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Welcome to today's episode of the Mind Set Mentor podcast, I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button since you never miss another podcast episode. And today is Thursday, which means it is the business edition of the Mind Set Mentor. And I have a special special thing for you today. I was actually interviewed by my good friend Justin Donald on his podcast called The Lifestyle Investor Podcast, and he interviewed me about how I built my business around the lifestyle that I wanted.

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And since this is a business edition, I figured this be really good to share with you guys.

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We talk about how I built my Amazon business originally, how I built my coaching business, and what we're currently doing right now, how I built my business so that I could travel, and then also how to set up a business based on the knowledge that's already inside of your head. We go really in-depth about lifestyle, about business, and about how to build the business that you truly want to. That's something that you're interested in. So I think you're really going to love this episode.

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And in this, I actually break down a little bit about how I teach coaches. And if you want to learn more about that, you can email my business partner, Dean, who's normally on the Thursday episodes, Dina Rob dial Dotcom to see if we're right for you and if you're right for us. But without further ado, let's dive in to this episode.

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Let's let's jump in, so let's kind of take this back a ways.

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How did you get to and if you can share kind of what you're doing today so that my audience and my viewers can understand your life, you have built an incredible life and I'm excited to learn more about it and how you got there.

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Yeah, so.

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So I originally met you or knew of you through Cutco, so I saw Cutco. I started in twenty sixteen when I was 19 years old. I hired a mentor when I was 19 and that was our mutual friend Hal Elrod. And I paid him 500 bucks a month to be my one on one coach. And it was him and his best friend, John Berghoff. So that was a pretty damn good deal, knowing both of them now and even knowing them then.

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And so I hired both of them to be my coach, life coach, sales coach, all of that stuff. And I moved up through the ranks of Cutco. I was the pilot sales manager there, so I ran the office in Tampa. After I ran the office in Tampa, I went and moved down. And we want to solve hiccups when I was there. So we're the number one office in the United States there and then moved to Fort Lauderdale to open my own office.

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And I got kind of burnt out as a lot of people do. I was obsessed with being the best. And so once I had no one in the region, I was like, OK, I feel like I've done what I want to do. And I just ended up leaving. And so I left the company and I went into just normal traditional sales, corporate sales.

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So I went from being my own boss, running my own office to then working for someone else for five years. And I was like, this sucks. Like, it literally it's terrible to go from being your own boss to working for someone else because you just for me, it was like it was just soul sucking to do it. And so as I was working at these places here in Austin, I was I was in Tampa for a little while.

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I quit that job after a year and a half.

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I went to backpack Europe for three months by myself and then immediately moved here and had never been here, knew only one person here and moved here, fell in love with it, started another with another business to other businesses. When I was here and I was like, I can't do this anymore. So I started researching how to make money online and all these different ways. And so first thing I did was start an Amazon business because I felt like that was a pretty easy way to start a business.

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And I was in Jason's deli with my girlfriend, and I still remember the moment where I was like, I don't know if it was in my head where I was like, everybody seems miserable here or if it was actually that way. We're just there were people that were just screaming at their kids and they were severely overweight and they looked depressed. And it was like this this moment when I turned a lawn and I was like, I need I'm going to start a podcast.

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And she's like, all right. Like, podcasts weren't a thing six years ago. Like, they were not what they are now. Like now it's like everybody has a podcast. But then it was like nobody really listen to podcast like they did, and I'd even know how to listen to them. And so I was going to start a podcast and she's like, Why? And I was like, well, I feel like I feel like I have so much information I can give people, because at that point I was still in a person.

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I'm still reading, still growing, still going to conferences, still learning. And I felt like I had knowledge that I was obligated to teach to other people as far as like how I improve my life from where I came from. And, you know, back story on me is, you know, I had an alcoholic father who passed away when I was 15 and had to deal with all of that and the stuff that comes with it. So I felt like coming from where I came from, I was able to build a pretty good life at that point and had a great mindset, was like, I think I could teach this to people.

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So I started it in August of 2015. So it's been almost six years. I've had the podcast now 900 episodes. I think we're about to eclipse nine hundred episodes. So it's three times a week. Actually, it's four times a week. It's about to go to five times a week. So literally constant, constant creation is what I'm trying to do. And yeah, and it's grown. And then, you know, grew started making videos on Facebook because I wanted to get the message out there more because when I first started podcasting, nobody knew what it was.

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And so when I was like, people like what do you do? I was like, I run a coaching business and I run a podcast. It was like, what is a podcast and how do I listen to him? That's usually usual. People said I was like, I need to go where everybody is. And at that point in time, everybody was on Facebook and Facebook kind of dwindled down. I think Instagram's more of the big thing now.

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And so I was like, I need to figure out how to get basically a podcast and the messages that I'm giving and how I can take that and put it into a video form and make that go viral so that I started making viral videos and got obsessed with it. And I mean, we're probably at about like one point five billion views with a B, which is pretty cool on that. And so from there I was able to grow following.

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We have about 2.5 million people with 2.5 million people that follow me on Facebook and then from there was able to start transferring people who followed me to find out my podcasts exist. So I basically started the podcast, grew the following on Facebook and Instagram, and then started bringing Facebook and Instagram people to my podcasts for my podcasts to grow. And so so it was like, you know, we did a million dollars the first year, which is which is big.

