about how to make habits stick and how to get rid of old habits, right? And for some people when it comes to resolutions, maybe your resolution shouldn't be, I need to run 15 miles. Maybe it's you need to stop buying candy or alcohol or whatever bullshit you're consuming into your body seed oils, right? Maybe I need to stop killing myself before I decide I need to run 20 miles every day. Hmm. Maybe that's a good idea. Or maybe you should still drink whiskey. I don't know. Who am I, but a guy who likes whiskey. All right, so James, clear Atomic Habits is probably one of my, I would say top three. That would say would actually help you build a better future for your life, right? It's not hustle porn, it's not bullshit, it's not disingenuous. It's not something that you're gonna pick up and go run 30 miles about. It's gonna legitimately make your life better. And it doesn't perpetuate this idea that success comes off of, you know, uh, short-term sprints and bullshit speeches and motivations and paying 3,500 hours to go buy the next new course for the guru who's now your cult leader. , I think. And so James, clear Atomic Habits is a good one. I, I would say almost, I would say top two honestly, like this in Marcus Aurelius's, meditations are real life tools that will make you a better person, right? A better husband, a better father, um, a, a, a better, whatever it is that you want to do, it will make you a better person to be able to do it effectively, not just drive manic episodes in you. I dunno. Let's see what else I got here. Um, the next one, the War of Art. All right. The war of art is, and, and this is something that I think was a more of a paradigm shift for me, right? And again, I've read all of the, the hustle porn bullshit. This was a paradigm shift for me, right? When you talk about, and I, and I, I've spoken with my daughter kind of about this concept, but I think it's something I need to speak with more. She's young, I'm not gonna tell you her age, but she's young, right? And so, um, so there's times when my daughter does her sport and she's does very, very well at her sport. She does it with people who are like four, five years older than her because she's very, very good at it. But there's times when she doesn't want to go. And before I read this,  and we get frustrated with her like, why don't you want to go? You love your sport. You love doing that. Why? Why would you ever be frustrated that we're gonna go out the door and you gotta get dressed to go and we have to do these things? Why would you get so frustrated about it? You love to do that thing. But then I realized I do that thing. , right? Even when I love doing jujitsu, I love doing my podcast, right? Even, and you'll see the last two, two and a half weeks, I didn't do my podcast because I was dealing with what the war of art would call resistance, right? I was dealing with internal bullshit in my life that was causing me to, to not sit down and do the work when I should do it, even though I love what I do. So it kind of made me have perspective in my life, especially as a parent, to know that even if my daughter doesn't want to go do her sport today, it doesn't mean she doesn't love her sport. It doesn't mean that I should stop paying an exorbitant amount of money . So she can do it. It means that she's dealing with resistance and teaching your child, teaching your partner, teaching yourself to identify what this book calls resistance, right? Doesn't, it doesn't mean that you hate that thing that you feel like you should do. It means that it's something that everybody goes through, right? And, and what's nice about this book is it's not something you have to read through and through. It's like literally just like.  one off little paragraphs that you can read one a day or whatever, that helps you get over that. So this is a very, very good one, a very good tool, whether you're an artist, whether you, you know, whatever it is that you wanna become successful at getting over that resistance and just realizing that you can identify that for what it is, is a really, really important tool. And that is why the War of Art. All right, there's another one, and let's see what else I got here. Eckhart Toll tole to tole, whatever his name is. Now, another very famous one that he wrote was The Power of Now. Um, now this is, gets into the WOOWOO a little bit, but I like the Woowoo. If you know me by now, I like some of the woowoo. All right, so what this, this book talks about is the, the collective unconscious of our world. And, and it talks about that monkey mind consistently. It, it, it names it a little bit differently. Um, . And again, I like woowoo, so this little woowoo in this book, um, and in that cart toll in general. But I do think that this collective, um, collective, I forget the name that he calls it. I read this several years ago, but I, it's just stuck with me so much. Um, there's, uh, it talks about our inherited dysfunction, but it uses a specific word. Um, but a lot of the psychology based, right? A lot of it's based off of young Ian theory. A lot of it's based off of, um, you know, the idea of a, a collective unconscious and negative emotions, driving negative actions and, and how to become more self-aware. This, if this book right, we talked about self-awareness over self-motivation, self-improvement, self, whatever you want to call it, self-awareness. If you want to become self-aware, you want to realize that what is actually going on inside of your head and overcome it. The power of now or a new Earth, I haven't read a power of Now I have it upstairs, I'm gonna read it. Soon. But, um, a new Earth is an absolutely earth shattering book. If you are not somebody who has dove into meditation, yoga, uh, you know, internal dialogue, like the monkey mind, all of that conversation. If you're not somebody who's dealt with that before, I would highly, highly recommend you read this book. And again, tools for life, not bullshit, motivation, uh, hustle porn. All right. And then the last one, OG The Man, the Myth, the legend, Jordan Peterson. Right. Gotta give the credit. Worse Credit is Due. 12 Rules for Life is an amazing book. Incredible book. Um, and I think for every, you know, a lot of it's aimed towards, you know, he, he kind of speaks to young men in this, but I think it's just everybody in general, right? And, and you go by the rules, right? Stand up straight with your shoulders back. Just be confident, right? And, and it's not, it's not something that people generally are taught, like exude confidence, right? Like, Don't, don't, don't slouch. When you're in a room, don't give, give the idea, give yourself a, a sense of self importance, right? Like stand up straight with your shoulders back. And he talks about the actual physical psychology of that is when you know the, the, there's actual studies that were done in the amount of like testosterone produced in the body when somebody just literally stands upright when they're in a room as opposed to slouching down and kind of like being timid and shy. So rule one, treat, rule two, treat yourself like someone you were responsible for helping, right? And, and I think that's important. Generally, you're the last person that you take care of, right? If you're kind of like me, right? You're, you're, you're gonna convince five of your friends that they should go talk to a doctor or a therapist before you go seek that out yourself, regardless of the circumstances of what you're going through, right? So treating yourself like someone that you're responsible for helping was, I think that was a big paradigm shift for me in the way of like, how, not, not just medically, but emotionally and physically. Treat yourself as if you were somebody that you were responsible for helping. Um, make friends with people who want the best for you. Pretty straightforward. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday and not who someone else is today. And I think that talks about everything we've talked about today, right? That comparison, right? Comparing yourself next to Ty Lopez's, Lamborghini, and I'm sorry if I brought that up too much today, but it just drives me crazy. Don't compare yourself to other people. You came from a different family, different circumstances, different life, different career, different emotions. I don't know. Maybe you're, you had a bunch of concussions like me. I don't know. You, you went through your own set of stuff. Don't compare yourself to other people. And the, the old adage comparison is the thief of joy, right? There's absolutely something to that. Um, so if, if you learn to compare yourself to who you were yesterday and set up habits in the way that they're going to actually position you in a positive direction, moving towards the future, right? And I think that's a big, uh, uh, an overarching theme to making your life better is delayed gratification in almost every aspect. Delayed gratification, um, everything that you do, right? Whether it's money, finances, um, hobbies, right? And that's something that, again, Jiu-Jitsu's taught me a ton. Yeah, I, I, you can go into karate and be a black belt in two years, or you can go in and get your ass kicked for years after, years after years. And all of a sudden you're starting to kick people's asses too. But you gotta get your ass kicked first. And that's in almost every industry with every skill that you learn. Get your ass kicked and learn to get your ass kicked, right? Because when you do so, and you're confident in doing so and confid

Sean and Dane are back! Enjoying a hazy IPA from Stone  brewing, they review bags from Galaxy Cornhole (Conspiracy) and Blueprint Bags (Kobra and Pro). The new Facebook dramatic readings leads into a discussion about the new three tier bag policy structure the ACL presented. Then they are joined by three ACL pros, Pedro Zazueta Jr, Ty Lopez and Eric Tscherne!! BIG ASP Cornhole Patreon page: 4 Tiers to choose from!! Come join our growing community and get insider info, become an active participant in show content, be eligible for bag giveaways and more!!!https://www.patreon.com/bigaspcornholehttps://www.localbagcompany.com/-Throw like a pro….Throw Local-Code: AlienResin for 20% offhttps://www.cornholesolutions.com/-For all your cornhole board problems-Code: BigAsp saves you 10%byhttps://blackjackcornhole.com/Code: BigAsp saves you 10%https://airwolfathletics.com/Code: BigAsp saves you 10%https://www.harddragpush.com/Your one stop shop for all your cornhole content needs!!Missing You by Purrple Cat | https://purrplecat.com/Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/Support the show

In this quick episode we go through the aspects of your mindset you can control to achieve success fasterWith examples by Jeff Bezos and Ty Lopez, I share to you my thoughts on morning routines, an internal locus of control, the abundance mindset and other keys to greatness.Follow me on IG @casanova_brooks for more inspirational content and actionable tips. In The Dream We Trust!Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this sixth  episode of Girls Throw Too... Whit and Michelle make promises to commit to "build yourself up statements".  The mental game aspect of cornhole is not for the faint of heart! Michelle schools Whit on Fixed/Growth mindsets and the toxicity of negative self talk. Whitney vows to try for positive self outlooks. The hosts welcome GTT valued team member Nicole Pratt on as this week's consultant spotlight. The ladies close with a feature interview with Valerie Lopez (wife to ACL pro Ty Lopez) and owner of Shot Kings Cornhole Company~2:10 - Whitney offers self reflection regarding self defeating podcast statements3:42 - New GTT Promises/Commitments To One Another and reason behind the idea)5:15 - Meesh's “lightbulb” moment6:50 - The curse of negative self talk/Growth and Fixed Mindsets (for ourselves and our children)11:30 - “Grounding technique” and how an infestation of bugs might stand in the way (every 17 years)13:00 - Michelle talks about her league event at a Cali winery15:00 - Whit recounts a fight with her husband, new league participation, and hosts discuss indoor versus outdoor play.17:50 - Meesh talks about her friend who is #1 player on Scoreholio21:00 - The art of “Faking it to make it” and how to tap into your authentic self24:10 - TIPS OF THE WEEK (best way to break in new bags). Sac relax or no? Check outGTT suggestions visually on the Girls Throw Too Youtube Channel27:40 - GTT Lady Player of the Week Shout Out (Suzzanne from Washington). Learnmore about her by visiting the POW section of our Girls Throw Too tab at girlsthrowtoo.com29:11 - Girls Throw Too Spotlight interview- MEET Nicole Pratt (girlfriend of ACL PROTimmy Jonas)42:50 - Feature Interview with Valerie Lopez, Owner of Shot KingsJoin our email list so you never miss an episode over here: https://girlsthrowtoo.com/girls-throw-too-podcast/Review our podcast here and you could be selected to have your review read on air and receive some Baggin Broads merch as a thank you!SHOP Girls Throw Too Merch https://girlsthrowtoo.com/shop/Get a discount on the "Comin in Hot" GTT TossTek Bags with CODE GTT5Check out fun videos of cornhole pros and amazing visual content at https://girlsthrowtoo.com/cornhole-videos/Support the show

True to his gambler style when it comes to making business decisions, entrepreneur Eric Siu bought a failing marketing agency for $2 back in 2014. By refocusing the agency's vision from an SEO agency to a full-service digital marketing agency, Single Grain has grown into a full team of expert marketers who share Eric's vision and passion for constant growth. Now he joins us today to talk about how you can use a game mentality to grow your agency by constantly leveling up. 3 Golden Nuggets Lack of vision leads to making mistakes. Eric talks about the time when he almost lost everything. He says that, at the time, he had no notion of culture and no vision, and it almost cost him everything. Luckily, he was able to turn it around. The game of life. The philosophy he shares in his book and has implemented in his agency is to look at it as a game. You need to be constantly leveling up. There are always new challenges and, if you’re not where you wanted to be yet is because you haven’t beat the current level. It’s a game of resources, he says, you decide how you want to use your resources. Going back to the basics. Sometimes we need to go back to the basics. Some of the smartest agency owners are really good at SEO and use these tools to find websites in their niche that's ranking for all the keywords they want, buy it, and then have that advantage. And let’s not forget that these tools can also help grow your agency on a small budget.       Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode is sponsored by the Wix Partner Program. Being a Wix Partner is ideal for freelancers and digital agencies that design and develop websites for their clients. Check out Wix.com/Partners to learn more and become a member of the community for free. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher | Radio FM How to Grow Your Agency By Constantly Leveling Up Jason: [00:00:00] On this show, I bring on a past client where we talk about how he's grown his agency and he has a great book called “Leveling Up” and going through the stages and talks about e-sports, and we talk about sports and how you can use this in order to really grow your agency. We talked about Clubhouse, all kinds of stuff. It's a really cool episode. We jump all around and we talk about a $75,000 Pokemon card. Crazy stuff. So, you're going to love this episode. Let's get into it. Hey Eric. Welcome to the show. Eric: [00:00:36] Good to see you, Jason. It's been a while. Jason: [00:00:38] Yeah, man. It's been a while since we worked together. So tell us, uh, for the people that haven't heard of, you tell us who you are and what do you do? Eric: [00:00:45] Yeah, thanks. So my name's Eric Siu. I helped level up the world through marketing. I have a couple of marketing businesses. I have an agency called Single Grain, a software company called Click Flow. And then, uh, we got a whole, you know, marketing education stuff and marketing school and the events tied to it. So a bunch of stuff. And I also invest in different MarTech SAS companies, which is my background. And then, um, other than that, I have a podcast called Leveling Up. I have a book called Leveling Up right here, coming out, and then I have a podcast called Marketing School and that's basically it. Jason: [00:01:12] Very cool. And so how'd, you get started in all this? You haven't been in the agency world too long. And so how did you kind of jump into it? Eric: [00:01:21] Yeah, so it's pretty unconventional. So the agency that I took over and, you know, the story already, I bought the company for $2 out of pocket because it was a failing SEO agency at the time, because the Google algorithm updates basically made the business model invalid overnight. And I was brought in as a number two to help save the company. Because I'd previously had helped turn another company around, which is a startup. And so this was a different challenge, you know, different service, like the plane's going down, right? Like, can you put the plane back together while flying it? I was like, okay, this will be an interesting challenge. About six months into it, the four other co-founders said they wanted out. And Neil Patel was my podcast co-host he was like, hey Eric, you should get out as a friend. There's no brand equity. There's nothing here. And I was like, okay, why don't we do this? I'll give it a shot. I'll buy it. I'll pay $1 for 10% of your shares and another dollar for another 10% of another partner's shares. The rest through the profits of the company, with contingency that the company failed and owned nothing. So asymmetric bet, you know, I'd have unlimited upside with my downside would be it's basically an MBA, right? And so fortunately it worked out, but I almost lost everything. I'm happy to go in that direction, but that's how I got started. First year, had no idea what I was doing dropped all the way down to one employee. Jason: [00:02:28] And so, you know, a lot of people are listening. They're like, what was the point where you almost lost everything? Let's go to that story a little bit. Eric: [00:02:36] Yeah. So two thousand... what was it? Thirteen or so, something like that. New year, I'm like, okay, look at me. I'm the CEO. Now I own a hundred percent of the company. Look at me. And I ended up reading this book called “Let My People Go Surfing” from the Patagonia co-founder. And I was like, yeah, let my people go surfing. Nobody wants to be micromanaged, whatever, stop showing up to the office. So I'm like, you know, I hired some senior people I'm like, yeah, let them do their thing. Whole thing implodes. And then I have people calling me saying, you know, people are showing up to the office and like just wearing like, almost like pajamas and eating like chips while watching Family Guy. Whole thing is just blowing up in front of me. And then my outside accounting firm calls me and they're just like, hey, it might be time to shut it down. Basically I went from bad to worse just because I didn't build a rapport with anybody. I let them do their thing. I had no vision. I had no sense of what culture meant and the whole thing just fell apart. And I almost took another job. So I was at a crossroads. I had said yes. And then I basically, the next day I was like, I can't do it. And I continued on with Single Grain. Jason: [00:03:31] And so that's the all-time low and your accounting firm says, you know, let's throw in the towel, Eric, what did you do to turn it around? Eric: [00:03:40] Yeah, when I first started at Single Grain, because my background's in SEO, we were getting about 4,000 visits a month, which is okay for a blog. I had started to focus on a lot of guest blog posting, a lot of, um, you know, building more relationships. And we started publishing a lot more content. We had good domain authority on our website, which is just how strong our website is. And throughout that first year it started to increase rapidly. So we went from about 4,000 to about 50,000 visits a month. And then we got that number one ranking for the agency keyword that you know about digital marketing agency, right. I have nothing to hide. And so that's how we started getting all these leads, and unfortunately I couldn't fulfill the leads anymore. So what we started to do was we started to refer the leads out and I would take 25 to 30% commission for the lifetime of the customer. That kept us afloat. And then I realized that these other agencies were, they couldn't retain the client. And so from that point on, I was like, okay, let's take on some contractors. We have some more money to play with. We took on some contractors and then from there we're like, okay, the contractors are good, but they're not, they're mercenaries throughout fully embedded with the culture. So then we started hiring full-time people. It really started to take off again, once we hired that integrator and I'm sure people have talked about it on this podcast, visionary integrator concept, rocket fuel. And that's when things started to blow up. And my thesis has always been with the agency. If I were able to make it work, the services business is not super interesting to me, but the cash flows to be able to take that and go reinvest in more exponential or durable sources of income. That's more interesting. And fortunately, that worked out and then now, you know, combined with everything, we’re at about eight-figures. We’re over eight-figures. Yeah. Jason: [00:05:08] And so what's kind of the percentage that you would reinvest and did that number go down over time? Like, you know, in the very beginning sometimes, or did it go up over time, but everybody's probably listening are like, well, how much should I reinvest in the company? Or should I rate the company? Eric: [00:05:26] Yeah, that's a great question. I would put an asterisk by this because I come from a gambling background. So all in, you know, if I'm betting on myself, best investment ever, right? Warren Buffet. I don't recommend this for everyone because your mileage may vary. You might have a mortgage, you might have a family to take care of. Who knows? Like there's a lot of other commitments. I was fortunate enough where I didn't have any of that to worry about at the time. So I continued to press every single year. I put everything back into the business. I think it's fine to pay taxes. Absolutely. But if you have a good sense of what you can do with the business and you can create more jobs from it and you don't have a lot of other overhead to worry about, then, you know, for me, I kept pressing. And so for me, it was a hundred percent and I didn't necessarily want to raise money because, you know, I've seen that game before. Right. And there's nothing wrong with that. And in some cases I might raise money for other stuff and we have, but at the time I just wanted to bootstrap my way up to, to prove that I could do it before, you know, thinking about anything else. Jason: [00:06:17] So let's talk about, you know, Leveling Up. Why did you write it? Eric: [00:06:21] Yeah, that's a good question. Uh, I remember on another podcast, this guy, uh, Anthony Pompliano was asking me, why are you doing a book? Nobody reads books. And I'm like, well, I read books. So I started writing this book, and I don't recommend this, while I was trying to save the agency. Stupid. And people are like, yeah, it's going to take you probably five to six years to do it. It took me six years, probably seven drafts. I was like, it probably will probably take me two. Took me seven. And so, I come from an e-sports background. All I was really good at growing up was games. And you know, there's a stigma towards games, right? Parents always looked down on me, friends, maybe didn't respect it. And then it was just like, I wasn't seen, and now you see e-sports taking off, but you have 3 billion people in the world that are playing games and then feel like they have a stigma. They feel unseen, but in sports and I'm sure you've played sports. Right. But just understanding that look, sports foster teamwork, communication, resilience, all that, all that I got from games. And my point is, you know, I think business is the ultimate game. Life is a game and I wake up every day and it's the same feeling I've had growing up. It's fun. Right. I'm just going to keep playing until I die, which is why I have a fundamental kind of buy and hold model where I just want to go buy other businesses. And so. That's what it is. I just do this, have fun. I've treat life as a game there's level-ups, right? In the book I talk about, you know, one of the chapters is thievery. If you think about Apple, you know, Apple, as an example, by the way they stole this from Xerox, this mouse, they stole from Xerox, Steve Jobs himself said everything in life is a remix. And so if we think about Elon Musk, the rockets, they look fundamentally the same, you know, you just add on the 10 to 20%, that's unique. They come back to earth. And so I think encouraging people that like. That chapter talks about where I ethically learned to steal, right? And people have a there's cognitive dissonance there because we all like to think that we're original. And so the book is about treating life as a game and going out throughout life and collecting power-ups and from a business perspective, just understanding that there's levels to the game. Right? So, Jason used an example, you had the agency, you sold it and you started doing the training. And then now you're back in the agency game, but you're buying other businesses you're investing. And so you’re consistently leveling up and that's what it is. And you don't have to get to the next level. But if you want to get to it and you don't get to it, it's just because you didn't beat the current one. Jason: [00:08:23] Have you ever played the game Age Of Empires? Eric: [00:08:25] I haven't, but I played a lot of StarCraft and Warcraft. Jason: [00:08:29] Okay. So there was a game in college that I would play with a bunch of my buddies where the kind of start off in the stone age and you have to acquire wood, gold, and I think food, and as you acquire so much, you actually start moving up to the next stage and then your weapons get better. Your houses get better. Your technology gets better. And that's kind of how I have always looked at, and that's one of the reasons why we created the agency playbook and that framework of kind of like you're talking about you're going, all right, once you get to the next level, you have to kind of reset a lot of, you know, the gold, the water, the food, and you have to kind of almost start over. Is that kind of what you're talking about with leveling up? Eric: [00:09:10] It's exactly that. So StarCraft, Command and Conquer, you know, Warcraft and I'm not familiar with Age Of Empires. It's, it's a strategy game, right? We're all, what we're playing is it's a resource game, right? You decide how you want to use your resources and you can go get more resources than those that do the best job they get the most. Right. And that's not saying, we, you need to go get the most necessarily, but that's how you do it. That's how the game is played. Jason: [00:09:29] So, you talk about is the first level kind of a, I don't like to use steal. I like to kind of like reenergize it, like you were saying, you know, Apple wasn't the first that came out with MP3 player, they were the ones that made it better. Right? They kind of took something, you know, and the mouse you just showed me, I'm surprised he's still using a mouse. Like, who are you? Like he's still using them. But they made it out of like a soap thing if, uh, from the story that I heard, uh, which is kind of cool. So is that the first level of the 15 that you're talking about is kind of like. Eric: [00:10:04] No, it's not, I mean, you know, it starts out with, uh, you know, newbie mindset, right? So whether you want to call it newbie mindset or beginner mindset, understanding that let's say you, Jason, you're continually learning, you're getting better and you have an open mindset. I think, as you become more and more successful as you, you gain levels. Sometimes it's easy to get cocky and let your ego get in the way. And so, you know, there's just those types of concepts. And again, if you compare it to a game, if you get a sword, for example, you keep using it, you're gonna lose durability. Some, some you have to keep sharpening, right? So on the spot, just because you wrote yesterday, it doesn't mean you don't have to write again. It's to keep training your mind, you know, your physical body. All that stuff. And your life is like just going around, collecting power-ups to make you more efficient as a person. And, you know, it might be a very kind of, you know, neurotic way of looking at it. But at the end of the day, life is just a lot of, “if this, then that” statements. So we're, we're in essence robots. Jason: [00:10:57] When you're an agency partner with Wix, you wanna lock entire digital ecosystem for creating, managing, and growing your agency. Get the full coding and design freedom to create anything your clients need along with the tools to manage and collaborate with your team seamlessly from anywhere. And when it comes to growing your agency, you can get matched with new leads every day and earn revenue share for every website you guys create. They’re backed by the Wix industry, leading security and site performance. You'll also have a dedicated account manager on standby 24/7. So you can reach your goals and start setting new ones. See for yourself, head over to wix.com/partners. And re-imagine what your agency can accomplish. Yeah. I'd see a lot of people trying to over-complicate things, you know, like when I work with someone or when they come into the mastermind, they're trying to think so far ahead. And I'm like, you sometimes just got to go back to the basics. I grew up playing tennis and I played in college. I remember one time, and I tell this story I think a couple of times on the show, where I was getting crushed by this one kid that I was so much better. And my coaches yelled at me go back to the basic stupid like I was trying to overthink this complicated thing of going. I was like, ah, just, hit the ball over the net and wound up beating them. And I think we do a lot of that in business. We just overcomplicate it. And if we just went back to the basics. That's kind of why, you know, with technology and you see this all the time, it's a great responsibility and we have all this power. But you can really send people away. If you don't just kind of go back. And I think what Gary Vaynerchuk talks about, you know, the Jetsons going back to the Flintstones and then you can separate yourself from everybody else. Eric: [00:12:54] Totally. Yeah. That's well said. Jason: [00:12:56] What are some other levels in the book that you talk about? Eric: [00:12:59] Yeah. So one of them is about thinking long-term. So I'm just looking at this Pokemon card. You just mentioned Gary V. So one of the guys that used to work for me is now on his brand team. He actually just told me this Pokemon card over here. So it's like, okay, I'm looking at this piece of cardboard. I paid, there's like $75,000 Charizard cards. I paid like two grand for this one. Jason: [00:13:16] What? So wait, wait, wait. There's a $75,000 Pokemon card. Eric: [00:13:21] Yeah. So I'll tell you how this all relates. Right? So you're in business. I mean, you can definitely, you know, take a look at trends. What's trending, but also thinking about the long term. So when I, when I buy this thing, if I think about the markets a little bit, if I think about what's going on in the world.  Where should I be putting my money? Okay. I'm not trying to get a return on this immediately. I'm just going to store it. Right. You know, this thinking about art, think about collectibles, so A I'm looking at trends, but also I'm thinking long-term like, I'm totally okay with losing money on this. So. What type of long-term decisions can you make? Right? So for example, you mentioned profit a little earlier. Can I defer profits for as long as possible so I can build enterprise value in my company, right? And this applies directly to agencies as well. Can I think long term where, you know, maybe I want to work with people. Can I build the right culture? Cause a lot of agencies that you might talk to, maybe you don't wanna work with these people because they're too short term focused and there's a lot of ego and they just want to make money, right? That's not long-term thinking. So that applies directly into life, and in business in general, you want to work with long-term people and play long-term games with them. Jason: [00:14:19] Love it. What else? So I'm still blown away by, uh, you know, I look back at all the baseball cards I collected over the years. I mean, I have, Hank Aaron, Mark McGwire, all these amazing ones. I don't think there was anything close to that. Eric: [00:14:32] One just sold, that's the record, 5.2 million bucks baseball card. A couple, I think a couple of weeks ago. Jason: [00:14:37] Babe Ruth? Eric: [00:14:38] I don't think it was a Babe Ruth. I think there was a Mike Trout card that sold for like over a million. Jason: [00:14:42] Who's Mike Trout Eric: [00:14:44] You, you, Angels Slugger. Jason: [00:14:47] Oh, I've been out of the baseball card games since '91. Eric: [00:14:52] Yeah. Well, but let's see, like now it's like, okay. Maybe it makes sense to get that hooked. The Rock has a U of Miami card. It's worth 45 grand right now. When he, when he was playing in college, right. Jason: [00:15:02] It's crazy. Well, I'm Florida State. I would burn it even though I do like The Rock. I still like you, Dwayne, but I would burn anything with Miami on it. Yeah. I was listening to something with Gary Vaynerchuk and he was talking about collecting business cards as baseball cards. Of going, if you could get the original Steve Jobs business card or Jeff Bezos card, that would be interesting, right. And thinking about that. So we're totally off track. I just got so screwed up by the $75,000 Pokemon card, but that's my ADD, what are some other levels that you talk about in the book? Eric: [00:15:41] Yeah. So, you know, one thing I want to touch upon is the concept of the wealth ladder. And this actually comes from the CEO of ConvertKit, Nathan Barry. And so, you know, when you start out in life, you go to school and then you try to build great habits, right? Whether it's playing sports or games or whatever, and then it's like, you go get a job. And then the next level after that is maybe you start freelancing on the side, right? Maybe you kind of hold the job to kind of keep you safe a little bit. And then it starts going well, maybe you start the agency, right? Or you can start with dropshipping first. It's not the best e-commerce business model, but then it starts going while you start to hold inventory. So you're constantly leveling up in your career. And the next thing is maybe have productized services for your agency who knows, right? Or maybe you do go on a pay-for-performance model. You can do that too. It scales really well. Right. Revenue per employee, is super high. Then it's like, Oh, you know what? I got out all this extra cash now. Why don't I go build a network of X business, right? Or why don't I go build like a platform business? Or why don't I go build less space X? Or why don't I just become an investor. And not all of these are mutually exclusive, but you can see there's levels to everything. And so that's what we were talking about earlier about, that's the concept of the wealth ladder. So I think those that are listening right now that maybe might be starting out, or maybe doing a couple million bucks a year, just understanding that there's levels to everything. And, you know, I think Jason, I can both attest to this stuff takes a lot of time. So that's another concept. Jason: [00:16:54] When do you know you've reached the top of the level that you should be? Because I see sometimes people get to a certain level and then they go. Man, I liked it back in the day with like the typical situation with a lot of people, like they're an accidental agency owner. They got kind of thrown into this because they knew how to do something well. They were like a freelancer and then they were like, well, I don't want to do everything myself. So let me hire people. They hire people. And then they realized that the business is making more money, but they're making less. And they're like, I just want to go back to where it was. And so some people go back to freelancing, which is perfectly fine, and it's just, you've reached that level of where you want to be, or you go find a different level or some people implement the right systems and then they can kind of break through and figure out what's the next step. So how do you know when you're at the right level or. Should we move? Eric: [00:17:51] Totally. Yeah. So I think there's two things. There's contentment. And then there's congruency. I think when you're waking up in the morning consistently, maybe three days in a row, and then you're realizing that Holy crap, this agency behemoth that I built, that's maybe doing 20 to 30 million bucks a year. And maybe I'm not making as much as before. Maybe this is a pain in the butt and this is not congruent, but you still keep finding yourself doing it consistently. So there's no congruency there. Right. So asking yourself, okay, there's something off there. But then also asking yourself to like, am I content? Forget about the future. Forget about the past. Like, am I happy right now? Am I content with what I have right now? Right. So we're getting philosophical here, but ultimately that's what matters right? In life. Like your operating system up here. If it's not content, then why are you doing what you're doing? So I think taking the time to reflect, I used to just work the entire time, seven days a week. Now I block out my Fridays and those Fridays are typically just reserved for thinking. I might have conversations with a couple of friends or whatever, but. Block out that time, like, what should I start doing? Stop doing, keep doing what, what really pisses me off right now. And it's just constantly like, you know, kind of updating my operating system, my brain, you know, that's at least what so. Jason: [00:18:56] Very cool. Let's talk about what are some key strategies that every agency owner needs to know about? Eric: [00:19:03] You know, I, I think still, like we want to talk about mergers and acquisitions. I think unfair advantage agency owners have, you know, people are like, oh, SEO's dying, whatever, but like, okay, Google, YouTube, hello. Like, they're still one of the biggest companies in the world. As long as there’s search, there'll be SEO. And, um, the fact that some of the smartest founders I know are really, really good at SEO because it's the compounding effect is so strong. So, let's say you don't really understand SEO right now. That's fine. Can you go use a tool like Ubersuggest or Ahrefs these SEO tools, go find a website in your niche that's ranking for all the keywords you want. Go buy it, right? And then all of a sudden you have the advantage. You're going to collect all these leads and you can retarget all these people hitting your website. And you can buy these websites for, you know, I wouldn't say pennies on the dollar, maybe dimes on the dollar, but a lot of these websites are, are under-monetized, right?. So I just think it's people going back to long-term thinking again, if you start with SEO, it forces you into long-term thinking because all the short-term stuff I tried in the beginning, it gets torn up, but the hit, the long-term stuff, it just keeps compounding and it forces you to think like an investor. So how can you take the MMA mindset that maybe Jason's been talking about on this podcast or in his mastermind, and then using it from a marketing perspective? That's one thing. Jason: [00:20:13] Yeah. You know, I, I love that you brought that up cause, uh, a mastermind member we've been talking about that quite a bit about buying certain assets that rank really well, and he's been crushing it, you know, on it. So it's, uh, it's not necessarily just buying the whole company it's buying, you know, assets in order to fit into, you know, those things that you're missing out on, rather than just trying to build it up from scratch. Eric: [00:20:44] Well, by the way, like, I think that's what you and I are. We're kind of nerding out on before. It's not now it's just buy versus bill and there's a book called “Buy Then Build”, right. And there's another one called “Buying a Small Business”. It's a lot more complicated than it seems. And not saying it's easy, but it's, um. Look, I think if I can do it at least I think anybody can do it. So. Jason: [00:21:02] I agree with that. No, I'm just kidding. Eric: [00:21:05] But the other thing too, by the way, I don't know if you've been hanging out, hanging out in the Clubhouse. I've been spending quite a bit of time there. So I I'm investing 20 hours of my time a week in it, but like I'm meeting like two or three amazing people every single day. So I just think the organic reach on that is super strong. And, um, you know, obviously with these social channels, the bigger they get, the less organic reach there is. So. Jason: [00:21:26] On Clubhouse, I have been, I like it. You know, my thing is I'm at this stage of my life right now, where I don't have 20 hours a week to invest, or I don't want to invest 20 hours a week in it. And you don't have to invest that much, but like Eric's saying is you can get that much more back. So how are you utilizing it? Are you just utilizing it to build, you know, relationships? That's what I've been seeing on Clubhouse. What are some strategies around that? Eric: [00:21:56] So, for those that haven't tried it, I mean, you know, audio-based social network. So for me, it's networking at scale. It's building relationships at scale right now. We're not able to kind of, you know, meet in person as of this recording, but that's what it is. And so you see a lot of these people, like let's use Grant Cardone or Ty Lopez love them or hate them, they're spending a lot, a lot, probably more time than I am on these apps. Like there's one guy that I'm friends with, um, he was part of this rap group called Pretty Ricky. You know, he's on the app all the time, but it's some of these people, I were, I was just like acquaintances, what's in the past, but we've interacted quite a bit and we start interacting afterward. So it's reinforcing or building new relationships. Like I never interacted with Grant Cardone before the app, uh, Ty Lopez, same thing. Now I do, right? And then a lot of other influential people. But what I'll say is this too, what kind of came full circle for me was when I was about 24, 25 years old, I reached out to this guy, Dave Capernaum, he runs this agency called Likeable. And, um, yesterday he was in room. And he introduced himself and I just came. I tried to and I said, hey, like, you know, you actually got on the phone with me when I was 25 for 30 minutes. And you'd talked about this organization, entrepreneurs organization. And I, I owe that all to you because you brought it up and, you know, thank you for that, right?. And then all of a sudden he's like, oh, by the way, like with your upcoming book, I have 700,000 followers on LinkedIn. Let's do a Live. Okay. And let's also get you an article on ink as well. But that just came from me, like talking about him for like 15 seconds. So it's a lot of serendipity and it's a lot of relationships at scale. You get what you put in. Jason: [00:23:16] Totally agree. Yeah. I mean, I, uh, I love obviously the audio and I love that it's not recorded and you have to attend live. What I find working really well on Clubhouse is getting in a room with a bunch of people. I mean, if it's just two people talking, not good, might as well listen to a podcast. I mean, if you can get a ton of people and they're just having a conversation, it's kind of like it amplifies it where it's like you're listening in to someone's dinner conversation around something you're really interested in whether it be growing an agency or whatever it is. Eric: [00:23:51] Some these conversations like, you know, legit people would be paying 10 to 20, $30,000 for a mastermind to learn. And I hate using that word because it's become kind of this, not saying yours is, but it's dirty and in a lot of different ways, but, um, you know, it's. So let's say, peer group. Right. But being able to listen to this advice and some of the stuff I listen to, I'm like, oh crap. You know, I'm going to try it. So I have gotten some really good stuff on it, by the way, like the peer group that I do with, you know, Neil, my podcast co-host, we had a live event. And through Clubhouse, I learned about this thing called a shuttered venue type of grant coming out as part of the coronavirus relief. I didn't know about that. But some guy talked to about, he's like, yeah, you can get this. And like, yeah, we had a shut to our event last year. It's going to come back. But you know, that's what it is. So just little micro-moments like that. Jason: [00:24:31] Very cool. Awesome. Where can people go and get the book? Eric: [00:24:35] Yeah, you can go to levelingup.com or you can just go to your favorite online retailer. It's Leveling Up Eric Siu and you'll find it. And yeah, that's basically it. Jason: [00:24:43] Awesome. Well, everyone go check out the book. Uh, Eric's a really cool guy. And if you guys enjoyed this episode and you guys want to be surrounded by amazing agency owners on a consistent basis where. We have a ton of fun. We're able to see the shit that you're not able to see right in front of you. And a lot of times we'll talk about strategies that we don't talk about anywhere else. And it's pretty amazing. So if you want to scale your agency faster, be surrounded by amazing people and have a lot of fun doing it. Make sure you guys go to digitalagencyelite.com and until next time have a Swenk day.