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But now at this point where this month we're going to pass four million for the first time downloads this month. So it was it took four years to get to fifty million, five years gets fifty million downloads and within the next twelve months we should do an. 50 million downloads, I'm thinking that's incredible and it's fun here in the story, because when you started making your videos, these viral videos, I didn't even know you had a podcast then.

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And that's probably because podcasts weren't, you know, as big and people didn't listen to them the same way that they did and access to the podcast. You know, there's a little bit of a hurdle.

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And so it's neat hearing the back story of all that you had going on behind the scenes, but you built out another channel to create the following to actually pull people into your podcast world.

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Yeah, 100 percent. So I was like at that point in time, I didn't want to spend any money into it cause I didn't know if it was going to work. So I was like, how can I get people to come and listen? My podcast called The Mind segment or how can I get people to listen to the mindset mentor that don't know who it is in podcasting is not really easy to be found like it's there's especially now there's one point seven million downloads, one point seven million podcasts.

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If you go into iTunes, try to search for it. And I was like, I don't know how people are going to find me. I was like the only way to be found.

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There's I mean, there's there's just so much value in having a following. Right. Whatever you want to do. So like, how did the Amazon business and then, you know, I was like, I'm not passionate about this. I want to do coaching. And so I've been doing coaching because we did that all throughout. Cutco, that's all we did was coach people all day long. That was our job. And so it's an easy transition for me.

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Oh, I can definitely do this. And so started the coaching business. And then every time I've decided to do something different, a different course with a few different course that we have now, I could easily just promote it to my following and also to my podcast. So all of everything I've built the company, I built everything. There's been no Facebook ads. I never bought followers on Facebook or Instagram, that stuff. I was just able to figure out with human psychology what people like and then be able to create content that they would like.

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So therefore they want to follow me. And then when they follow me, it's about making them aware of, you know, my podcast. They can start listening to it that way. Or if they want to be able to buy one of my products down the road, they can buy my products down the road because they've been following me for a while.

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Very cool. Yeah. Now, tell me a little bit about the Amazon business. So is this one that you just decided to close the doors on? Did you sell it what you end up doing with that business and what was it?

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So we were selling foam rollers and we were crushing it. So we're literally we sold on our first thirty days. We sold a thousand foam rollers and we ran out like fast. And I was like, oh, my God, we got to get more from China. So we got them all made. We had them all. I mean, these were like really like we went through tons and tons and tons of different to find the one that was like the highest quality.

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So I didn't want to just have crappy products. So then we had to have it shipped back over. And so we are selling a lot. And then I realized that I was putting a lot of time into my coaching business and I was putting a lot of time into my Amazon business. And I was looking at both of them. And I had this moment where I was literally sitting in Starbucks and I was working on this stuff for Amazon and getting people to follow and learn about that product.

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And I this moment where I was like, OK, I don't think both of these are going to win. You know, like they could both win. Depends on what you want. I want to go for. But they're not going to they're not going to win unless I put 100 percent into one of them. Like, I can't put fifty, fifty seven thirty, none of that stuff. And so I was like, if I fast forward ten years from today, then this is probably twenty sixteen beginning at twenty sixteen.

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If I fast forward ten years from today, do I want to be known as the Amazon guy or do I want to be known as the guy who's helping people. And I was like, I just want to be known as a guy who's helping people. And it's it's interesting because like I never would have thought that the business would be where it is now. I had a feeling, but I thought I would have taken ten years to get to the point that it is.

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But, you know, the first year the business we did about eighty eighty five thousand dollars. Then it grew to one hundred, a couple hundred. And now we're on track to probably about five million this year. But I don't think it ever would have gotten anywhere near that if I wouldn't have let go of Amazon business. So we literally shut the doors down. We're like when we when we run out of this run of products, we're going to be done.

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That my business partner, Dean, who is now and that product is now my business partner here and what I do now. But at that point in time, he was like, yeah, I want to go into real estate. So he started getting really hardcore into real estate and it was best for both of us to just let it go. And yeah, it was it. We just let it go was busy, but it was the name of the company.

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Wow.

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That's so cool. And it's neat to have a working business that you could keep doing it.

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But it wasn't about the money, it was about something else.

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And I think that that in itself is a cool story because I teach and coach people the same way on it, not being about the money that once money is taken care of them, then it's so easy to focus on what it is that either A, you have gifts in or B, that you're most passionate about or see likely both the combined. And so it's neat to see that you can make that decision even in the face of some income, that you're just going to shut the doors and then pursue what it was that you're best equipped to do and what you enjoy most.

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Yeah, the thing is, people don't realize whenever they tried to to grow business is. You can struggle your way to success. I've done it before, and I know a lot of people who have done it like you can struggle your way to success and force yourself. Like when I had my cutco business, I did struggle like I was working 110 hours a week. I was putting everything I could into it and I would be considered a success in that business.

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Right.

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But I started falling out of love with all of the aspects of running the office and doing the trainings and doing the interviews and stuff. But when I left, the thing that I that stuck with me was like, I love teaching people and I feel like I like without too much harm. I feel like I'm really, really good at teaching people. And what about me?

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I can vouch for the fact that you're really good at teaching and coaching people. They don't have to worry about it. Any tooting a horn. You're very good there. Yeah.