In this week's episode, we talk about the allegations of harassment that have been going around about many popular figures. This includes Ty Lopez, Nakita Dragun, David Doborik, James Charles, & many more. Enjoy!

Ravi Abuvala has a challenge for any aspiring entrepreneur, but only if you choose to accept. “If you're saying that you don't have the time to build a personal brand, actually clock how much time you're looking at other people's personal brands,” Ravi Abuvala said. “Clock how much time that you're on Instagram, you're on Facebook and you're on YouTube.” Lots of time adds up when you jot down the minutes, perhaps hours, you spend each day scrolling, watching and liking other people’s personal brands on your favorite platforms. Here’s what you can do now instead with that time. “Start becoming a producer over a consumer,” Ravi Abuvala said in a conversation with host Shawn Walchef on the Digital Hospitality podcast. Learn more about the steps it took for Ravi Abuvala's Scaling With Systems to scale two companies to seven figures in a free training course at www.scalingwithsystems.com/gift.   How to Avoid Burnout   Every entrepreneur has to hustle. But eventually you have to have systems in place to take over and take you to the next level. If not, you risk hustling forever and experiencing burnout. Systems allow entrepreneurs to let virtual assistants, automation and the idea steer the business, thus giving the owners the opportunity to invest in a personal connection with their community and build their brand. “The majority of things are pretty mundane if you're the business owner,” Ravi Abuvala notes. By bringing in systems, you can free yourself up from the boring to revive and redirect your hustle. “You're not drained,” says Ravi Abuvala on bringing in systems and automation into your business. “You have so much more energy.” As much of the world is at a standstill in 2020, the opportunity is high to begin creating your own content to build your own brand instead of aimlessly looking at those of others. This pivot from consuming to producing might seem obvious, it might even seem harsh. However, Ravi has the credit to encourage it. Why? He did it himself.   Finding Inspiration for a New Career   Ravi Abuvala's early career goal was to be a lawyer, something his parents told him was the right thing to do. It wasn't his path. “After I graduated college, I'd worked for the governor of Florida and I started getting a taste that maybe law and politics isn’t for me,” Ravi said. After a life of studying for law and excelling at undergrad, he was beginning to have his doubts. Around that same time, Ravi's father became ill and suddenly he was surrounded with the reality that life is not promised. While taking care of his father and studying for the LSAT, it became clear that Ravi was capable of going to law school, but it wasn’t his dream. “I just decided, you know what? This isn't for me,” says Ravi. “I got hit by a Ty Lopez ad about making money online and I was like, you know what? Let me just give this a whirl.” Ditching a life of law school expectations and taking a chance on online entrepreneurship, Ravi began building businesses on the internet. Early on there were valleys, but eventually the peaks proved worth it. “I had an advertising agency and when we launched scalable systems, we hit six figures in 30 days,” Ravi says on this ah-ha moment. “The reason that we did it was because I had built up this huge following. It was on the advertising, but it was also on me as a brand.” Ravi’s realization that he could build a business with scalable systems proved his calling card. Using systems allowed him to save time to make his business more efficient while freeing him up to better brand himself and thus create a deeper connection with his customers. Systems were able to help Ravi so much in his online entrepreneurship and they could for you, too. “You have to have systems because you can't just hustle your way into success,” Ravi says, reflecting on both endurance and bandwidth. “When you're building a business,

Bonus Episode: Live from Zoom, Erika takes part in a panel alongside entrepreneur David Meltzer and Barstool's own Zero Blog Thirty for a special broadcast of "The Professional Mindset Playbook" hosted by Ty Lopez of the United States Air Force. The crew discuss creative leadership and productive culture and answer questions from active duty members and veterans alike. If you aren’t already following the Token CEO Podcast: Twitter: https://twitter.com/tokenCEO Instagram: https://instagram.com/tokenceo Spotify Playlists: https://open.spotify.com/user/i11of6spoadvzjckn120xkt7c?si=dazbi76aTBqwIJL0wGbIwA

What do Larry King, Tilman Fertitta, Rick Ross, Chris Voss all have in common? For starters, they’re all very successful. Secondly, they’ve all be interviewed by a 19-year-old from Virginia. That talented teen entrepreneur? Casey Adams. Casey Adam has amassed 219k Instagram followers, created a Top 50 podcast, and interviewed heavyweights in media, business and entrepreneurship. All before his 20th Birthday. https://www.caseyadams.com   His success didn’t happen overnight, but it did happen online. “Looking back, social media has opened up every door of opportunity,” reflects Casey Adam on an episode of the Digital Hospitality podcast. “One of the early ‘oh shit moments’ on social media was when I reached out to Ty Lopez. “He was someone who I looked up to and I was in his programs. After I spoke at this event, I sent him a DM to say, ‘thank you.’ From that DM two weeks later, he was flying me and my mom out to Los Angeles to meet him. To see that a digital gesture led me to getting flow out to LA? This is crazy, let’s keep doing this.”   A decade back, many considered social media and the internet a separate world from reality. In 2020, the young see no barriers. Knowing how to best use social media is especially important for businesses. “If you don’t have a presence on social media as a brand, are you even a brand?” Casey Adams questions. “If I can’t go on social media and look up your brand it’s not that you’re not relevant, it’s like you don’t even exist. There’s a level of communication for businesses that can happen on social and it’s super important that people adopt it. For anyone that hasn’t bought into it fully they’re going to be left behind.” Casey Adams knows that sometimes you’re just one DM away from your dreams.   Rise of the Young: At 19-years-old, Casey Adams is busy building his own brand to new heights in Scottsdale, AZ with a team of young creatives. At 15, things were much different. “When I was 15 years old, I was almost paralyzed playing football,” Casey recalls. “I was in a neck brace for a little over six months and that’s where I really started to dive into personal development, learning more about social media, and building a personal brand. I started to document my journal as an individual to build a personal brand. Long story short, that negative situation opened me up to a new opportunity and I fell in love with it. Four years later it’s led me to podcasting and I’ve found my voice.” Recreating a new identity at any age is tough, let alone amidst the insecurities of being a high schooler and the trauma of a life-altering injury. Turning a negative into a positive, Casey dove into his new passion of media and even published his own book on the experience when he was still a student.   “When I first wrote the book, I was just building a brand,” says Casey Adams to Digital Hospitality podcast host Shawn Walchef. “I looked at it as just another piece of content and I wrote about turning your negative situation into a positive outcome.” The book didn’t make any nationwide best-sellers lists, but it did make a huge impact locally. “Now, every single semester at my high school they give out the book to the students!” Rightfully so. The book was designed for the kids who needed it most. “I wrote it for the young individual that’s lost hope and gone through anything that’s changed their focus. Within 24 hours I had to recreate this new identity and how I looked at the world.” That book and new identity led to speaking gigs, getting verified on Instagram, and a digital footprint that’s cemented his place in the media world today. A maven of social media at only 19, Casey Adams grew up on apps like the rest of his generation but has worked hard enough to master and understand them. “Social media is something we grew up on,” Casey notes of his generation. “I got an Instagram when I was 13. The way that I look at social media,

Neulich habe ich ein Interview mit Ty Lopez gesehen, der mit einem Milliardär gesprochen hat und einer der beiden sagte “Du kannst Erfahrungen nicht googlen” - Du kannst Erfahrungen also nicht überspringen.  Das ist etwas, was ich sowohl bei meinen Kunden tagtäglich beobachte, als auch bei meiner lieben Frau Farina in den letzten Wochen beochbachtet habe, die sich auch als Architektin selbstständig gemacht hat. Man muss Schritt für Schritt gehen.  Wenn man wirklich Schritt für Schritt geht, dann erzielt man krasse Ergebnisse. Trotzdem hat man immer die Erwartung, dass man sehr schnell weiterkommt. Bei manchen geht es auch sehr schnell, aber es hängt immer von den Erfahrungen ab, die man mitbringt.  Denn was mir bei Farina aufgefallen ist ist, dass sie gerade am Anfang Aufträge angenommen hat, die wirklich sehr klein waren. Und weil sie so klein waren, konnte sie auch keinen hohen Preis dafür verlangen. Plötzlich war sie in dieser Abwärtsspirale, in der ich damals auch war: Viele kleine Projekte, verdammt viel Arbeit und verdammt wenig Geld.  Die Erfahrung, die ich gemacht habe ist, dass man gewisse Schritte einfach nicht überspringen kann und genau darüber spreche ich heute mit dir in dieser Episode.  Wir sprechen deshalb in dieser Episode daher über folgende Dinge:  Idee 1: Wie kann man den Prozess des Erfahrungen sammeln beschleunigen? Das ist die eigentliche Frage. Wie kann man schnellstmöglich Erfahrungen sammeln, um mit seinem Unternehmen zu wachsen? Denn, wenn du jeden Tag dieselben Aufgaben machst, wirst du keinen großen Unterschied machen und vor allem auch keine neuen Erfahrungen sammeln. Es ist also wichtig erst einmal Erfahrungen zu sammeln. Ich gehe zum Beispiel alle Aufgaben selbst einmal durch und sobald ich verstanden habe, wie das funktioniert, versuche ich diese Dinge zu automatisieren oder delegieren. So kann ich Tag für Tag neue Erfahrungen machen. Idee 2: Wenn viele Dinge nicht funktionieren…  Wenn man auf seinem Weg ist all diese Erfahrungen zu sammeln, dann wird natürlich nicht immer alles rund laufen. Viel Dinge werden einfach nicht funktionieren. Das kann auch sehr enttäuschend sein, zu realisieren, dass all deine Experimente nicht funktioniert haben und dass man am Ende dort ankommt, wo man bereits vor einem Jahr war. Bei uns war es auch so - mittlerweile nutzen wir die Methode, um neue Kunden zu gewinnen, die wir bereits letztes Jahr angewandt haben, weil die neue Methode nicht funktioniert hat. Auch das sind Erfahrungen - lass dich nicht unterkriegen und finde zurück, wenn etwas nicht klappt.  Idee 3: Der Fluch der guten Leute - Vorsicht vor der Arroganz. Es gibt Menschen, die können Sachen schnell und gut. Diese Leute saugen Inhalte komplett ein und setzen sie um. Und dann kann es passieren, dass daraus eine Arroganz wird. Mir ging es in meinem Studium genauso. Ich las dann irgendwann ein Buch und dort ging stand: Von jeder Person kann man etwas lernen. Und genauso ist das. Du kannst von JEDER Person etwas lernen. Selbst der Hausmeister, der Bäcker oder der Starbucks-Typ haben in ihrem Leben Erfahrungen gesammelt, die du in deinem Leben noch nicht gemacht hast.  Idee 4: Verdienen kommt von dienen - Social Media Star kannst du sein, aber verliere deine Kunden nicht aus dem Auge.  Wenn du in letzter Zeit meine Instagram Stories gesehen hast, dann wirst du wahrscheinlich sehen, dass hier eine Party im Büro ist und dass hier jeden Tag ordentlich was los ist. Auf der anderen Seite mache ich diese Sachen, um Aufmerksamkeit zu bekommen, um dann aber auch einen verdammt guten Job zu machen. Das beißt sich, aber auch mir ist ganz klar, dass am Ende jeder Umsatz, den ich in meiner Firma mache, nur damit zusammenhängt, dass ich einen sehr guten Job für meine Zielgruppe mache. Es hat nichts, damit zu tun, wie cool meine Show auf Instagram ist. Die Frage, die du dir also am Ende immer stellen solltest ist: Welcher Zielgruppe möchtest du dienen? Idee 5: Gedanklich Hürden und Technische Hürden.  Es gibt zum Beispiel Leute, die nicht wissen, wie ihre digitale Strategie aussehen kann, um ihr Unternehmen auszubauen. Das kann ein blinder Fleck sein, aber das ist häufig relativ schnell erklärt - zumindest die theoretische Strategie. Die Umsetzung ist dann am Ende meistens ein langer Weg. Dennoch ist häufig das Technische gar nicht die große Herausforderung, denn viele Leute wissen eigentlich ganz genau was sie tun müssen. Trotzdem kommen sie nicht voran - und hier kommt die zweite Facette ins Spiel: Es gibt sehr viele gedankliche Hürden. Man weiß zum Beispiel generell, dass Videos für die Zielgruppe sehr, sehr wichtig sind. Dennoch machen die meisten keine. Die meisten wissen, wie man technisch ein Video dreht, aber sich dann auch gedanklich zu trauen, vor die Kamera zu gehen, ist unglaublich schwierig für viele. 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Wes is the owner and operator of all the Roasters Coffee stands in the Tri-Cities. An interesting fact about Wes is that he was a straight F student in high school and is now a successful entrepreneur.   Wes owns 11 Roasters here in the Tri-Cities and is opening 2 more. There is one in Walla Walla and 2 that will be opening in 2020 in Spokane. Wes did not know as a boy that he was going to be an entrepreneur. In his twenties he lost his job and found himself without many options. He played guitar and made coffee! He started in 2006 and coffee was expanding.  He moved to TC in 2006 not knowing that it really even existed. He googled the state of Washington and found the Tri-Cities. He flew up here and fell in love with the area and saw the opportunity. He moved his wife and small children up here and within one year, he had his first coffee shop.  Building a team and finding leaders has been a difficult road. From a small group to hiring a General Manager from the outside, cutting ties with that experience, he just builds leaders from within the company. He is very good at capitalizing on people's strengths and keeping them in their lane. He currently has 6 people that are running the company. He looks for people that are faithful, willing to go the extra mile, availability and commitment and willing to invest in. Promoting from within has been successful for him because he has created a culture.  Through the years, recognition and praise has evolved. When people feel valued and appreciated, they are willing to give a lot and invest a lot. He has a team of six and recently he took them and their spouses to San Diego for about 10 days. They enjoyed dinners, activities, Disneyland. Every year they now take trips. He pays his people what they are worth or more. He has created an environment where they take ownership of their division and run it accordingly. They feel valued and a part of something that they are creating.  Wes gets out of town at least once a month for a couple days to create balance and find time to regroup. Once a quarter he gets out of town for at least a week, every 6 months he is out of town for about 2 weeks and his family always does a holiday ski resort trip. He spends a lot of time alone and he spends his time reading, researching, with his whiteboard, hammering out the finances and trying to master money.  Wes struggles with time management. He has tried 25 different programs and hasn’t found any that works for him. His way is very different: he stays up late and he sleeps late. After 9:00pm he is more creative. He leaves the house around 9 or 10am. His goal has always been to never have to set an alarm. He enjoys it and finds it is more consistent when he stays up late and sleeps in. He knows his rhythm.  He energizes himself based on what is going on at the time. He follows social people like Ty Lopez, Gary V., and he gleans as much from them as possible and then moves on. He is a huge Eckhart Tolle fan, along with Warren Buffet, Charlie Munger. He feels the words they speak is a gold mine. You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with. He also really loves Dean Martini who has helped him with deep-seeded shame and guilt. Tim Bush is someone locally that Wes connects with at least once a month. He really appreciates that Tim has made him work for everything he’s gotten and holds him accountable.  The advice he would give to upcoming leaders is never stop learning. We live in an information age and Google has been his mentor! Constantly reading, going to the next level and keep pushing yourself, when things get tough just keep moving forward and make the best of each day.  You can connect with Wes best through email: wes@roasters.com. You can often find him at Resilient in Richland.   

  As a Santa Barbara native, Dusty Baker’s established reputation and knowledge of the local market seamlessly integrates into a successful real estate career which includes designations such as “Agent of the Year” and “Top 40 Under 40.” For nearly a decade, Dusty has been serving the real estate needs of clients in Santa Barbara, Montecito, Goleta and Carpinteria. Dusty prides himself in truly connecting with his clients to ensure their complete satisfaction with his representation, which is one of the many reasons he is the area’s #1 rated real estate agent on Yelp. Client reviews consistently showcase themes of Dusty’s professionalism, caring personality, and local familiarity. Throughout his tenure in real estate, Dusty has educated and influenced thousands of colleagues in the industry through his speaking and writing. His writing portfolio includes penning articles for top real estate news source Inman News and authoring the foreword for the Amazon best-selling book, From The Top. He has also spoken as a marketing specialist on a national level at conferences and real estate offices. Dusty emphasizes robust marketing, skillful negotiating, uncompromised discretion, and concierge-level service. Buying and selling luxury real estate deserves nothing but the finest attention to detail, both in business practice and client experience. Dusty strives for excellence in every aspect of his business.   Transcript Stefan: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show Respect the Grind with Stefan Aarnio. This is the show where we interview people who achieve mastery and freedom through discipline. We interview entrepreneurs, athletes, authors, artists, real estate investors, anyone who has achieved mastery, and examined what it took to get there. Stefan: Today on the show, we have a new friend of mine, Dusty Baker. He's a Santa Barbara native, Top 40 Under 40. He's in the luxury real estate niche, and I'm really excited to have him in the luxury niche, because we get so many real estate people on this show, and it's super cool to have somebody in that super elite niche. He's also a speaker, he's also a marketing consultant. Dusty, welcome to the show, Respect the Grind. Thanks so much for joining me. Dusty: Hey, thanks for having me. This should be fun. Stefan: Awesome. Yeah, I'm sorry I can't say Santa Barbara. I don't know why I can't say it. Dusty: Santa Barbara native. Stefan: I can't say mash-chew-shits. Massachusetts. I can't say that either. Stefan: Awesome. Dusty, for the people at home who don't know who you are, how'd you get started in the business you're in? Dusty: Like you mentioned, stuttering over it, I'm a native here, and it's an incredible place if you've never been to Santa Barbara or heard of it. It's a really ... It's a small little town, about 100,000 people here, but the surrounding areas that make Santa Barbara up are about 200,000-250,000 people. It's a coastal beach town about an hour north of LA. It's radically expensive, it just is what it is. Montecito is the little portion most people know. Oprah has this huge compound. Estimates are it's worth probably $200 million at this point. Stefan: Wow. Dusty: Ellen DeGeneres buys and sells [inaudible 00:01:30]. We just have a lot of the celebrity crowd as well. But it's an area that's very different from LA, so it's this whole other vibe. But it's very expensive. I thought, since I'm going to stick around here, I better get into an industry that ... my pay is directly proportionate to paying to live here. Dusty: It's just a great lifestyle. I'm a surfer, I like to hike, get outside. It's a fantastic place, so when I was young and getting my business degree, actually, I was going to a university locally, and I got an internship for a real estate office. Unpaid intern, I worked for every agent there doing just the stupidest crap you could imagine, but I learned a lot. I met a lot of people, and that office really became my family. It's kind of fun, because instead of the competitive vibe, we still maintained a great family feel even though a lot of us are at different companies and we're competing, obviously. It was just a great, great entrance, and that was over a decade ago, so unpaid interns, you're growing and growing, really organically, actually, led me here. I loved it. I wouldn't change it for the world. I had lots of fun. Stefan: Wow. Yeah, well, it's amazing. They say riche in the niche, or rich in the niche, and you've got a really cool niche, niche there. I was down in LA in May, and I'm from Canada, up here in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I was down at Ty Lopez's house, actually, in May. I was at Bel Air or wherever he lives, and we went up to Orange County for a bit, and it's incredible, the money and the wealth there in California, right around Orange County, LA, Santa Barbara. It's absolutely incredible. Why is there so much freaking money over there between the mountains and the coast? Why do all these rich people want to live there? Dusty: The quality of life is sky high, which ... It's funny, actually. Besides the fact that it's just very nice to live at the beach with 70 degree year round weather, I've had a lot of clients I've represented from ... Actually, Denver was two of them, and people around the country, Michigan, where their doctors prescribed them to move somewhere like Santa Barbara, because you can live so much longer. Your body doesn't take a beating like it does in the winters or in the summers. It's a really great quality of life. In fact, Santa Barbara consistently ranks as one of the top cities in the country to live, and actually, they did a study of the longevity of life, and Santa Barbara is number one. We won by five days or something like that. Stefan: Wow. Dusty: But we have the longest average lifespan here. So really, it just comes down to that. People just want really nice quality of life. It starts with the weather, and then it goes to the type of life. Orange County is very different, even from Santa Barbara. My wife, I was living in Newport when we met. She now lives, obviously, in Santa Barbara with me. But we go and get breakfast burritos, and you see 20 Lamborghinis go by. People are driving their net worth. They like to show off their net worth. Santa Barbara, totally the opposite. You could get a billionaire driving up in a 1981 Mercedes or a truck. So, very, very, very different. We're a very casual affluent here. Orange County's definitely different. Stefan: You said something there, I was almost going to give you a gong for it too, but I was like, eh. It was, doctors prescribe for people to move there so they'll live longer. Man, that is crazy. I'm going to Costa Rica- Dusty: It's real nice. Stefan: Dude, that's incredible. Tomorrow I'm going to Costa Rica, I'm flying from Canada to Costa Rica, and I'm going to live in the jungle for 40 days on just water, water [crosstalk 00:04:59]. Dusty: Oh, wow. Stefan: Yeah. It's something I do. And it's crazy 'cause the guy runs the fasting center. He wants everyone to be a raw vegan, raw fruit kind of life. And I was like, man, when I go back to Canada, it's so cold. I can't stay warm, and I'm losing too much weight, and all these things. And he goes, well, dude. Just move. And I'm like, bro, maybe I should. After you say that, moving down there for the health, maybe I should move down to Cali or something. It's so beautiful. I was looking on your Instagram. It seems almost like a Barbie and Ken charmed life down there where everyone is beautiful and the sun in shining and it's just so nice. Stefan: Dust, tell me this, man. Top 40 Under 40. What does that mean? Dusty: There's a ... Pacific Coast Business Times does something. It's not just real estate related, which is why I'm really proud of it. It just looks at the top 40 under 40 business professionals in the Santa Barbara County region, and actually, I won that ... God, four years ago. I was 26 when I won that, so I felt really good, 'cause there were people at 39 winning, because they were technically under 40. So, really proud to win that. They just want to highlight people who excel in their fields. Stefan: Wow, that's great, man. Well, congrats. I think it's super cool. I've won some awards. I won Rich Dad International Hall of Fame 2014, which was cool, for Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Dusty: That's rad, yeah. Stefan: Thanks, man. But I'm not top 40 under 40. I'm 32, I've gotta get on that. Tell me this, Dusty. One of the things I think is super cool ... You're the luxury niche, so how much are these homes you're selling, typically ... How much do they cost, usually? Dusty: Right now, I don't focus only in the crazy high end. I have a $5 million listing, a $12 million listing, a few other up in that range. But I also have a $3 million home and a $1.5 million listing and some buyers in between. So define luxury. When I talk to agents in Tulsa, Oklahoma, anything over $600,000 is a mega mansion. Here, anything under $1 million is a piece of junk. So in terms of the national scale, the national median sale price is $225,000. So the fact that I basically don't have any sales under $1 million is very, very high. I'm focusing a lot more on probably the $4-20 million range. Stefan: Okay. Dude, I'm going to give you a gong for that. That's just cool as shit to me, because I live in Winnipeg. Do you even know where Winnipeg is? Dusty: I've heard of it. I haven't been there. Stefan: Yeah. Winnipeg Jets, they almost won the NHL last year. They made it to the final four against Vegas, so that puts Winnipeg on the map. But Winnipeg is like the Indianapolis of Canada. We're like the Indianapolis. If you go to Dallas and drive straight north, you end up in Winnipeg. It's crazy, 'cause we got a hardcore value market here. Average home is about $320,000, and then the market caps out at $2 million. If you go to $2 million in Winnipeg, you're done. Nobody is going to ... There is a lady here, I've talked about this story before. There was a lady here and she got $100 million in a divorce. I guess she divorced a construction guy or something. Got $100 million, and she built herself a $14 million California palace in the arctic Winnipeg. It's winter eight months of the year here. Dusty: And she sold it for, like, three. Stefan: Right. Dude, exactly. She gets $100 million, she builds a $14 million palace, $13.9 million, and then it sells for $3.9. The market just handled her. But the moral of the story is it wasn't her money anyway, so she ended up losing it. Stefan: Tell me, what does somebody get for $20 million down in Santa Barbara? Dusty: You get a lot. What's interesting, actually, is that obviously, Santa Barbara, Montecito, is very, very expensive. We're very, very cheap compared to other luxury markets, though. If you look at what's going on in LA, for instance, there are $100 million sales. We just don't see that here. And to buy something in [Bretwood 00:08:56], for instance, you're not spending less than $10 million unless you're buying a piece of crap. That's remarkable to me. Bretwood is so expensive, whereas Montecito, you get about $5 million, you're going to get a very, very nice house. For $20 million, you're getting an incredible, incredible house. There have been a few sales this year between the $16-25 million. Dusty: It's remarkable. It's amazing. It would be on a Homes Magazine, or on one of those inspirational Instagram luxury homes profiles. You'd see it and you'd think, wow, that is a spectacular, spectacular home. 10,000-15,000 square feet, one or two guest houses, pool, tennis court, views. For $20 million, you're getting something off the charts. Stefan: Right, right. It's almost like a compound. Dusty: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Stefan: Let me ask, for $20 million, are you getting a helicopter pad or no helicopter pad? Dusty: No, probably not. If it's a helicopter you're really interested in, most people with a $20 million house or even $10, they can have a helicopter, and people prefer that actually, and the pad is easy. The permitting, basically impossible. The neighbors are not fans of helicopters. If you had $20 million, would you want to live in a house where freaking helicopters are going over? No. So it's one of those not in my backyard things. Once in a while, there's a property that actually has the permitting and the zoning to land a helicopter, but that's pretty tough these days. Sometimes people just do it without any ... Stefan: If you're that rich, you just pay the fines, man. Dusty: Yeah, exactly. Stefan: Okay, let's talk about ... A $20 million house is cool, man. I get it. In the States, if you go to New York, there's $200 million condos that sell, some absolute retarded ... What kind of person is dropping that kind of coin? I know you dropped some names like Oprah, Ellen DeGeneres ... Let's forget about the mega celebrities. What kind of "average dude" would be buying those kinds of homes? Business owners? Who buys these homes, man? Dusty: I will say, I dropped the celebrity names. That's usually why people know about Montecito, but the average wealth in Montecito is people you have no idea who they are, and that's what's really opened my eyes growing up here, is you see celebrities that are ... At one point, their net worth is way higher than this now, but I remember at one point there was an article that said Kim Kardashian's net wealth is $40 million, and I was like, ha. That's a joke for most families- Stefan: Well, she made a porno tape. She's famous for having a porno tape and having a big butt. I don't get that, man. Dusty: No, that's crazy in and of itself. And even sane people are thinking that the $40 million is extremely high, which it is, don't get me wrong. I don't have $40 million. But most of the big time residents in Montecito and Santa Barbara are complete no names that have way more money than that. We have 14 billionaires just in Montecito. That's a big number for a small town, and a lot of people worth hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars. You would not recognize their name. They're the average guy who ... There's one gentleman, I won't say his name, but he invented and patented a chip that's in every single cell phone. That dude's doing real well. There's a guy with one of my listings right now, like I said, I think it's 11 99 [inaudible 00:12:15]. The showings that we've had have been businessmen. It's been real estate developers, some Middle Eastern money, some Middle Eastern billionaires. So we get a lot of the no name wealthy people. There's a lot of people making a lot of money that are not celebrities. A lot. And that's what we get the majority of here. Stefan: That's cool, man. I love ... My background is I came from flipping homes, and I would go get a couple rich guys to back all my stuff. I'd get a couple rich guys and they'd back all my deals, and I'd buy it, fix it, sell it, whatever. Now I train people to do it as well. Stefan: Let me ask you this, Dusty. How do you handle the affluent and the wealthy versus maybe just the regular person? Is there a protocol for that? Do you get out the white glove service? How are these people different than the average Joe, and how are they the same? Dusty: The funny thing is they're very, very, very similar. I got in thinking, oh, maybe the crazy, crazy high end buyer, seller, they're the ones who are complete jerks, they just use and abuse you, just all the stereotypes. It's just not the case. Some of them are, some of them aren't, the same way that the average Joe Blow, some of them are jerks, some of them are nice. It's exactly the same thing in the ultra, ultra wealthy. Dusty: And frankly, I don't know ... This is going to sound so ... Dusty's tooting his own horn. I don't know how to do anything but white glove service, which is why I push the high end, because the level of service I give, I wouldn't be able to give it to as many clients in, let's say, the $500,000 range, because I wouldn't be able to sell enough homes to make enough money. So that's why my whole career, I've really been focusing and pushing the luxury realm, because there's enough profit margin to do that. Dusty: When there's profit margin to fly to Europe on a moment's notice to get a document ... I've never had to do that but I've used that as an example. When the product margin's there, I like that. I much prefer the white glove service. I really want to take care of people in a remarkable way, because I'm always fascinated by that. Last week I was in Hawaii, actually, at the St. Regis with my wife, and the service was excellent. Excellent, excellent. We'd show up at the pool, and they'd say, hello, Mr. and Mrs. Baker, and they'd go and set up two lounge chairs. There was eight towels involved. One at the top, the bottom. My wife is pregnant, so they'd roll up another towel, put a pillow behind her neck. Just unbelievable service. Stefan: Yeah. Dusty: Wow. That's amazing. I don't think that I'm so cool that I deserve that in all my life, but I'd certainly love to give that. So, yeah. There's no difference for me in my business of really, really high end to the [inaudible 00:14:37], but once again, that's why I'm really focusing my attention in only the high end, because I really prefer that method of business, which is why you probably had other realtors on your show that had big teams, 20 person teams. Stefan: Right. Dusty: I have zero interest in that, because my clients, I'm marketing Dusty Baker and my experience. I don't feel right having people sign on for the Dusty Baker experience and getting minion number six actually negotiating on their behalf. I want to be involved in all the high level negotiations, conversations, showings, everything, and the only way to do that and maintain a certain volume in sales is obviously to increase the average sale price. Dusty: There are certain differences in terms of expectations. I had a client a couple months ago, and this person was a noteworthy person, I'll put it that way. And they had some expectations that probably the average person wouldn't. I'll put it that way. And you have to accommodate things that you may not want to typically accommodate. But at the end of the day, if you actually look at, frankly, how much money I'd be making through that deal, it's not an unrealistic request that this person would want A, B, C, and D, even if it seems a little ridiculous. I'm working for a lot of money here. So it's not that unworthy. Stefan: What are some of the things, Dusty ... I'm from Winnipeg up here. An agent will get you a box of cookies and a bottle of wine or something when they buy or sell a house. You get a gift card to a steak house or something. You mentioned flying to Europe. Obviously that's pretty extreme. What are some of the normal Dusty Baker experience things that you do that give that white glove service so the customer's like, wow. I've totally gotta refer Dusty to my other rich buddy, or whatever? Dusty: It's funny you mention that, the closing gifts. That's reason number 26 why I prefer the industry that I'm in, 'cause I get some of the stupidest gifts ever, and I get pitched by certain people, certain companies, hey, you really should send all your clients this gift, and I'm thinking, I'm not going to send that in a million years. I'm not going to brand a ... I can't even think of an example. A cheap knife set. I'm just not going to do that. I'd be embarrassed to do it. Dusty: A part of the white glove service ... I'm showing a property to a high end buying in a specific part or area that this person was familiar with. We were leaving, and I said, I don't know if you two, this person, their spouse, have plans tonight. There's a certain restaurant I think would be phenomenal. Do you have time? They said, actually, we do have time. I said, just get in your car. By the time you get there, you'll have reservations, you'll be taken care of. Dusty: So they got in their car. I called ahead, they were booked, and I said, listen, you really need to make this happen for me right now. This is who I am, this is who I work for. You have to make this work, and they made it work, which ... Fantastic. I gave them my credit cards, it doesn't matter what the order, it's on me. That's the type of experience. I really want people to feel the experience of, hey, I'm in Montecito. I'm in San [inaudible 00:17:36] Valley. I'm in [inaudible 00:17:38]. And I think that that's really, really nice, and people get to not even have to make decisions. People just point and say, go eat here, I'm paying for this, order this, and they get to just sit back and relax and experience a lifestyle that we know that they'll enjoy here. Stefan: You said a big word there, lifestyle, and it sounds like you got the everything's handled part of the experience down. That's such a premium. You go to Amazon.com, you push the button, everything's handled. It's a one button experience. One thing I've done with my clients is we do a lot of seminars and training of investors in my company, and we came out with an all-inclusive package. So the flight's included, the limo's included, the dinner's included. We drive you to a property that we flipped or someone else flipped, and it's amazing, because people pay such a premium. We have people, they're so happy to pay $2,000, $4,000 for that experience. And then we strip it all down, they don't even want to pay $300 for the base experience. It's amazing how as soon as you can say, everything's handled, one price, one mystery price, how everybody just gets on board with that. Would you agree? Dusty: Absolutely. You hit something else, too. Different than what you said is people will pay anything for the right experience. The number almost doesn't matter. Stefan: That's a gong. We got an instant replay of that. Instant replay, one more time. Dusty: People will pay anything for the right experience. Stefan: Damn. Dusty: Especially in the high end. Let's say we're in the $100 million. Do you care if a steak is $50 or $200? Absolutely, no, you don't. Who cares at all about that difference? You just want quality, you just want the experience. So, specifically in high end real estate, they need that experience, because no one needs a fifth house in Montecito. Absolutely not. I'm dealing with a very different buyer than, hey, my wife is pregnant, we live in a one bedroom condo, we just need to buy anything with two rooms. Stefan: Right. Dusty: So if you're not selling that lifestyle, then I don't know what you're doing. In the same way that you said everything's taken care of, people want that luxurious experience of ... They don't want the decision fatigue, I should say. They don't want to try and figure out the area. Why are you- Stefan: One more gong, dude, one more, 'cause decision fatigue. Damn, bro, stop hitting on me like that. Tell us about decision fatigue. Dusty: Okay. I go to a restaurant. One of my favorite restaurants, it's actually 40 minutes away from here. It's called the [Santa Ana's 00:20:05] Valley Kitchen. Santa Ana's Kitchen. Stefan: Right. Dusty: And they have this world-renowned chef, they're fantastic. And part of their lunch special usually is there's just, this is what we're making. There's no, I'm going to order this, this, or this. This is what we're cooking, and I love that crap. I'm going to show up ... world class restaurant. You are the world class chef. You tell me what to eat. Why am I going into a restaurant that's fantastic and I'm telling you what you should make me? That's ridiculous. It should be completely the opposite. Stefan: Right. Dusty: And the same thing when I'm showing someone an area. They don't want to ... I can't wait for them to express what they want to see, or the experience they want to have. I need to give them that experience and make them see what's going on and show them what they should see, because they don't even know what they don't know. They don't want to make those decisions. If I'm going to ... I always think about myself. I love New York City, I'd love to own a flat out there at some point and do sort of a bi-coastal ... Not selling, this would be later on in life. I would think, okay. If I'm flying to New York City, my realtor's picking me up, what experience would I want, I just want to sit back. You show me New York, it's your backyard. You show me the restaurants, you show me what area I should by in. You show me the building. I'm not the expert here. Dusty: You can't, at the risk of sounding too aggressive with them, you have to say, this is what you want. Stefan: Right. Right. I love what Henry Ford used to say. He said that if I made what my customers wanted, they would've wanted faster horses. Instead he made the car. Or Steve Jobs, he invented the iPad. Nobody knew that an iPad was coming, nobody knew they wanted that. But you're the taste maker, you're the brand experience, you're the expert, and I love how you're like, hey, man. I'm the doctor, here's the medicine, buckle up. People pay premiums for that, man. That's amazing. Stefan: Let me ask you this, Dusty. You're in the pretty high end, relative to the country of the United States, relative to the country of Canada, a pretty high end market. How do you find these high end clients? 'Cause that's something that I think everybody has this fear about. They're like, oh, I want to get more business, I want to get better clients, I want to get wealthier clients. How do you go about prospecting these wealthier clients? Dusty: The low end ... The typical real estate, if you were to go ... I use Tulsa, Oklahoma all the time, 'cause I have a buddy out there. [crosstalk 00:22:21] Stefan: Right. Bro, I love Tulsa. Let's love on it, man. Dusty: Yeah, yeah. Let's say you're there and you join Keller Williams or something, and they say, how do you grow your business? You should farm a geographical neighborhood, you should mail that neighborhood, door knock that neighborhood, because that's how you get to know people in that physical, geographic space. Okay. That's fantastic. Dusty: The high end doesn't have that quite as much. It's more of a group of people not in a physical location, but in a network of people. So the easiest way, obviously, is to infiltrate. That's a terrible word, but infiltrate a network, because most of my business is referral based. You do a bang up job on one person, and it gets out there. But that's why something like a country club would make sense, because it's not that they all live in that specific area, but they all congregate there. Certain types of industries like the equestrian industry, obviously, gather truly affluent people. A yacht club, yachting, high end activities. Dusty: Also, Santa Barbara specifically, I can't say the same thing for your market. But Santa Barbara, a lot of people have second, third, fourth, fifth homes. They have a little pied-a-terre out here. So for me to go about getting these clients, I have to do a decent amount of travel and tremendous amount of networking around the country in feeder markets. Our number one feeder market, of course, is Los Angeles. But San Francisco, New York, Palm Beach are big, big markets. I do a tremendous amount of networking with agents in these feeder markets, the financial advisors, the attorneys. A lot of homes are sold because someone passed away, unfortunately. Dusty: There's a lot of ways to getting ... It's extremely different than the ... for lack of a better term, the lower end real estate. I really compare the two as one is soccer, one is baseball. It's different sports altogether. What marketing would work in this area would kill you in this area, and the same way ... If you took this marketing and put it towards here, it would kill you. It's radically different. One's not better than the other. It's very, very different. You have to focus on client experience, it's different, the actual terms ... marketing and listings to get in front of buyers is completely different, and certainly the networking is different. Stefan: Yeah. It's a high trust game. Rich people, they really value their privacy. There's a great book, I don't know if you read it, or maybe you should read it. It's Dan Kennedy's Marketing to the Affluent. Dusty: Really? Stefan: And they talk about the affluent people, they value their privacy. They have fetishes. They'll have something they'll spend any amount of money on. I just ordered a $450 gold pen. I want this gold pen. I write my plans with my gold pen, I want my $450 gold pen. That's my fetish. But they also have things that they won't spend anything on. They'll still get the no name canned tuna. So you've gotta know their fetish, and there's a real trust based game. It's interesting. You're talking about, there's the high end marketing and the low end marketing. In our game, we're buying a lot of wholesale real estate, so messed up stuff. We do a handwritten letter on yellow, horrible loose leaf in black Sharpie and stuff it in a mailbox, and the low end, messed up wholesale buyer loves that message. Stefan: But then we're doing high trust sales, so we have a book, a nice book with gold foil on it, it looks high trust. It's so interesting. The high trust, low trust. Another thing you said that I thought was really cool was going into the sports, and you're wearing a sport coat, and the suit and sport coat comes from equestrian. That's where that fashion comes from, and it's interesting when you look at history and you look at fashion, if you go to the ghetto in, let's say, the Bronx or something, and you see guys wearing Adidas snap pants or they're wearing some basketball stuff, sport clothes have always been a symbol of status because it means you have enough resources to play sports and have leisure. Stefan: It's so interesting, what you said there about sports and getting to the good gyms and the good country clubs and the equestrian, 'cause that's where they all congregate, right? Do you ever do charities or churches or anything like that? Dusty: I am involved in my local church, and I've gotten a tremendous amount of business from that. But I never go that angle, I think that is absolutely the most classless way to get business, is to be that guy at church. I just happen to be a trusted resource. A lot of people go to me and that's fantastic. I'm never marketing at church. Dusty: Charities, though, absolutely. You mentioned if people are affluent enough to have the spare time to do sports, like you mentioned, in Santa Barbara it's the spare time to get involved, join a board, be a part of the nonprofit. People typically are in Santa Barbara ... I keep referencing my market. Other markets could be totally different. But the average person coming to Santa Barbara is someone who has that feeling of, you know what? I'm going to join this community, I'm going to make this community, I want to be a valuable citizen. We get some good, good people here, which is fantastic. But, yeah. Charities are fantastic for that. Dusty: I was even chatting with my business coach yesterday, and that's a bigger component of this 2019 marketing, is being a lot more involved in sponsoring charity, actually, which is great. If we're going to spend marketing dollars, that's not a bad way to do it. Stefan: Yeah. If you go to a dinner that's $150 a plate or $300 a plate and there's a celebrity or something- Dusty: Or much more. Stefan: Yeah, your market, I'm talking Winnipeg numbers here. Yeah, man, your plates out there could be $1,000 a plate or more. What's so interesting about that, whether you look at that from a sacred kind of look, biblical or something, or you look at it from a secular view, even in the book 48 Laws of Power, they talk about ... despise the free lunch, and the people who are making it, they're giving back, they congregate together. Charity is a real powerful thing for meeting people who ... They've got time, they've got money, they've got resources, and your message might work with them. Dusty: Sure, sure, absolutely. But you can't be the guy that's clearly there for business. They can sniff it out pretty quickly. So it has to be something you're actually passionate about. That's the other "problem". I thought about this a lot in the past, and I've been approached for certain nonprofit boards, and I've been like, you know what? I think that could be good for business, but I would burn out so fast. I have no passion and I probably would look like the guy that's just doing this for business. Dusty: So I ... I keep getting emails. Let me ... volume off, okay. I just joined, actually, a board for some other cause that I just have a ton of passion about. I actually bring something to the table, it's a great group. So I'm also trying to be wise about that, because if you just start spreading yourself too thin or doing something that isn't true to your heart, it doesn't work out, it shows through. Stefan: Right. You've gotta be congruent. That's the main thing with branding, it's gotta be congruent, it's gotta go together, the curtain's gotta match the carpet. Stefan: Let me ask this, Dusty. Switching gears a little bit, you do some speaking, you do some writing. Tell us a little bit about the content you put out there, and what are you an expert in, your writing and your speaking? Dusty: It's funny. I got involved in that ... I got a good ... I like to surround myself with really intelligent people. Why not? It's just a lot more fun for me. I have a tough time chatting with people who are just doing absolutely nothing with their life. What do you talk about at that point? So a lot of my friends are radically driven, really intelligent, really successful people. Dusty: One of my friends that runs a marketing company, he's just one of these incredible, incredible minds. So, starting years and years and years ago, he said, you have to get out there and start blogging. He said, I know you have a big social media presence, you've got all this. But if you don't own that domain, let's say Instagram goes out of business tomorrow. Where are you? Whereas if you own that website, that blog, you capture that audience. Dusty: So, fine, I'll do that. But I'm not doing the normal real estate blog where it's like, I'm your neighborhood realtor! I thought it was cheesy, even though it probably works. I'm going to go the opposite route. I'm going to actually start writing, blogging, towards educational ... to other agents, because I've been really blessed. When I did intern early on, it happened to be for a group of really top agents, and then I had a mentor early on that had been selling real estate longer than I'd been alive, and I've just been surrounded by this incredible, incredible group of people who have helped me so much, so I have a lot more than 10 years of wisdom in me because of everything that's been passed along. Dusty: So I said, okay, I'll start writing. I started writing articles, and started getting a pretty big following, actually. Because of that, I ended up writing for Inman News. Inman News, for the time, that's the largest real estate news source, Inman News. I've read Inman. It's fantastic. It's like, yeah, it's amazing. I got involved in that, writing for them. But the first article, I said, you know what? I'm going to go in, bring a bazooka to a knife fight. This has gotta be good. Dusty: So I did some backend analytics with my friend who owns this marketing company, and said, hey, we can run the stats, even on their website, what the most popular articles have been, the topics, the this, the that. We did all this research, and it turned out at the time ... This was a while ago ... It was around tagging, it was around social media, a lot of questions about that, about what to do with marketing. So I said, you know what, I'm going to write about that. I wrote about how I grew my Instagram portfolio and how I'm getting actually a lot of business from it, and just the real practicalities that no one else was going over, and it just exploded. Dusty: It ended up being the second most read article they've ever had. It's since been beaten, obviously, but right when it came out, it was just really, really, really popular, and that kind of pigeonholed me a bit. I wrote articles on a lot, and I wrote the foreword for a book called From the Top, which ended up being an Amazon bestseller, and that was more just ... It was just a foreword, so I was chatting about what this author spoke about. I've done speaking on other components as well, but a tremendous amount went around online marketing, social media marketing, and things like that. Dusty: It's funny, because it's not necessarily something I love talking about. I actually much prefer to talk about, hey, how do we up our game at the white glove service? How do we be straight up concierge, how do we be the most trusted resource where it's total anonymity for our clients, things like that. I really prefer that, the Four Seasons approach, but usually it ends up being about online marketing. Stefan: You know what my favorite part of that story is, Dusty, is where you went in with your marketing guy and analyzed what the market wanted. That one step is such a pro step. That's such a smart step, and I think everybody, when they get into marketing, get into business, they just start putting out whatever they want. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. Like Donna Karen, DKNY, she was making clothes for her baby and her husband, and then somehow she ended up with a clothing line. Sometimes it works out, most of the time, it doesn't. Stefan: But you went in and you figured out, what does the audience want, and you delivered exactly what they want. There's a huge lesson in there for the people at home. Why'd you have that instinct to go in like that and not just write something from your ego that you wanted? Dusty: 100% from my buddy. His name is Seth, he runs Nexa Marketing, N-E-X-A Marketing, and it was all him, 100%. He was even the one saying ... because my website got pretty big, and he said, okay. You've maxed it out. You know how you get even bigger? Instead of creating your own parade and gathering people and calling city officials and pulling permits, why don't you just find another parade and jump in front and start marching? It's like, oh, okay, I'd much rather do that. Dusty: He said reach out to other top blogs and start writing for them. He said, everyone on top websites, their job is to write. You'd be doing their job for them. They'll take you. I said, okay, great. I researched all the top real estate websites. In News, number one, absolutely number one, and I thought, I could never get in there. I'm going to go for the lower end, which is the lamest approach. I went after the lower end once, and they all said no. It was like, crap. He was like, why don't you go through Inman? I was like, oh, fine. So I went after Inman and they said yes. Like, oh my gosh. Dusty: His name is Seth. He said, okay, now that you've got your foot in the door, this has to be good, and I mean good. It was his idea. I'm going to run the backend analytics, we're going to go ever everything, figure out what's worked really, really well. And then I wrote the article. I had he and another friend that I've done a lot of brainstorming with go through a couple rounds. It really was just a fantastic article. You only get one first impression and I wanted it to be spectacular, and it worked out really well, and it created this ... Listen, that was just a one time thing. I ended up getting to know everyone at Inman, on the staff, the conferences, speaking. It's a wonderful family. It's kind of real estate meets TED Talks. I have the utmost respect for them. It's amazing. I was glad I was able to connect in that way. Stefan: I love that story, I think it's a great strategy, and I think anybody at home could do that. Dusty: Sure. Stefan: Anybody could do what you did there. But the way that you and your marketing guy masterminded that is just genius. Writing that one good article and getting that thing placed properly ... because content is one thing, placing it, it's another thing to get traffic. Then you mentioned you got on some speaking stages from that, right? Dusty: Yeah. Stefan: Okay, awesome. Are those paid gigs or they just let you sell stuff? How did that work? Dusty: No, I didn't even take it that far, to be honest. I probably could've had products to sell. I never even got that far. It was just unpaid, but it just grew my presence in a really spectacular way. A lot of people even ask, on the lower level, they ask, how do you have 15,000 followers on Instagram, and I say, years of hard work and a ton of speaking engagements. And a good number will ask, how do you get all these great referrals from agents all around the country? I say, years of hard work, travel, and speaking engagements. How incredible is it to get in front of 2,000 people and be seen as an expert? You would know, look at what you do. You're on stage and people just assume you're the expert. You could be the stupidest guy in the world, but you're on stage, you're the expert. Stefan: Yeah, man. I love that. And I've got a similar background. I blogged for 120 days when I started. I did a blog every day, and I shared it on social media every day. It was a consistent blog, it was a 1,000 word blog. It's crazy, because that turned into speaking engagements. People wanted me to come speak at their clubs. Then that turned into winning awards. Somehow I was visible. Then I started winning awards, people started giving me awards, and then people started, after the awards, I started getting calls for coaching. I got calls for classes and products, and then I turned those blogs into a book. It's crazy. Now I've got five books and an international coaching company. But it's crazy how that one little article or that one little thing can just snowball and snowball and snowball and just keep going. Dusty: Have you seen the videos? There's a video on Facebook ... No, on YouTube ... and it talks about the physics of dominoes. I'm sure that you've seen it. But a domino can knock over something one and a half times its size, so they have a video where it's like a little piece of gum or something, and they push that over, and seven or eight dominoes later, it's pushing over a 100 pound piece of marble that's 1,000 times its height, and that's what it is. You get that one little domino going, and then you go 150%, 150%, and just a few steps down the road, you're a lot further along than you thought. Stefan: Bro, you just got yourself a gong for that. That's a great concept, man. I love that. Dusty: Now, let me ask you. You said you wrote 120 blog posts in 120 days. I think people listening, they would say, oh, that's not too bad. I could probably do that. Okay. Well, where were you in life that time? I imagine you had work and bills to pay. How did you fit in those 120 articles? How did you have the bandwidth and the structure and the discipline to do that? People don't understand how hard that is. Stefan: Yeah. Well, I was broke, man. I was flipping, I don't know, maybe a dozen houses a year. I had some rental properties. I remember I went to conferences and they'd say, you gotta put out content, you've gotta get your web presence, get your brand together. So I was like, okay, okay. I remember I started a little website for $7. I got a Weebly website for $7, and I got a domain and I put a picture of myself up there, and then I looked at my site, and I'm like, man, my site sucks. There's nothing on it. Stefan: So I said, okay, man. Every night before I go to bed, I'm going to write a blog, and I can't go to bed 'til I write a blog. So I'd write a blog, I'd post it, put a picture up, and every night, I just did that. I said, I'm going to take some seminar notes, I'm going to turn those seminar notes into a blog. And it just consistently did that, and now I've written five books. My latest book, Hard Times Create Strong Men, is 150,000 words. It's a big-ass book, and I wrote it in 11 ... because that was shift writing. Stefan: I'm a writer by trade, and I say to people, look. If you want to do this, make it a shift. You show up to your shift, and the best times to write, I find, Dusty, is first thing in the morning out of bed when you're drowsy, or last thing at night before going to bed when you're drowsy. You get in that mid state where you're almost drunk, and you can just type and type and just write because you're not judging yourself. Stefan: So I think the best thing you can do is make it a shift. You're just like, I'm going to show up to work for my shift at the end of the day or beginning of the day. You write something, maybe you read something right before so you've got something to think about, and then just go. Dusty: Yeah. What I love about that story and why I wanted to hear a bit more is that I think one of your prompt questions I read on the piece of paper you sent over was, what do you think being an entrepreneur has led you to see and to experience life and things like that? And first of all, I will say that I think real estate is barely getting in the door of entrepreneurship, I really do. I think what you're doing and what other people do, actually creating a real different business out of nothing, is very, very different. Real estate agents and financial advisors already have a framework. They still have to kill what they want to eat. So I think we get in the door, but barely. Stefan: Right. Dusty: I have that much more respect for [inaudible 00:40:03], because I know how hard it's been for certain times in my life, when you have to ... No one's paying you. People don't get that. They think, oh, somebody just pays you? I'm like, no. They take money out of our paycheck. But they don't pay me. It's given me this incredible perspective to even hear a story like, hey, I wrote 120 articles. People, you don't know how hard that is until you've tried to do it, period. I bet you couldn't even get someone to run one mile for 120 straight days. You couldn't get people to do anything for 120 straight days. But look at what kind of fruit you can see from your labor. People just will not do it for the long run. They'll do it for four days and then they'll quit. Dusty: So I have the most respect for things like that, and it doesn't have to be rocket science, but that's what being an entrepreneur is like. You do things, and people ... How many people asked you, why are you doing this? And then you have to say, well, I don't necessarily know. I'm laying a foundation for an area that I don't even know if I'm going to build on, but I'm just going to do it, because why not? It's better to have a foundation than not to. Dusty: But how many people asked you why you're doing this? Stefan: Well, I do it for ... The real deep reason is my parents divorced when I was 17, and my dad wasn't making enough money, and he was an entrepreneur, but never educated himself. I'm here creating an education company to try to save my dad. Some deep, deep, psychological stuff. So I'm obsessed with education, I'm obsessed with books, I'm obsessed with training and coaching. We've got ... Some of our students are Canadian investor of the year in Real Estate World Magazine. We've got some guys buying, fixing, and selling 30 homes a year. We've got some guys who are 27 years old, they've done 82 properties, as an investor. Stefan: So it's really rewarding, it's crazy. I don't have kids, so this is my thing, is educating and helping people, and what you asked is a great question. Why do you do this? This is a great question for anybody, because you're going to get hit with buckets and buckets of this every day. People are going to yell at you, they're going to tell you you suck, you're going to have stuff not work. If your why is not very strong, you're just not going to make it, right? Dusty: Yeah. Stefan: That's money. I like what you said there, Dusty. There's one thing I really want to drill down on and point out, it's you said entrepreneurs, real estate investors, financial advisors, maybe insurance too, are like the beginning of entrepreneurship, because you've got the marketing, you've got the sales. But the product's done for you. One thing that I think is really, for me, has been a major struggle in entrepreneurship, hardcore, straight up entrepreneurship, is product market fit. You guys get a product, you get a luxury house, you get a piece of crap house or whatever house, and you've gotta somehow find that market. Stefan: What I think is so crazy about Elon Musk, let's say, is he's gotta make some stuff out of thin air. He makes a car or something, and he has to hope the market wants that, or he's gotta do enough research to know that that's where the lightning's going to strike next. If you study a guy ... You ever heard of Ray Kurzweil? Dusty: No. Stefan: Ray Kurzweil, he works for Google, and he's an inventor. What he realized that being an inventor was ... right invention at the wrong time works out to be nothing. So what he did was he started trending inventions in the market and he would predict in the future what people would need at what time, and he started to do that and he got super rich, he got super wealthy, and he's one of the guys behind AI right now. Ray Kurzweil is a big artificial intelligence dude, because it's not so much about, do you have the best car? The electric car, GM tried to do that years ago, it didn't work. Well, Elon Musk, he found that little sliver of the market and he went right in there- Dusty: But also, remember with Elon, I had buddies that worked for him 14 years ago. His first concept was a Lotus, a lease type of electric car, and that absolutely tanked. Tanked, tanked. He had to switch it to the current Tesla, where it's like, okay. It's actually a family car, but it's kind of sexy as well. He went [inaudible 00:43:57] go full sexy, went nowhere. Stefan: Right. Yeah, that's the product market fit. It's interesting. When I was down in Orange County, the Mercedes wasn't nice. The Jaguar's not nice. The Audi's not nice. It was the Tesla. People are driving these white Teslas everywhere, and that's the status symbol now. He cracked the code on how to make that thing a status symbol, and all the rich people wanted a Tesla 'cause, I don't know, it's cool or whatever. What do you- Dusty: It's also a political statement. That's something interesting that not many people talk about is ... What do they call those stupid Priuses? The Prius is one of the ugliest cars on the planet. But now it's the green car. So Montecito, it's pretty left leaning in Montecito and Santa Barbara. Prius was like a status symbol, because it's saying, listen, this is how good I am to the environment. This is what I do. That's the status. It's not necessarily a Lamborghini status, it's a lifestyle political status. Elon provided actually a good looking political status, so that's a huge component too. It looks nice that's great, but it's saying, hey, I'm green. Stefan: Yeah. He doubled down on that. Dust, we've gotta wrap up here in a couple minutes. I just want to ask you some of the questions I love asking everybody, 'cause I think these are just the coolest questions ever. If you go back in time, Dusty, to 15 year old Dusty, and give himself a piece of advice, what would you say to 15 year old Dusty? Dusty: Oh man, I'm so embarrassed of 15 year old Dusty. I can say the older I get ... Every time I think I hit the threshold of, wow, I'm working really hard, the next year I'm like, wow, I didn't do crap last year. I wasn't working hard enough. This is working hard, and so on and so forth. I would've just showcased to my 15 year old self, listen. You have no idea what hard work is, and I would've pushed him 1,000 times harder. I would've pushed him to go Ivy League and focus on the right things, don't screw around with all the crap that takes up time that does absolutely nothing. I'd just tell him to focus and work harder, because it's very rewarding. I'm happier now than I've ever been in my entire life, because I'm more focused and I'm working harder. Stefan: Yeah. Love that answer. It really is about focus. I know they had Bill Gates and Warren Buffett around the same table, and they asked all these very successful rich people, what is your number key to success? Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, the top five richest people in the world at any given time, both said focus. Dusty: Yeah. Stefan: You can't split your focus. That's it. What are the top three books that changed your life, Dusty? Dusty: You know, it's funny you mentioned Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I read that early on, and that's a great foundational book. It's not rocket science, but it's a great foundational book for how you look at life, money, and finances. I have to throw that in there. For young audiences, that's a great, great entry level book. Dusty: Another great book is, gosh. Others ... There's so many good books. I don't read quite as much as you and Ty, but ... Oh, gosh. Stefan: I don't know if Ty reads the books, man. He's got the summaries. Dusty: Yeah. He skims. Dusty: I enjoyed a lot of components ... I wouldn't put this top three, but Love Is the Killer App. I thought it was well done. Have you read that? Stefan: What's that one about? Love Is the Killer App? Dusty: It's before apps, so 15 years ago. It's not cell phone app, it's like an application of life, and it talks about how societal relationships can really have you jump forward in success, the love component. But it's a lot better than it sounds. If someone were to explain that to me, I'd say, oh, it sucks. But it's actually quite, quite good, and really logistically, how you stay involved with people, grow incredible relationships, and not utilize those relationships just for success, but success always begets success. So that's really, really, really well written. Dusty: This is going to be radically controversial, and I don't mean this ... I wish he wasn't in politics so I can say this, but I read this when I was really young. The Art of the Deal, I liked, because- Stefan: Great book, great book. Dusty: Not because of Trump's statement, but because I think that there's something within entrepreneurs that actually digs the art of the deal, that digs ... I remember one portion where he said he wanted to join this specific social club in New York that it's impossible to get a hold of, and he would just call once a month to say, as confidently as possible, good afternoon. My name is Donald Trump. I would like to talk to so and so. And of course they told him to pound sand the first eight times. The ninth time, they transferred him through. After that, my name's Donald Trump, and I'm going to be the next member. And he became ... Dusty: So it's one of those things where it's sort of a dichotomy of actually enjoying deals. I don't want to retire. I enjoy deals. And then the component of, you stand up straight, you have incredible confidence, and you say, I want this. I'm going after this right now. Dusty: So I thought it was well done. Like I said, I think the Kiyosaki and The Art of the Deal, I'd say have a high schooler read them. I wouldn't say a 40 year dude read those. But I think it's pretty cool foundational wisdom. Stefan: Yeah, well, people always forget that Trump is ... He's a fucking billionaire, dude. He started with a million dollars and he turned it into a billion. Sure. He's kind of like the modern Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great inherited the best army in the world to conquer the world by 30. Trump inherited the best real estate team in New York, good for him. Stefan: But dude, Art of the Deal is a good book, good real estate book. Another one that's good, a good Trump one, is Art of the Comeback. You ever read that one? Dusty: Yeah, that's good as well. That's very good. Stefan: Yeah, that's like when the chips are down, and when shit is going down and he's getting divorced, he did some brilliant stuff, and I don't think people give him enough credit. He did some really smart stuff. He knows how to make money. Dusty: On that note, really quick, I will say people crap on him because when you start with a million bucks, that sounds like a lot of money. Yeah. I don't care where people started. If someone's successful right now, I don't care if they were given $10 million. I bet the average person, if they were given $10 million, next year, would have $500,000. Stefan: They'd be in a cardboard box, bro. Dusty: [crosstalk 00:49:51] and grown it. I don't care if people came from money and I don't care if people have resources. You still have to work your ass off to get really successful. Even to use his daughter as an example, yeah, Ivanka Trump had to have the name of Trump and a ton of money and expertise. You don't create a clothing line like that without working very, very hard. So I've learned to really respect people, even if they came from a place with much, much, much more than me. I assure you they're working hard. Stefan: Yeah. Ivanka, she's amazing, man. She's, out of the kids, she's, I think, the smartest, the greatest. Dusty: Oh, yeah. Stefan: She's the empress over there. I've had George Ross, Donald Trump's lawyer, write the foreword to my book, 10 Commandments of Negotiation. Dusty: Oh, nice. Stefan: So I've heard some stories, and they would send those kids out to the farm in Germany or Russia or wherever, and they had to work. They put those kids to work. They're not spoiled brats, they're well behaved. Nobody's doing cocaine and crashing cars. If you've got good kids, you can't lie about good kids, man. That's awesome. Stefan: Dusty, the last question I got here that I love asking everybody is, what's the one thing that young people need to succeed these days? Dusty: The ability to be malleable, I think. I read a great book, I don't even know the name of it, actually, but it was ... chopped into each chapter was a different author, actually, so it truly was a book of experts writing each chapter. It had some statistic where 20 years ago ... 80% of the jobs that exist now didn't exist 20 years ago. Imagine if someone that's 25 years old was thinking from five years old on, oh, I want to be this position. Well, it probably doesn't exist anymore. Dusty: So be very, very malleable. I can't make any promise real estate will be the same, I have no idea. I can assure you my commission's going to go down in the next 20 years, no chance [inaudible 00:51:39], so maybe I need to be a tad malleable and move into something else. There's also incredible, incredible hedge funds for the new [eye 00:51:47] buyers. Real estate could change, even though that's such a fundamental thing. So the ability to basically make hard work your ... the foundation, your identity, and then carry that in a malleable fashion. Dusty: I have a one and a half year old daughter, for instance, and I have a little boy coming. My wife and I talk, okay. How do you parent? A lot of the books we've been reading, and I think this is fantastic is ... Her name's Kinsley. Let's say Kinsley is playing soccer, and she scores a goal. Instead of saying, hey, great job scoring that goal, you scored that goal, you're the best. Now she's like, well, the goal is the outcome. If I can't get the goal, I'm nothing. I say, hey, I saw you on the other side of the field, and you had to run harder and faster than everyone else to get to that ball. You worked your tail off. It didn't look like you were going to be able to get the ball and you did. You worked hard. I saw you sweating, I saw how hard you worked in practice this past week. That's what got you that goal, and praising the work ethic instead of the accomplishment, because accomplishments always come out of the work ethic. Dusty: So I think that the coming generation needs to have just an incredible work ethic, and that will go towards anything. The dollars will always follow that. If you have that work ethic and that's your id and you can focus it in a malleable fashion depending on what's happening to the economy, you're good to go. Stefan: Yeah, yeah. I'll always say it, man. You've gotta respect the grind. You've gotta understand that it's going to take repetitive actions, you've gotta have that work ethic, and then apply it to whatever is malleable in the market. I love that. Stefan: Dusty, how can people get in touch with you if they want to know more? Dusty: My phone number. I'm so online it's not even funny. Search Dusty Baker real estate, and dustybakerrealestate.com is my website. My phone number is on there and my Instagram handle and Twitter handle is @dustyjbaker, the reason being is because there's a famous baseball player I was named after. His name was Dusty Baker, he managed the Giants in fact. Stefan: Right. Dusty: So you look up Dusty Baker, and there's a buff black dude in a Giants jersey, that's him, not me, unfortunately. Stefan: You just play him on TV, man. Dusty: Exactly, exactly. I can't tell you how many people walked in who say, oh, you look different. I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm [inaudible 00:54:01]. Stefan: Nice, man. Okay, awesome. Thanks so much for being on the show, Dusty. I really appreciated having you, man. Great conversation, and respect the grind, brother. Dusty: Hey, thanks so much. Really appreciate it. Stefan: Thanks, man.  