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And when people tell me is like I'm good at taking really complex things and making me understand and I feel like I can do that too. And so for me, I was like when I left and I was in Jason's Deli, I was like, I just miss teaching people. Like that was what it was for me is I just I love getting on stage all of that. I love content creation. I love those things.

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So with me, you know, the the way to become successful is hard work. And you can either hate your your life as you're doing it and push yourself and push yourself. And you can make people do it all the time, make millions and billions of dollars. But they hate what they do. They're not a fan of it, whatever it is. Or you're going to you can work really hard by doing something that you love. But as cliches are cliches because they're true.

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When you literally do something that you love, you don't feel like you're working right. So they say when you do some that you love, you never work another day in your life. Like when I say I make three podcast episodes, actually now it's Fawn's about to be five. Like for me it doesn't feel like work. Like I love doing this. I love setting up, I love recording. I love getting everything together in the aspect of, you know, what the shots look like and what the sound looks like and putting all that together like I love the aspect of just creating and I think that everybody has a creator inside of them and some sort of way, whether it's through art, whether it's through, you know, music, whether it's through writing, whether it's through, you know, that we're getting an interior designer that's doing this house like that's art.

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You know, they have cool job. And so they love what they do, the interior designers of this house. And I think that everybody should find something that they love to do, because if you do something that you love, it doesn't feel like you're working like it just feels like an extension of you. Right. My my real good friend is over. I was just telling you about this here yesterday, and he's obsessed with wine. He's a level two.

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Somebody is going to level three and he's going to go to level four.

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And he's obsessed with wine. And I was like, this should be your business like. And the reason why is because he reads books about wine. And he handed to me one time. He was like, look at what region this from. And I was like, I don't actually care like this. This doesn't interest me at all. But it tastes really good. Right? That's the only thing that I really care about. But he is so into it.

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I'm like, this is perfect because you're going to get really good at this. Your knowledge is going to surpass ninety nine point nine percent of people on the Earth. And when you get to that, you become an authority in that space and you will work really hard to build whatever business that you want to around that. And it won't feel like work because you're doing something around wine, which is what he loves is person involvement, human interaction. And I just love people and trying to figure them out.

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And so for anyone that's out there, it's like if you don't know what you I say this and everything. Every single podcast read talk about passion and purpose, like a lot of people listening are like, I don't know what it is. That's my passion or my purpose in life. Like that is a big issue with a lot of people. And I always say it's completely cool not to know what your purpose is, but it's not OK to not be in constant search for your purpose every single day.

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So if someone's listening and they don't know their purpose, they don't know what lights come up within their freaking job every day should be. If they go to a 95, that can be your your side gig. Your job should be. I need to find what it is that I love to do in this world, because if you decide to do that. It's you come alive and then somehow lots of people like, you know what, I'm to start a business on the side of this.

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I'm going to start this little side business. I have friends that started a business around a game and he happens to know a lot about marketing, growing followings and stuff. But he started a business around this game called Warhammer 40000. Have you ever heard of it? No. Oh, my God.

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It's so it's don't say it's weird because I don't want to offend anybody, but it's the craziest thing. It's literally a board game that's like 20 feet by 20 feet. It's huge. And the pieces are like, you know, massive. Right. And they the games can last like two to four to six hours. And so he literally was like, you know what, I'm going to build a following and I'm going to build like I want to my I want to be like he just loves games.

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And so he literally took cameras and just started live streaming for hours on YouTube and he didn't get this massive following. But the people who are hardcore in it became hardcore fans of his own in the first year. He did like one hundred fifty thousand dollars. That's not like not a lot of money, you know, like that's that's, what, three times more than the average household in America makes on average. Right.

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So it's like people, but it's only because he's passionate about it. He's going to do it anyways. I'm going to learn anyways about personal moment and, you know, the human brain, all that stuff. My friend's going to learn about wine anyways. You might as well take that knowledge, teach to people who are also interested in those things and, you know, start to build a following. And if you build a following, eventually can figure out how to make a business out of it.

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Totally.

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And I couldn't agree with you more because I've done the same thing in the investment world.

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And I would call what I do both lifestyle and investing, because to me, I think it's important to figure out how you can stop being a slave to the money that you make into the business that you have and to measuring the amount of income that you earn based on the equation of time. And so to me, I think figuring out that mystery and that puzzle to have assets that produce income so that you don't have to have your time produce income, meaning you can have your time, produce whatever you want, your passions that don't have to make you money.

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They can make you money. But what's the thing that you do all the time? Right. And that's what I when I took a year off and my family traveled the world and we just had the most fun, I found that the two things that I constantly did is I looked at investment deals and I coached my friends to financial freedom. And so with that same cutco background, you know, I always have loved coaching people. Yeah. And so what you're saying is spot on.

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And that's how the whole lifestyle investor brand became what it is, because this is what I was doing anyway. And my friends wanted to kind of jump on and see what we are doing and see if they could join in on some of the deals.

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And so I love there are a couple of things. Number one, I love that you have moments in your life that trigger like you just remember, I was in this Starbucks. I was in this, you know, Jason's Deli. And it's it's I mean, you have these defining moments that just are, you know, hard to forget.

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Yeah. And then you've been able to develop this business, coach other people into developing their businesses, which is incredible. And you're doing a lot of work all over the globe.

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This isn't just here in Austin where we live. I mean, you've got followers in virtually every country. I mean, you you've got a very you know, I mean, tons of people here in the U.S., but very international following, which is cool. And then you're you're helping these individuals kind of do the thing that you're already doing. Right. So I'm curious, big picture, what does this look like in five to ten years or more?