In today’s episode, Jacob Salem talks with Brian about authentic marketing and some ways to prioritize your business to focus on marketing. Jacob talks about the current climate for digital marketing, as well as the idea of perception as reality and how we navigate that in our marketing.   Key Takeaways:   [1:20] Jacob owns a turn-key, done-for-you, digital marketing agency. His company does anything from Facebook ads to email copy, click funnels… anything digital they do. He’s built a team of individuals that are really good at certain areas of digital marketing. [4:20] Jacob was inspired specifically by Ty Lopez to start his digital marketing agency. In his program 67 Steps, Ty encourages people to find money doing what you’re good at; Jacob was good at marketing, lead generation, and business. He started building his agency because he’s good at it and wanted to make more money. [6:40] One of the aspects of Jacob’s business that he emulates from Gary V are the systems, processes, training, and other things being implemented behind the scenes. These are the things Jacob hopes will help to scale his business. [9:05] In a lot of businesses, we’re doing things that just don’t need to be done. The first step is to eliminate these things. For anything that can’t be eliminated, automate it. If you can’t eliminate, and you can’t automate, that’s when you start delegating to a team. It’s important to hire a team that is smarter than you in certain fields. [10:30] If you’re new to the business, Jacob recommends using Fiverr to outsource some of your tasks. Think about the number one task that you do that you really can’t stand, and start delegating (or automating or eliminating) that task. You will have more energy to go do the other things that need to be done. [13:40] Jacob notes that almost everyone is a digital marketing guru these days. There are a lot of people diving into the digital marketing space, and starting their career with the word “expert.” The people who aren’t qualified make the people who know what they’re doing look bad. [16:15] Today more than ever, perception is reality. For Jacob, this includes how he dresses in the public eye and what he presents on social media. Everything you put out there represents you. [19:36] You have to understand who you are and who your client is. Perception is still reality, but you have to think about how you will relate to your client in what you present or how you present yourself. [22:00] It is possible in real estate to be successful without knowing too many people. You need to be really good at what you do and buy the right properties to accomplish your goal. The average business owner needs to be present on social media so their business can grow. [23:45] Brian notes that the above is true for real estate investing, but if you are a wholesaler or a property finder, you are a marketer. These people still have to get their message out, and it has to be professional so they can get the attention of their customer. [26:10] In the social media world, it’s everybody’s highlight reel. It’s not always all sides of their truth, but we want our social media presence to represent the best side of ourselves and our businesses. [28:20] Real estate has everything to do with marketing. The more you can build yourself and self-promote, the more people will want to do business with you. [30:20] EZMetrics is a social media marketing agency; they are a lead generation company. They measure their success on whether they deliver quality leads to their clients that lead to sales. They also build websites and email marketing campaigns.   Mentioned in This Episode: Meetings Daily REIA Show Facebook Page Brian’s Book EZMetrics Fiverr jacob@ezmetrics.com

Ich möchte Dich heute ganz herzlich zu dieser Folge begrüßen. “Mehr erreichen in weniger Zeit” ist heute das Thema - eine provokante Aussage, aber ich bin auf eine ganz spannende Regel aus Amerika gestolpert und die möchte ich heute mit Dir teilen.   Mehr erreichen in weniger Zeit hört sich natürlich super an, aber was ist die Idee dahinter? In den letzten Monaten habe ich viel von Leuten profitiert, die schon deutlich weiter sind als ich. Das bedeutet, dass ich mich umgeguckt habe, an welchen Leuten ich mich orientieren kann und von welchen Leuten ich lernen kann. So habe ich mich an ihnen hochgezogen. Auf der anderen Seite hat es mir auch geholfen, dass ich viele Leute um mich herum habe, die auf dem gleichen Level sind, wie ich; die denselben Karriereweg eingeschlagen sind; die auch Sachen gemacht haben und wir uns auf Augenhöhe begegnen. Als drittes gab es auch Leute, die ein wenig hinter mir sind und denen ich gerne geholfen habe. Auch das hat mein Wissen gefestigt. Witzigerweise bin ich da auf eine Regel von Ty Lopez gestolpert, das ich in einem seiner Interviews gehört habe. Er meinte, dass es diese 30/30/30 Regel gibt. Und die Idee dahinter ist, 30% seiner Zeit mit Leuten zu verbringen, die weiter sind als man selber; 30% mit den Leuten, die auf dem gleichen Level sind und 30% der Zeit, die noch nicht da sind, wo man heute ist. Und warum diese Idee? Ich habe gemerkt, dass es letztendlich eine gute Balance ist und man von den drei Gruppen sehr gut lernt.   Wir sprechen in dieser Episode daher über folgende Themen: Was ist die 30/30/30 Regel Durchleuchtung der drei Gruppen. Was man sich bei Influencern abgucken kann. Wieso Du Dir unbedingt einen “Sparringspartner” suchen solltest. Unterschätze nie Menschen, die noch nicht so weit sind wie Du selbst. SHOWNOTES Russell Brunson auf YouTube https://www.youtube.com/user/RussellBrunson Gary Vaynerchuk https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com Web Summit Lisbon https://websummit.com Roberts Webseite Robert bei Facebook Robert bei Instagram Kontakt und Interviewanfragen  Für alle weiteren Themen und Anfragen schicke gerne eine E-Mail an support@leadersmedia.de  ————————————————————