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Action not attached to it anyway? That's the crazy thing about it. So it's funny because I am like the gold person, right? I've always been really big on goals. And so what I set down my goals, I'm like, my main goal is just how can I create better content? Like, so my goal for this year is, is literally how can I just give more, whether that's give more time, give more money, donate, create more content, whatever I can do to give more.

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Because the thing that I found is that the more that you give them what you get, I'm like I'm just you get to a point where it's like all of this is I feel like life is just a game.

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Right. And in for some people, they kind of suffer and struggle through it because they don't release themselves from those the the game, I guess you could say, and see it as it is. And so for me, it's like, you know, I have things that are happening at all times. So like it's not like I'm just like, oh, nothing's going on. Like I'm in the middle of writing a book right now. We're in the middle of pitching it.

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Supposed to be pitching it this week to go to actual traditional publishers. So writing a book right now and then that's going to be coming out next year. And then for us, it's like growing, growing. Our Marshman is another big goal. But for me it's like I have this vision and I don't know why I always have it. But it's been popping up for a while now and I've been telling this to people and it seems to be something that's kind of starting to come true is in twenty twenty six I'll be on stage with in front of 5000 people.

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I don't know who's 5000 people. They're going to be them. The feeling that they're going to be mine, but. It's just not 2026 yet, like, I just have to keep doing what I'm doing now and it's eventually going to be that way, right, people? I was like, oh, do you want to be as big as Tony Robbins? I'm like, I don't want to have to have security everywhere. I want to go. Like, I don't want to be that way.

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But I, I feel I have no need or ego want to get to that level. But I have the feeling it will probably get to that level. But I'm not doing it out of a place of lack or no self-worth or any of those types of things. I'm just trying to provide value as much as I can. You know, there's a lot of pain in the world that people have that they go through and pain is inevitable. Like you can't go through this without getting some sort of scars.

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But suffering is optional. And there's a lot of people that have gone through pain, trauma as things in their past, and there's still suffering from it instead of figure out how to become released from it and start to create the life that they want.

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So for me, it's like I feel like a lot of the people that I've taught, a lot of the things that I've, you know, people that I've helped have relieve them from suffering. So I feel like I've kind of got like like a tool. Right. And I'm like, this tool helps so many people. Why would I not try to give this tool to as many people, you know? And for me, it's like it's there aren't any real goals like where I need to be.

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It's just how can I continue to wake up and love what I'm doing? And creating is what I love to do. Like, I happen to be a creator that does all of these things. Like so, you know, Chris will tell you, Chris, behind camera, like there was a I sent her videos and I'm like, oh, shit. Do you see how this is shot? Like, we should try this this to be something cool to do.

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Like I should have another idea for you, Chris, that we have some more ideas. I have more ideas of things I want to do. Like I want to create videos of just giving to people and just just not because I want people like, oh, my God, look, this guy is giving and stuff like that because I want people be like, you know what? I should buy the coffee behind me for someone at Starbucks and to have those types of videos go viral, have people go, you know what, maybe I should do something nice for someone else.

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Maybe maybe this world would be better.

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Maybe people would feel less divided, the left or the right or the color of their skin or gender of all these things that were being divide in different ways and just be like, hey, I can just love everybody, no matter what they believe in, no matter what their opinions, matter what they look like, no matter what they how they were raised, any of that stuff. And so for me, it's like I only see myself as a person that creates content to help people remove them from suffering, but also to make them feel better about what is the doing and see if maybe they can help somebody else.

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Like the way I am, every single podcast, 900 of them is make it your mission, make somebody else's day better. That's it. That's all I want to do. And if I can keep preaching not to other people, I think the world start to become a better place where it's going to be in five years, I don't know, but it's pretty damn big. That's all I know from from where it was five years ago to where it is now.

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And if I keep just keep going on the trajectory that it is, I think it'll be a couple more books. There'll be some big old conferences with all of that stuff.

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Well, we're on the same page on that. And I love hearing you speak about that. And, you know, how can we make the world a better place using our gifts? How can we make the world a better place, really kind of engaging with people from all walks of life? I think that that's incredible. By the way, side note, I've got some great context for you in the book world. So book launch, editing team, you know, the whole nine yards.

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Just I was so impressed with my team and we've just had great success with the lifestyle ambassador book is, as you probably already know.

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So just let me know who you want and I'm happy to connect you. Yeah.

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You crushed it for having having, you know, not gone into this world and then go onto Wall Street Journal bestseller. Like, that's pretty damn big deal.

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It's kind of crazy because this is not my world, right? Like, I don't have this huge following. Like a lot of people that are on my podcast, like you and I, you know, have not spent a lot of time in this, you know, influence or space.

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And so it was very rewarding to see how my network and community really showed up to support the book and to support the message and just the good that has come from it. From a charitable standpoint. It's amazing. I love that. Well, thank you.

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I appreciate that. And obviously, you've been a lot of support in in, you know, the growth of that and my online, you know, presence.

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So thank you for your service. I was watching you take a year off because, you know, I was like, I just love Justin because literally you're like, I'm just going to go learn this year. And you just went to every conference, even if it made no sense because of the fact that you were like, I want to learn and see if maybe I can meet people or do things and come aware like what you did in that year is the same thing I think everybody should do if they're in that situation where they don't know their passion right now.

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Obviously, they might not be able take a year off. But most conferences happen over the weekend. Like if you work a job, you could take two weeks of PTO. Sure. And you could travel somewhere or you'd be like, listen, I could use this year to completely free myself from the rat race. Right. And do what you did, which is like, all right. You know, there's this conference this Friday, Saturday, Sunday, like you went to, you know, trafficking conversions, which is like a marketing one.

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You met people out there and it's like you could have found something that would have been like, oh, my God, this is huge for me if you didn't know what your passion was. But the cool thing was. Eventually, a passion popped up and you're like, oh, it is investing, I am obsessed with investing. You know, the the stuff that you are reading and getting into was your passion. I wouldn't do it because I'm not passionate about it.

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Like, I need to figure out, like I've got to it's a good thing I have friends like you that can then help me in this way. But then it's like when you you find out, like there's a thing that I love to do. And if I was doing nothing else, like if money was no object or if I didn't have to do something, go into a job, what would you do with my time? And if for you I'm sure money feels like a game or it's like a fun game that you get, so you wake up, play a game every single day and in different ways, that makes you feel good.

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It's like everybody's got something that they love. And if somebody doesn't know what they love, I would love for everyone to listen to your podcast and go, you know what? I do have 14 days of PTO this year, 20 days a year. This year. I could go on a vacation, my family for a week and then another week. You know what I could do? I could. Or two weeks, depending on how much time you have.

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I could go to this conferences, conferences conference and then just see what comes up, like the way that I learn to do what I do and to get good was no one going to all these conferences, learning from all these people and having my mind blown like people are making money doing that, like I was just my mind blown it so many different conferences. And I was like, that's where I really was open up to. There's literally a million ways to make a million dollars.

[00:25:59]

There's probably more. And you go to these conferences, you meet these people and then like a little bit of someone's taco's. Oh, my God, that connects me. I could do that. And then you meet somebody and I met so many people, all of these companies, which is a huge benefit of it, that expanded my mindset. Like, I know that if I had not gone to funnel hacking live four years ago and met a friend of mine named David, that I would not have my business be where it is now because of the fact that he had a business, the same business, me very similar, but about three years ahead.

[00:26:30]

And so I was able to see what the next three years were looking like for me. And I was able to look at a blueprint and ask him questions and go, Oh, I like what he does here. I would probably do something different here. And I was able to see his business and mentally build mine behind his. And then literally my business is where his was three years ago. Like, that's kind of the way that it works.

[00:26:49]

And so it's cool to be in those positions where you start to meet people and then they open your mindset, you know, and then I would say last year, you know, I joined another Marchmont I'm a part of. And there was a guy that I met there was at that conference and he told me something he was doing which was similar to mine. And it opened up a new part of my business because I wasn't doing the same thing.

[00:27:07]

He was like I took that little piece like a puzzle piece, and I locked it in place. And I was like, oh, my God, my business probably got, you know, maybe doubled because of just knowing him. But had I not put myself out there and gone to these different things, I don't think I'd be in my business or anywhere near where it is. I think it's the phrase like, no man is an island. I would not have the business.

[00:27:27]

I wouldn't have the following I have unless I connect with these people. And so I think that if people are out there, they don't know what they want, you know, take the year like you took and then have a transition period. People are always like, I can't quit my job right away. You don't have to quit your job away. Like, give yourself. If you don't love it, you do find out what it is and then give your go.

[00:27:44]

OK, I'm going to give myself a transition time. You know, two years by this date, I'm going to be doing X, Y, Z, whatever that thing is. And so I think it's like for me, I teach coaches. And so a lot of the people that are coaches have never been coaches before, ever. And so but they're really passionate about something. Right? They're passionate about helping people in relationships. They're happy about, you know, person moment and fitness and nutrition.

[00:28:05]

And, you know, we've got everything swimming, swim coaches, we've got divorced coaches, we've got death coaches for grieving and going through those.

[00:28:13]

And there are people who usually have a full time job, but they're super passion about this one thing. And that's where they spend all of their time doing when they're not at that job. And they're like, how can I make money helping people go through these situations, whether it's learn to swim, going through a divorce, getting the relationship better, fitness, all of that. And if people can find that thing missing puzzle piece and lock it in a place and then just surround themselves, people who are in the similar category, like life just gets way better.

[00:28:39]

Totally. And the opportunities are endless. Yeah. To these different businesses that people can come up with in the area that they're already good at or a new area that they just want to become good at. It's truly endless.

[00:28:51]

And I just I love how you spoke about how anyone can do it, whether they have a job, they have their business, whatever situation they're in, they can choose to go to conferences or to go to boot camps or go to whatever it is. And I've gone to a time, as I know you have. And I mean, that's the name of the game. And I joke with people all the time. When I went to Traffic and Conversion Summit the first time, I think there were 6000 people there.

[00:29:14]

And I said, I'm probably five thousand nine hundred and ninety nine or six thousand in like knowledge of online anything. I really felt like I was the most novice person in that room. But there are two things you get. You get the education from the people that are speaking and you get the connections from the people you engage with. And both are incredibly valuable. And go figure today I'm utilizing all these things that I. Learned about when I didn't even have a business, I didn't even think I was going to do what I'm doing today.