Was Lewis Howes a bully? Is it possible? He set up the situation: When you’re young, you’re told to be kind, open, loving, helpful and generous. When you stand up to the bullies for treating someone badly, what happens? They shove you in a locker. Your mindset changes. And then you realize… maybe it doesn’t feel good to be open, kind and generous. So we put on these masks. We try to fit in. We try to protect ourselves. Lewis walked me through the masks: The athletic mask The material mask The sexual mask The know it all mask (and so on.) He writes about each one in his new book, “The Mask of Masculinity: How Men Can Embrace Vulnerability, Create Strong Relationships, and Live Their Fullest Lives.” And he gives a real-life example for each mask. I’m in the book. He put me in as the example for the “know it all mask.” So I asked him, “Why did include me in your book?” “Well, as I was writing it, I was trying to think of examples of men in my life who are a good representation of these masks," he said. "For example, the sexual mask was Tucker Max and Neil Strauss. For the material mask, I talk about Ty Lopez. I’m not trying to make any man wrong," he said. “They're just examples of men who have lead with these masks and got amazing results but also struggled." But I was still curious why he included me. I push. "I think to me, you’re just a brilliant guy who always knew how to build up businesses. You had the answers, you were smart in chess. You read a ton of books. You just had a lot of information," he said. But he also reveals my failures. And how I exposed myself through writing. I put my fear and the stories behind my fear out in the open. And that's what Lewis calls "the vulnerability hiding beneath the mask."  It's what we lost when we were shoved in the locker, humiliated and afraid. We have to return to what was once lost. But be careful not to put a new mask on at the same time. I made this mistake. And I think I still make it. After losing everything and writing about it, I put on a new mask. “I think that became an addiction for me,” I told Lewis. I replaced the “know it all mask” or the “Wall Street” mask with a new, “self-deprecating mask.” I felt if I didn’t write a new self-deprecating story about myself every day, I’d disappear. And it goes back to Lewis’s point. Masks help us protect ourselves. But they also help us lose our sense of self. “Most of us don’t feel like people will still like us or love us if we’re not producing one of these masks…” he said. It’s scary to remove the protected mask layer. But Lewis says that’s part of growing into your true self. “Try to think, ‘How can I take off the masks that aren’t supporting my vision or the masks that are maybe hurting other people in the process?’” I’ve known Lewis a long time. And I wanted to learn from his new strengths. Not just the ones he’s mastered. I wanted to learn from the lessons he’s still trying to learn. So I asked him, “What if this book doesn’t do well? And you get the worst reviews?” Because he said winning was one of his old masks. “Here’s the thing, I’ve come to peace with it,” Lewis said. “I’ve thought about this. ‘If I didn’t get on the bestseller list how would I feel?’ My ego would be hurt. I’d be sad and frustrated because I worked so hard. But I’m focused on the vision, the process, and the message more than the result. I’m not defining my self-worth based on the result anymore. If I don’t hit the ‘New York Times’ list, it’s okay. It’s more important for me to get the message out than to get the result.” I believe in Lewis's message, too. It's helpful for men to understand themselves and for women to understand the men in their lives. Enjoy. And if you like this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review (it helps other people find the show, too). Thanks. You can read my show notes here: https://jamesaltucher.com/2017/10/lewis-howes/ And don't forget to subscribe to "The James Altucher Show" on Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Was Lewis Howes a bully? Is it possible? He set up the situation: When you're young, you're told to be kind, open, loving, helpful and generous. When you stand up to the bullies for treating someone badly, what happens? They shove you in a locker. Your mindset changes. And then you realize... maybe it doesn't feel good to be open, kind and generous. So we put on these masks. We try to fit in. We try to protect ourselves. Lewis walked me through the masks: The athletic mask The material mask The sexual mask The know it all mask (and so on.) He writes about each one in his new book, "The Mask of Masculinity: How Men Can Embrace Vulnerability, Create Strong Relationships, and Live Their Fullest Lives." And he gives a real-life example for each mask. I'm in the book. He put me in as the example for the "know it all mask." So I asked him, "Why did include me in your book?" "Well, as I was writing it, I was trying to think of examples of men in my life who are a good representation of these masks," he said. "For example, the sexual mask was Tucker Max and Neil Strauss. For the material mask, I talk about Ty Lopez. I'm not trying to make any man wrong," he said. "They're just examples of men who have lead with these masks and got amazing results but also struggled."   But I was still curious why he included me. I push. "I think to me, you're just a brilliant guy who always knew how to build up businesses. You had the answers, you were smart in chess. You read a ton of books. You just had a lot of information," he said. But he also reveals my failures. And how I exposed myself through writing. I put my fear and the stories behind my fear out in the open. And that's what Lewis calls "the vulnerability hiding beneath the mask."  It's what we lost when we were shoved in the locker, humiliated and afraid. We have to return to what was once lost. But be careful not to put a new mask on at the same time. I made this mistake. And I think I still make it. After losing everything and writing about it, I put on a new mask. "I think that became an addiction for me," I told Lewis. I replaced the "know it all mask" or the "Wall Street" mask with a new, "self-deprecating mask." I felt if I didn't write a new self-deprecating story about myself every day, I'd disappear. And it goes back to Lewis's point. Masks help us protect ourselves. But they also help us lose our sense of self. "Most of us don't feel like people will still like us or love us if we're not producing one of these masks..." he said. It's scary to remove the protected mask layer. But Lewis says that's part of growing into your true self. "Try to think, 'How can I take off the masks that aren't supporting my vision or the masks that are maybe hurting other people in the process?'" I've known Lewis a long time. And I wanted to learn from his new strengths. Not just the ones he's mastered. I wanted to learn from the lessons he's still trying to learn. So I asked him, "What if this book doesn't do well? And you get the worst reviews?" Because he said winning was one of his old masks. "Here's the thing, I've come to peace with it," Lewis said. "I've thought about this. 'If I didn't get on the bestseller list how would I feel?' My ego would be hurt. I'd be sad and frustrated because I worked so hard. But I'm focused on the vision, the process, and the message more than the result. I'm not defining my self-worth based on the result anymore. If I don't hit the 'New York Times' list, it's okay. It's more important for me to get the message out than to get the result." I believe in Lewis's message, too. It's helpful for men to understand themselves and for women to understand the men in their lives. Enjoy. And if you like this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review (it helps other people find the show, too). Thanks. You can read my show notes here: https://jamesaltucher.com/2017/10/lewis-howes/...

0:15 We’re Live. John mentions that he was in Las Vegas during the shooting last week. John talks about the chaos in Las Vegas and the many different quick decisions he had to make. 6:00 EntreProgrammers talk about the past visits to Las Vegas, and John continues to talk about the coaching he was trying to do, and being hit on at the lounges. 10:00 John talks about how great the Thrive conference was in Las Vegas. John talks about meeting and seeing people like Grant Cardone, Ty Lopez and much more. Chuck talks about going to Las Vegas next year for a conference. 14:00 Chuck talks about recently hiring and firing a project manager, and another. Chuck talks about hiring a person to handle the sponsorship information. 17:00 Chuck talks about speaking with an open source developer/entrepreneur. Chuck talk about his encounter with syndicated ads. Chuck talks about having a miscommunication with a sponsor trying to find an ad. 21:00 Chuck continues with finding a renewed spark for doing the ad reads and being more animated in the podcast shows, also his new plan for managing sponsorships. 25:00 Josh suggests the kinds of information sponsors are looking for in a sponsorship, like transparency and analytics. Chuck talks about the type of analytic tool he needs to provide information back to his sponsors. Chuck says he keeps getting sponsor asking for certain criteria for sponsorship. 30:00 Chuck talks about creating the tools he needs for the sponsors. Chuck also talks about conflicts with sponsors advertising the similar services or products.  Chuck told a sponsor that if they want to be exclusive, they have to buy it out the sponsor slots. 35:00 Chuck talks about this build idea that is very unique and could be your bread and butter for a long time. 40:00 Chuck talk about searching for tool and coding. Chuck says he might end up building a system similar to what. Derrick’s  Signal Leaf did when it was up an running. 45:00 Josh talk about working on a project with he is working for promoting John on Plural Sight. Also, work on some email list projects and marketing. John thinks they can make some money off this project on Plural Sight. 49:00 Chuck mentions Ruby Dev. Summit at  rubydevsummit.com Thoughts of the Week Chuck - If you not happy with what you are getting, change what you are doing.,. John - Until you see what is possible, everything is impossible Josh - Have a plan..

Episode 171 “Veiny Bastard Program” 0:15 We’re Live. EntreProgrammers talk about trying to not discuss anything before they air. John shares information on his body fat measurements, at 11 percent. John talks about low hanging fruit and having a lot of room to grow. Be harsher on yourself as you measure your goals. John get off his soapbox.  5:00 Josh share his encounter with a very strict diet, and measuring his calories. Josh talks about the mental aspects and reaching the goals. Josh mentions being at 12 percent body fat.  10:00 John says losing weight does not take long, but getting to a certain body fat percentage is difficult. Josh talks about his conflict goal between gymnastic training and body building. Josh says the train helps him feel better, with less aches and pains.  12:00 Josh explains his maintenance levels for maintaining his body weight. John suggests workouts for Josh. Josh continue to talks the the other types of thing he was to continue and change with his workouts.  16:00 John talks about putting Josh on his Veiny Bastard program. John talks about finishing his marathon in some 4 hours this past Sunday.  20:00 John talks still doing leg day even after running a marathon. Josh talks about the Keto diet and his experience with broccoli tasting like butter. John talks about low fat diet and how sex drive.  25:00 John say vanity has a high price. Josh talks about how he finally achieved his childhood dream with his bracer. Josh asks questions about John’s two image consulting meeting. John shares how using two image consultants are creating an image for him 30:00 Josh talks about doing an interview for software developers and professionals for image. John and Josh discuss how people are dressed in the work place, and how that effects how people see them.  37:00 John mentions that Josh now is an equal partner in Simple Programmer! Josh talks about building a business is a quick way to build wealth.  40:00 John talks about Ty Lopez’s new video or commercial. John talks about the main points of Ty’s video on creating wealth.  John compares this to MJ DeMarco’s practice to building wealth.  John talks about investing in real estate to build wealth.  46:00 John and Josh discuss different ways to invest money from your business into real estate, stocks, and Angle Investing. John talks about adding a “Hey John” section in his book.  50:00 John talks about the value of his book as he is working on it. Josh thinks this is going to be a very long audio book. John talks about how they are going to blast 1 million developers on launch day. John wants to hit the biggest launch numbers in Amazon, not mainstream numbers.  1:00:00 Josh and John discuss the developmental ideas for John’s new book and the launch preparations that are coming up quickly.  John talks about another idea that is similar to the new book landing page.  1:03:00 John and Josh talk about polarizing and getting people excited about the book. John talks about Algorithms to Live By  1:09:00 Josh talks about YouTube ads on mobile, verse desktop ads. John talks about different pay platforms like ApplePay. John talks about break the store with updates.  Thoughts for the Week! Josh - Little bit at a time and chipping away, don’t despise the little things.  John - Plan your day ahead of time and cut away the distractions.