[00:29:46]

No, it's fascinating.

[00:29:47]

So I just I'm a huge believer in being a lifelong learner. And to me, that's just always going to be a core principle of who I am and what my life's going to be about. You said earlier that your goals have changed. You used to be this goal setter and you'd want to accomplish these things. You'd write them down. And I've been very disciplined about that in my life as well, where every year I go through my wife and I do like our planning day.

[00:30:14]

And we do this with our daughter now as well on a separate day for her. And it was interesting this year being one of the first years where I realized that I don't feel like I need to check the boxes like I used to. But what I do feel like I need to do is become who it is that I want to be. Like, who do I what virtues do I want to embody more? Where am I lacking? How can I surround myself with people that have those?

[00:30:41]

And how can I learn to be, you know, a more well-rounded person, a more knowledgeable person? So that to me is very inspiring as well.

[00:30:53]

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[00:32:02]

People always want to set goals around their business and around how much money, but people rarely want to make characteristic goals of who they want to be as a character, as a person. Right. And I always think it's really important to think I think about death all the time. And I think it's important to think about death. And the reason why is because the more you think about it, the more you realize your time's going to end. But the reason why it's important to think about as well besides death, giving you the urgency to get things done that you want to, you know, bring your potential to the world or just out to out to to your family.

[00:32:29]

Whatever it is that you're going to be doing is what do you want people to say about you at your funeral? Right.

[00:32:35]

Like if you were to go, oh, I don't know what people I don't know what characters I want to bring out of myself. And you're sitting there like, who do I want to be? I want to be nice not to be giving, but you're kind of like service level with it. If you're sitting there in the crowd of your eulogy, what do you want every single person to be saying about you? Right. And that is the character traits that you should you should try to work for and build into yourself.

[00:32:55]

And you write them down. And then the simplest thing to do is wake up every single morning in the same way that you get in your car. Like we're in Austin, Texas, right now. If we want to go to Houston, I don't know how to get directly to Houston. I probably figure it out. But if I want to get there quicker, I just put it in my GPS. My phone will go, OK, Rob is here.

[00:33:10]

He wants to go here. And this is a direct way that we're going to go wake up every single morning and set your GPS for who you want to be as a person. OK, I want to be more kind. I want to be more loving, want to be more giving. And then you look OK and you like I kind of messed that up last week. There are certain parts of I didn't do as well. I didn't do as well as I could have yesterday.

[00:33:26]

And you're not going to be perfect. But you wake up every single day, you're basically setting your GPS for who you want to be as a person. And eventually, if you just do that every single day, your characteristics will start to change. You'll start to make different decisions. If you decide to be more loving, you're going to stop screaming at people on the road. You're going to, you know, be a little bit nicer around the to people who are, you know, taking a little bit extra longer at Starbucks, whatever it is.

[00:33:48]

And those characteristics and the character traits are going to be built into you simply because you wake up every single morning, say, who do I want to be as a person?

[00:33:57]

That's awesome.

[00:33:57]

I love that. That is just gold. Yeah. You know, it reminds me of a time that we were hanging out at South by Southwest and we just had some incredible conversations and I had so much fun. We were connecting. We were going to, you know, some of the different sessions we kind of pulled out, went to I think we went to go grab some food or went on a walk.

[00:34:17]

And it was neat because at that point in time, you were doing a lot of traveling and we haven't even gotten into this. We could do a whole episode just on the places that you've traveled around the world. You're one of the most well traveled people that, you know, I hang out with. And I love travel, as you know. And you have done just a masterful job with it and you've been able to take your business with you wherever you go.

[00:34:41]

Yeah, it's interesting, though, we haven't traveled as much this last year, and I'm sure that you're excited to go somewhere. I am. You know, I just got back from Puerto Rico, which is really nice, and I went to Vegas for March Madness. So that was really cool. So, you know, I've got some small ones, but going overseas is a little more difficult right now. I'm curious what you envision for travel and the impact that that can have personally.

[00:35:06]

Professionally, I just kind of wear you out with it.

[00:35:10]

I mean, I love traveling. Traveling is like the reason why I want to start an online business was so I could travel. That was it. When I went and quit my job in 2012. The thing that actually opened me up to traveling, though, was Cutco, because we used to get trips all the time. Right? So we had trips so we could go on and, you know, we went to, you know, Mexico a few times, the Czech Republic.

[00:35:29]

And the first time I went overseas, like overseas was to Prague for that trip. And it was, you know, 2008, I thought something like that. And it opened me up and I was like, wow, this is incredible to be able to go out and see such a different culture, see so many different people in the way that they act, in the food and all that. And so for me, when I quit my job in 2012 and backpack here for three months, I was like, I love this.

[00:35:50]

I love this. This this lights me up inside. I was like, I want to be able to travel anywhere I can. And then I went back, moved to Austin, got a job and realized, oh, I only get, you know, fifteen days a PTO like that's not going to be enough for me. And so I was like, I need to figure it out. So then I've really just started researching all of the ways you can make money online.

[00:36:07]

And so I saw these ways and I saw this when I saw this way. And then I started going to this this thing in Austin called Internet Marketing Party was just a bunch of people who are on the Internet and they make money in different ways. And so I started going and talking to them and I was like, oh, I can really make this a thing. And so as my business, as I left the business company I was with and I started my own business, you know, started in 2015, but then in twenty seventeen, I built it to be unstable enough that we could leave.

[00:36:33]

And so we left and we went to Europe. My girlfriend I, we left for, for six months so we went, we stayed about three and a half months in Italy. We were all over then we went to where we go after that we went to Amsterdam, we went to Spain, we went to Croatia, we went to Thailand, to Bali, to Dubai. We would all these different places. But I ran my business the entire time.

[00:36:54]

And the cool thing about it is when I was there in 2012, I was like, how can I make money? And then quit and have enough and then come back and get another job and then quit and then make enough to be able to keep saving, and I thought I was going to be like this, make money, don't make money, make money, don't make money, make money, don't make money. But what's cool about it is that I was able to set my entire life up with all of my coaching calls to do them at night.

[00:37:17]

And so literally what Lauren and I would do is we would go to a new place. We would explore all day long, and then we would work from like literally 4:00 p.m. to 10 p.m. We work for six hours every single day and I do all my coaching calls there. I do my videos. I'd plan. I still did videos. My first, like mega viral video was our very first week in Rome and that video did 50 million views.

[00:37:38]

And I was like, oh, I can do all of this while I'm still traveling.

[00:37:42]

And so, in fact, there might even be more of a draw while you're traveling because you're more open and you're more creative and like life. Just, you know, you feel better. And when you feel better, you show up better. When you show up better, you do better, make better business decisions. You, you know, make better content, whatever it is you're doing. And so for me, it's like I think that for me, travel has made me a better content creator.

[00:38:03]

It's made me more empathetic to what's going on in the world and other people that are around me. And so for people who don't have a way to travel and it's something that's their passion, they should absolutely figure out a way, whether it's their own business or getting more free time or working through Zoome and being able to do it.

[00:38:19]

But we've been kind of hindered with the traveling this year. I haven't left the country for the past 12 months. Like, that's crazy. That's not normal for me and any sort of way. But literally yesterday one of our friends who lives in Rome was he's over in Hawaii right now, spending time in Hawaii because they're still in lockdown. And so literally, he's giving me like the week by week when Italy's supposed to be open. Right. And he's going to go back mid-May.

[00:38:44]

And I was like, maybe I'll meet you in mid-May. We'll see if it'll work. And so for us, as soon as Italy opens back up, like we're gone, because Italy is a place that we always we spend at least several last year, a month, every single year over in Italy. And I think to be able to to be able to leave and go somewhere different is something to look forward to. And it makes you more creative when you're there.

[00:39:05]

But when you come back, it also helps you appreciate where you live as well. Certainly.

[00:39:08]

And I cannot wait for Italy to open up. It's one of my favorite places to go. In fact, one of my favorite wine experiences I've ever had is out there at Toriano the Toriano. It's just an unbelievable organization. We've brought them in. We've done we've had them host.

[00:39:25]

Actually, you came over for us at a town that time and she did it all the time and have mine. I remember you telling them about it.

[00:39:31]

They'll come into town and just do this amazing wine tasting with like fifteen different bottles of wine. Yeah, it's crazy. And with truffle oil and pepper and Cheaney oil and just it was unbelievable. So I'm a huge fan of Italy. In our last trip when we went abroad, we spent three weeks in Italy. We actually brought our babysitter out with us so that we could get time away and kind of have date nights and stuff like that, my wife and I.

[00:39:57]

So I just think that that's so cool. And like you, I'm ready. Yeah. So I feel like this is the longest stretch I've gone since I've been an adult that I have not left the country now. Yeah.

[00:40:12]

Being in Puerto Rico, it's you know, it's a U.S. territory. So I'm out of the Intercontinental USA, but it's part of the USA. So, you know, I'm it counts but doesn't count.

[00:40:24]

Yes, we could we could try to say. That's right. That's right. I'm trying to help it make it count. So that way I don't have to say I took a full year of not leaving the United States, but it's kind of part of the United States. So anyway, well, that is another benefit to this.

[00:40:38]

So one thing I didn't say is even not having to leave the United States. So people who are like, I want to still travel. When covid hit, we were in Sedona and we stayed in Sedona for four months just so we didn't have to come back to town and stay away from people all that.

[00:40:50]

So it's like people don't have to leave the country if they don't want to, if they want to be close because, you know, maybe one of their family members has something that's that's you know, that's you know, they're worried that something might happen and they don't want to leave the country because they want to be 12, 13, 17 hours away. You know, the cool thing about having your own business or setting up your lifestyle the way that you want to like you're talking about is you can literally go, you know what?

[00:41:12]

I'm going to go and, you know, go to Sedona for a month. I'm going to go to Colorado and, you know, ski for a month. You can do all this stuff or go for a couple of weeks when you decide to set your life up that way. But what it comes down to more than anything else is what I would assume one of the biggest things of being a lifestyle investor is to actually be intentional, like what the hell do you want?

[00:41:32]

First off, like, most people don't know what they want. Put it on a piece of paper like, what do you want your life to look like? There's no reason why your life can't be that. The only thing that's restricting you from being there is you thinking that you can't be there. That's the only thing. So I think that, you know, it's about waking up and being intentional with a lot of the stuff that you do so that you can build a life that you want and be free from the the rat race that so many people are stuck in, you know, totally.