What really happened to get SnapFunnels.com launched. On this episode Russell talks about how he went from one Snapchat follower to over a thousand in under 24 hours. He also shares how you can make Snapchat work for your business. Here are some fun things to listen for in today's episode: How Russell was able to substantially increase his Snapchat following in a very short period of time, and how it continues to grow. How Russell used skills he already had in marketing to market his Snapchat account. And How you can use Snapchat to help your own business grow. So listen below for the Snapchat gold Russell is handing out on this episode! ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, good morning, good morning, good morning. I'm excited to be with you here for longer than 10 seconds on a special edition of Marketing In Your Car. Hey everyone, so yes, yes. I've been going a little Snapchat crazy for the last little bit, and I'm excited to be on a platform where I can talk to you for a little longer than 10 seconds. Anyway, as you guys know, I got intro'd to Snapchat a little while ago, a couple of days ago, and wanted to try it out. Did the first day and thought it was really fun. I thought it was actually a really good platform for me. Especially with next week we got some crazy stuff. Next week we're flying out Ty Lopez is doing a webinar for us, I'm flying out and hanging out at the mansion for a day. Dude, just kind of get some people excited about that webinar, which will be cool. After that, we're going and Marcus Lemonis is having us on The Profit, crazy, crazy, crazy. So we are going to be filming a part, I'm going to be in the episode building funnels for people. So we are going mainstream, funnels are becoming mainstream, which is cool. And a bunch of other cool things and I'm like, “How do I show that to people? I can talk about it post-production in here, Marketing In Your Car, which is fun, I can go into more details and share the cool stuff, but how do I take you behind the scenes, snap by snap. So we're going to be snapchatting the crap out of that trip along with everything else we're doing. Anyway, it's worth trying to figure out Snapchat, if nothing else, to see behind the scenes of next week, which is going to be amazing. So I think I found out if you go to snapchat.com/add/russellbrunson, I think it adds you directly, or faster or something. Alright so, this is kind of the behind the scenes. I thought Snapchat was cool, did the first snap, had one person watch it, and I was like this sucks, how do you get people? So I got to figure out a way to get people. I was like, what if I just create a page that educates them on why they should be following me and snapping and all that kind of stuff? So I create this page and it kind of goes through what to do and how to do it and all that kind of stuff, which is kind of cool. So then I started promoting that a little bit and we got a little bit of traction by people who already knew what Snapchat was and they jumped on and that was kind of cool. But then it just kind of died real fast. I was like, that was a lot of work, the juice was not worth the squeeze. Now I got 12 people watching my snaps, so that's not any cooler. And I was like, how do we grow this? As I'm asking myself this question, I want you guys thinking about this for your business as well, so from a podcasting standpoint, from an affiliate program, from a blog, from a Facebook, whatever it is. For me, the question in my head was how do I grow Snapchat faster? And again, I think the process I'm going to walk you guys through is the same process I would be going through if I was asking any of the other questions. How do I grow my affiliate program? How do I grow my podcast? How do I blah, blah, blah? So that's kind of the thought right? So what I did is I started going back, and this is, and we're jumping all over the place for the faithful followers of Marketing In Your Car, so if you jump back to the episode where I talked about an epiphany bridge. So I started thinking about what gave me my epiphany to want to actually care about Snapchat? And I was like, for me, it's cool. A couple of days ago I met Brandon and Kaylin, they showed Snapchat, I was like this is cool and they showed me how they get 20,000 people per snap to watch this thing. I'm like, dang. They put in a year's worth of effort, but now they get 20,000 views every time they push a button, which is nuts. I don't know any other platform you can do that on. You can be on informercials and you can't get 20,000 people to watch at the click of a button. They get 30 a day that 20,000 people watch, it's pretty cool. So that was kind of my big epiphany. Like wow, if I could build it up that'd be awesome. Then I was like, the only reason I'm getting on Snapchat, is because now I understand the benefit, I'm going to try Snapchat. So I want to see what other people are doing so I can understand how they're doing it, how they're engaging. I'm going to follow cool people, so I started following people. Now, it's funny, I'll log into Snapchat 50 times a day, refreshing to see if people I'm following posted anything. I'm annoyed when they haven't. I'm like, crap this is a cool platform because I want to be annoyed. When I'm, this is probably more than you wanted to know, when I'm going to the bathroom I want to see a bunch of snaps from the few people I'm following. If they haven't posted something I'm annoyed. Dude, wake up you guys. Do something funny. You need to entertain me now. So I was like, crap, this is kind of cool. I can just keep doing stuff and people during their bathroom breaks or whenever, I don't know when people Snapchat, they can catch up on all the weirdness that we're doing. I was like this is a cool platform. I need to take people through the same epiphany I had. So we set up snapfunnels.com, that's what my page was initially telling them how to follow me, but I was like, let's step back. What if I can get Brandon and Kaylin to give everyone the same epiphany they gave me? So that was my first thought, I was like, cool. This is literally yesterday morning. So then I Vox those guys. I'm like, “Hey can I interview you for like 30 minutes talking about Snapchat?” and they're like, “We're about to jump on a plane, we can't really do it, unless we do it at this time.” I'm like, “Sweet, let's do it. We'll do Google Hangout, We'll jump on and talk to guys for 30 minutes about Snapchat to give everybody the same epiphany I had. So that's step number one. Step number two is I'm about to leave my house to come to the office and I'm like, well how am I going to get people to actually want to register to watch this training? I gotta do something different, unique and fun. So what if I Snapchat me selling Snapchat and telling about the epiphany I had with snapchat and then introducing the people that gave me that epiphany. So I'm weaving 20 different marketing things into one, I hope you guys are seeing this. So then I'm  like, what am I going to Snapchat? And I was like, with video's, what does really well is if you're taking someone on a journey. If you are just you in your office like, “Hi, my name is Russell, I'm in my office. Let's talk about something.” It's not nearly as powerful as you starting somewhere and taking somebody on a journey and a process with you. It's kind of like you are taking them on this whole epiphany with you. So I was like, I'm about to go to the office, what if I take them on this journey? “I'm leaving my house, going to the office, talking to Brandon and Kaylin, you guys are kind of going on this journey with me, opt in and you're going to see the same conversation I'm about to have.” So that's what I did. I got out Snapchat and I started Snapchatting my whole journey. Me putting my backpack on, walking out the of my house. Getting in the garage deciding do I take the Corvette or do I take the bike? The bike's way funnier so I took the bike. Me, driving my bike while I'm Snapchatting this message.  And then I'm out of wind and it keeps cutting me off because I only get 10 seconds. So instead of trying to be all polished I played off of that, let me complain like 5 times about how short these things are. So I'm taking them on this journey to the office and then I go into the office, go to my desk, and I share what they are going to learn, and I show pictures of Kaylin with her ripped 6 pack abs to make people want to hear what she's gotta say. So I create this whole video of like 20 or 30 ten second Snapchats, and I'm trying to make it fun and entertaining. I had my brother edit one upside down because I wanted a pattern interrupt because it was like 5 shots in a row of me riding my bike and it just got kind of boring, even though it's ten seconds at a time. I'm like flip it upside down that way it's a pattern interrupt so they don't get bored during the 4 or 5 sessions of me riding on my bike. Anyway, we made this video, honestly on my ride to the office, had my brother edit it, flip that thing around, then we posted it on Youtube. Then I made Snapfunnels.com and posted that Snapchat video of me Snapchatting talking about Snapchat with an opt-in box. Next page then, I had just a really simple process, 1, 2, 3. Number one watch the training from Brandon and Kaylin, so as soon as we did the Googe Hangout, then I put the embed code on that page. Even though Google Hangout dropped 2 or 3 times, we didn't edit anything. Because I was like, I don't want to; I just want to go fast and hopefully show people you don't have to be so polished to make things cool. So we did that. Step two is like, “Hey go to this page now to follow me.” So then it takes them to a page I created the day earlier that walks them through how to find me, how to follow me, how to watch my snaps or my story or whatever. I should learn the terminology. Then step three was like, “Hey you guys should share Snapfunnels with your audience because if you could educate them on how to do this, then they'll be more likely to follow you as well. So what I'm going to do is if you share snapfunnels.com then we will give you a share funnel link for this funnel then you can use this funnel for your marketing.” I used a script I've been looking at for the last month of so that I thought was cool and I was wanting to use it. It's called Upviral. It gives a little widget you put on your page, like share this, then you share it, you earn points and things like that. It's pretty awesome, so we had people go and to get the share funnel link you had to share it on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, I think or something like that. So they share it, boom, boom, boom. After they share it all three places it unlocks and emails them the share funnel link  for that funnel and now they've got that, which puts people into Clickfunnels if they're not already a Clickfunnels member, which is cool. So we did that whole campaign and by lunch time it was all done. Busted it out on Clickfunnels, got it done, post on Facebook and we started watching it grow. Instantly it started growing, which is cool because I had a meeting right after that, so I wasn't able to promote it or anything. I just posted on Facebook and people started sharing it and opting in, and sharing it and new people opt in, and it started virally growing on its own, it was crazy. Then last night, finally before I left, I emailed the Clickfunnels list saying, “Hey, here's the Snapchat funnel, go get it for free.” So they could go do that, and then I emailed my list just talking about the title, which is how to ethically build a cult following in Snapchat. Anyway, it's been cool. It's been less than 24 hours since we had the idea. We had, I don't remember the exact numbers, over a thousand people have opted in. It's growing, people are watching my snaps, it's starting to grow really fast, it's exciting. So why did I share that with you? One is because I was kind of recapping in my head, which helps me to get it out, and realize what we did. And number two, that same process you guys could use for anything. Think back about why you started your affiliate program. Think about why you started your podcast, or started your blog. What was the epiphany you got? Create a training video giving people that epiphany and then create a funnel that gets them in the training video, which then gets them to subscribe to your blog, which then gets them blogging, because if they're blogging they'd be more likely to read your blog. People who write blogs, read blogs. I don't write a blog, so I don't read a blog. I only Snapchat because now I Snapchat. So educate people on what you want them to do, or how to do that thing that you're now doing and then in the process teach them to consume your part of it. And then throw in a viral campaign to make it go viral and see what happens. So there you go. Oh, and also by the way, I could have named this Snapchat Cult Secrets, but I'm the funnel guy right? I talked about this 3 or 4 episodes ago. Funnels has become our thing, so I called it snapfunnels. What does it have to do with funnels? I don't know, it's Snapchat and there's funnels and things like that. Anyway, it's syncs with the branding. Anyway, I hope….that one little campaign took us three or four hours to put the whole thing together, it turned out amazing and it was all just pieces of the stuff we've been sharing through the podcast. So I hope you guys are picking up the gold we're dropping, because it's powerful strategy for anyone to build their following. So use it, abuse it. I will be using it and abusing it more. My guess, I'm hoping Dave Woodward who runs our affiliate and our business stuff, is listening to this. Dave, let's do this for the affiliate program stuff. I have a really cool epiphany story, I haven't launched our affiliate program, so boom, me and Dave are doing that. It's done and done and happening. So that's exciting. We should do it for our podcast, I mean a lot of different ways, maybe we'll do podcast funnels, actually I'm totally doing that. It's coming soon to a funnel near you. Appreciate you all, have an amazing day. I'm at the office, time to launch Biohacking secrets, it's going live today. And also Funnelswag.com is going live today. So we got two cool things happening. So I'm going to go promote the crap out of both of them. So appreciate you all, have a great day and we'll talk soon.

What really happened to get SnapFunnels.com launched. On this episode Russell talks about how he went from one Snapchat follower to over a thousand in under 24 hours. He also shares how you can make Snapchat work for your business. Here are some fun things to listen for in today’s episode: How Russell was able to substantially increase his Snapchat following in a very short period of time, and how it continues to grow. How Russell used skills he already had in marketing to market his Snapchat account. And How you can use Snapchat to help your own business grow. So listen below for the Snapchat gold Russell is handing out on this episode! ---Transcript--- Hey everyone, good morning, good morning, good morning. I’m excited to be with you here for longer than 10 seconds on a special edition of Marketing In Your Car. Hey everyone, so yes, yes. I’ve been going a little Snapchat crazy for the last little bit, and I’m excited to be on a platform where I can talk to you for a little longer than 10 seconds. Anyway, as you guys know, I got intro’d to Snapchat a little while ago, a couple of days ago, and wanted to try it out. Did the first day and thought it was really fun. I thought it was actually a really good platform for me. Especially with next week we got some crazy stuff. Next week we’re flying out Ty Lopez is doing a webinar for us, I’m flying out and hanging out at the mansion for a day. Dude, just kind of get some people excited about that webinar, which will be cool. After that, we’re going and Marcus Lemonis is having us on The Profit, crazy, crazy, crazy. So we are going to be filming a part, I’m going to be in the episode building funnels for people. So we are going mainstream, funnels are becoming mainstream, which is cool. And a bunch of other cool things and I’m like, “How do I show that to people? I can talk about it post-production in here, Marketing In Your Car, which is fun, I can go into more details and share the cool stuff, but how do I take you behind the scenes, snap by snap. So we’re going to be snapchatting the crap out of that trip along with everything else we’re doing. Anyway, it’s worth trying to figure out Snapchat, if nothing else, to see behind the scenes of next week, which is going to be amazing. So I think I found out if you go to snapchat.com/add/russellbrunson, I think it adds you directly, or faster or something. Alright so, this is kind of the behind the scenes. I thought Snapchat was cool, did the first snap, had one person watch it, and I was like this sucks, how do you get people? So I got to figure out a way to get people. I was like, what if I just create a page that educates them on why they should be following me and snapping and all that kind of stuff? So I create this page and it kind of goes through what to do and how to do it and all that kind of stuff, which is kind of cool. So then I started promoting that a little bit and we got a little bit of traction by people who already knew what Snapchat was and they jumped on and that was kind of cool. But then it just kind of died real fast. I was like, that was a lot of work, the juice was not worth the squeeze. Now I got 12 people watching my snaps, so that’s not any cooler. And I was like, how do we grow this? As I’m asking myself this question, I want you guys thinking about this for your business as well, so from a podcasting standpoint, from an affiliate program, from a blog, from a Facebook, whatever it is. For me, the question in my head was how do I grow Snapchat faster? And again, I think the process I’m going to walk you guys through is the same process I would be going through if I was asking any of the other questions. How do I grow my affiliate program? How do I grow my podcast? How do I blah, blah, blah? So that’s kind of the thought right? So what I did is I started going back, and this is, and we’re jumping all over the place for the faithful followers of Marketing In Your Car, so if you jump back to the episode where I talked about an epiphany bridge. So I started thinking about what gave me my epiphany to want to actually care about Snapchat? And I was like, for me, it’s cool. A couple of days ago I met Brandon and Kaylin, they showed Snapchat, I was like this is cool and they showed me how they get 20,000 people per snap to watch this thing. I’m like, dang. They put in a year’s worth of effort, but now they get 20,000 views every time they push a button, which is nuts. I don’t know any other platform you can do that on. You can be on informercials and you can’t get 20,000 people to watch at the click of a button. They get 30 a day that 20,000 people watch, it’s pretty cool. So that was kind of my big epiphany. Like wow, if I could build it up that’d be awesome. Then I was like, the only reason I’m getting on Snapchat, is because now I understand the benefit, I’m going to try Snapchat. So I want to see what other people are doing so I can understand how they’re doing it, how they’re engaging. I’m going to follow cool people, so I started following people. Now, it’s funny, I’ll log into Snapchat 50 times a day, refreshing to see if people I’m following posted anything. I’m annoyed when they haven’t. I’m like, crap this is a cool platform because I want to be annoyed. When I’m, this is probably more than you wanted to know, when I’m going to the bathroom I want to see a bunch of snaps from the few people I’m following. If they haven’t posted something I’m annoyed. Dude, wake up you guys. Do something funny. You need to entertain me now. So I was like, crap, this is kind of cool. I can just keep doing stuff and people during their bathroom breaks or whenever, I don’t know when people Snapchat, they can catch up on all the weirdness that we’re doing. I was like this is a cool platform. I need to take people through the same epiphany I had. So we set up snapfunnels.com, that’s what my page was initially telling them how to follow me, but I was like, let’s step back. What if I can get Brandon and Kaylin to give everyone the same epiphany they gave me? So that was my first thought, I was like, cool. This is literally yesterday morning. So then I Vox those guys. I’m like, “Hey can I interview you for like 30 minutes talking about Snapchat?” and they’re like, “We’re about to jump on a plane, we can’t really do it, unless we do it at this time.” I’m like, “Sweet, let’s do it. We’ll do Google Hangout, We’ll jump on and talk to guys for 30 minutes about Snapchat to give everybody the same epiphany I had. So that’s step number one. Step number two is I’m about to leave my house to come to the office and I’m like, well how am I going to get people to actually want to register to watch this training? I gotta do something different, unique and fun. So what if I Snapchat me selling Snapchat and telling about the epiphany I had with snapchat and then introducing the people that gave me that epiphany. So I’m weaving 20 different marketing things into one, I hope you guys are seeing this. So then I’m  like, what am I going to Snapchat? And I was like, with video’s, what does really well is if you’re taking someone on a journey. If you are just you in your office like, “Hi, my name is Russell, I’m in my office. Let’s talk about something.” It’s not nearly as powerful as you starting somewhere and taking somebody on a journey and a process with you. It’s kind of like you are taking them on this whole epiphany with you. So I was like, I’m about to go to the office, what if I take them on this journey? “I’m leaving my house, going to the office, talking to Brandon and Kaylin, you guys are kind of going on this journey with me, opt in and you’re going to see the same conversation I’m about to have.” So that’s what I did. I got out Snapchat and I started Snapchatting my whole journey. Me putting my backpack on, walking out the of my house. Getting in the garage deciding do I take the Corvette or do I take the bike? The bike’s way funnier so I took the bike. Me, driving my bike while I’m Snapchatting this message.  And then I’m out of wind and it keeps cutting me off because I only get 10 seconds. So instead of trying to be all polished I played off of that, let me complain like 5 times about how short these things are. So I’m taking them on this journey to the office and then I go into the office, go to my desk, and I share what they are going to learn, and I show pictures of Kaylin with her ripped 6 pack abs to make people want to hear what she’s gotta say. So I create this whole video of like 20 or 30 ten second Snapchats, and I’m trying to make it fun and entertaining. I had my brother edit one upside down because I wanted a pattern interrupt because it was like 5 shots in a row of me riding my bike and it just got kind of boring, even though it’s ten seconds at a time. I’m like flip it upside down that way it’s a pattern interrupt so they don’t get bored during the 4 or 5 sessions of me riding on my bike. Anyway, we made this video, honestly on my ride to the office, had my brother edit it, flip that thing around, then we posted it on Youtube. Then I made Snapfunnels.com and posted that Snapchat video of me Snapchatting talking about Snapchat with an opt-in box. Next page then, I had just a really simple process, 1, 2, 3. Number one watch the training from Brandon and Kaylin, so as soon as we did the Googe Hangout, then I put the embed code on that page. Even though Google Hangout dropped 2 or 3 times, we didn’t edit anything. Because I was like, I don’t want to; I just want to go fast and hopefully show people you don’t have to be so polished to make things cool. So we did that. Step two is like, “Hey go to this page now to follow me.” So then it takes them to a page I created the day earlier that walks them through how to find me, how to follow me, how to watch my snaps or my story or whatever. I should learn the terminology. Then step three was like, “Hey you guys should share Snapfunnels with your audience because if you could educate them on how to do this, then they’ll be more likely to follow you as well. So what I’m going to do is if you share snapfunnels.com then we will give you a share funnel link for this funnel then you can use this funnel for your marketing.” I used a script I’ve been looking at for the last month of so that I thought was cool and I was wanting to use it. It’s called Upviral. It gives a little widget you put on your page, like share this, then you share it, you earn points and things like that. It’s pretty awesome, so we had people go and to get the share funnel link you had to share it on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, I think or something like that. So they share it, boom, boom, boom. After they share it all three places it unlocks and emails them the share funnel link  for that funnel and now they’ve got that, which puts people into Clickfunnels if they’re not already a Clickfunnels member, which is cool. So we did that whole campaign and by lunch time it was all done. Busted it out on Clickfunnels, got it done, post on Facebook and we started watching it grow. Instantly it started growing, which is cool because I had a meeting right after that, so I wasn’t able to promote it or anything. I just posted on Facebook and people started sharing it and opting in, and sharing it and new people opt in, and it started virally growing on its own, it was crazy. Then last night, finally before I left, I emailed the Clickfunnels list saying, “Hey, here’s the Snapchat funnel, go get it for free.” So they could go do that, and then I emailed my list just talking about the title, which is how to ethically build a cult following in Snapchat. Anyway, it’s been cool. It’s been less than 24 hours since we had the idea. We had, I don’t remember the exact numbers, over a thousand people have opted in. It’s growing, people are watching my snaps, it’s starting to grow really fast, it’s exciting. So why did I share that with you? One is because I was kind of recapping in my head, which helps me to get it out, and realize what we did. And number two, that same process you guys could use for anything. Think back about why you started your affiliate program. Think about why you started your podcast, or started your blog. What was the epiphany you got? Create a training video giving people that epiphany and then create a funnel that gets them in the training video, which then gets them to subscribe to your blog, which then gets them blogging, because if they’re blogging they’d be more likely to read your blog. People who write blogs, read blogs. I don’t write a blog, so I don’t read a blog. I only Snapchat because now I Snapchat. So educate people on what you want them to do, or how to do that thing that you’re now doing and then in the process teach them to consume your part of it. And then throw in a viral campaign to make it go viral and see what happens. So there you go. Oh, and also by the way, I could have named this Snapchat Cult Secrets, but I’m the funnel guy right? I talked about this 3 or 4 episodes ago. Funnels has become our thing, so I called it snapfunnels. What does it have to do with funnels? I don’t know, it’s Snapchat and there’s funnels and things like that. Anyway, it’s syncs with the branding. Anyway, I hope….that one little campaign took us three or four hours to put the whole thing together, it turned out amazing and it was all just pieces of the stuff we’ve been sharing through the podcast. So I hope you guys are picking up the gold we’re dropping, because it’s powerful strategy for anyone to build their following. So use it, abuse it. I will be using it and abusing it more. My guess, I’m hoping Dave Woodward who runs our affiliate and our business stuff, is listening to this. Dave, let’s do this for the affiliate program stuff. I have a really cool epiphany story, I haven’t launched our affiliate program, so boom, me and Dave are doing that. It’s done and done and happening. So that’s exciting. We should do it for our podcast, I mean a lot of different ways, maybe we’ll do podcast funnels, actually I’m totally doing that. It’s coming soon to a funnel near you. Appreciate you all, have an amazing day. I’m at the office, time to launch Biohacking secrets, it’s going live today. And also Funnelswag.com is going live today. So we got two cool things happening. So I’m going to go promote the crap out of both of them. So appreciate you all, have a great day and we’ll talk soon.