[00:41:56]

And here's the thing. People get really clear on what they don't want for sure. They just don't get clear on what they do want. Right. And it's fascinating. And then sometimes people say, well, I'm going to stop being an employee. I need to be my own boss because I need freedom and I need autonomy and, you know, I need agency in my life. But then their business ends up owning them and they work more hours and they're more consumed by it.

[00:42:21]

And for a while it's fun. It's a challenge. But at a certain point, that's not the case. And and you end up being in it just it's still a rat race. It's a bigger, nicer rat race. I joke with people like you get off the the treadmill, this this, you know, enslaved treadmill of having a boss and having a job.

[00:42:41]

And then you just get on a really nicer one. Like a pelletised. Yeah. Treadmill, you know, it goes a lot faster and it's a lot more stable and there is, you know, more competition in it. And there's just so many more ways to keep you hooked to it. But it's still a treadmill that's hard to get off. Yeah.

[00:42:58]

And like you, I mean, I feel like there's so much perspective and just energy and there's just so much about traveling that makes me a better person, makes me a more understanding and compassionate person, which I think is really important, especially in a day like today and especially, you know, being married and having a daughter, having a young daughter. But we really had the most fun this past summer. We went to Colorado. We went to all the cool spaces in Colorado that generally people go in the winter and we decided to do them in the summer.

[00:43:34]

So we did Breckenridge and Vail and we did, by the way, we did like every major cool place in Colorado. We had home base out of Denver. We hit up, you know, Boulder and Colorado Springs and Fort Collins. I mean, we literally hit up every cool place all along the way, went to Steamboat and then did a road trip all over Texas and all over New Mexico. And it was just a blast. And so just because you you can't leave the U.S. doesn't mean that you shouldn't take advantage of all the wonderful sights and experiences the U.S. has to offer or wherever your country is, wherever you're listening.

[00:44:12]

Yeah.

[00:44:13]

And it's it's it's sad that people don't think that it's possible, you know, and it's it's sad that people stay locked into it. And what she said is, is a really big point where I always say most people most people want to leave their jobs so they have freedom. But then they get so locked into their job, they want to leave their jobs. They want to leave their business so they can have freedom so that they leave a job because they want freedom, they start a business, they get locked into it, and then they want freedom from that business.

[00:44:37]

So they want to shut it down. So a lot of people, what they also do as they start businesses is they don't they don't tend to start businesses a lot of times and something that they truly love. Sometimes they go in it just to make money and then they actually hate that more than what they did before because now they're locked into something, working more hours, sometimes doing something that they absolutely love. And so it's about finding what you love doing not thing, but then realizing that the most important thing for me, I think as somebody that that wants to grow their business is as money comes in, don't spend the money on yourself, spend it on getting more people in, because when you start getting really good people, that's when you're able to get freedom.

[00:45:14]

And believe me, like when I had my first business, I ran it into the ground because I could not delegate. And most people who have businesses don't delegate. But the more that's more money that comes in, the more you start spending in a more people and bringing in more people and bringing more people, the more freedom that those people create for you. And the we both have a lot of friends that have a lot of different businesses, the ones that I've seen that that love their lives the most and that usually the most successful are the ones that trust other people to run aspects of their business.

[00:45:45]

And they don't micromanage them every single day. And they just like this person's really good at what they do. Like when I bring someone on, I want them to see the my business and what they do with it as their business under my business, like I want them to to literally see it as their business because then they have full autonomy of what they're doing. They love it more. But also the same time it's like the.

[00:46:07]

The average person will look at what somebody does, let's say at sales, for instance, I'm good in sales. I could hire a salesperson. I could probably do the phone calls better than them. Right. But if I have four salespeople, I can't do as many phone calls as them.

[00:46:21]

So I have four salespeople on my team. So I might be better than all of them, at least maybe just a little bit. I could do all four of, you know, what, six calls a day, 17, 20 calls a day. There's that I there's no way I could do a time was so my business has grown because I brought on the right people who see this as part of their business, their own business inside of my business.

[00:46:40]

But there's a part of me, the micromanaging side that the SO is also on top of me. I'm like, they're going to do it. Like, just trust them to do it. They're going to figure out they're going to get better. And what tends to happen is when you give somebody autonomy. They end up loving their job a lot more. And one of the phrases that I've always heard that sticks with me a lot is that people don't quit, people don't quit their job, they quit their manager.

[00:47:02]

And a lot of times that people quit their manager because the fact that they're they feel like they are constricted and they can't do anything and can't be themselves and they can't create in their in their role, in their position, in when you do that, it does a couple different things. Number one, the best thing that it does is it frees up more time for you in year to the people tend to show up more. And that's what really matters.

[00:47:22]

Yeah, there's no doubt in, you know, something else really important that you said that I think is I actually want to, like, draw some math to it because, you know, number one, you find people that want to go above and beyond the call of duty based on how you hire them. Right. You're finding people with certain personality traits with with certain behavioral traits. And you can find people that are going to thrive in the environment that you want.

[00:47:51]

But you made a really good point. And I used to do a lot of consulting and advising for companies to help them scale.

[00:47:56]

And this is it. It's what you just said that let's say that you can do something better than someone else. Maybe they're only 80 percent as good as you. And you could do it 90 percent, 100 percent, whatever it is.

[00:48:11]

Yeah, well, what happens when you really want to scale even outside of sales? You gave an example for salespeople. Well, you're not going be able to do it for salespeople, you know, so they can do worse than you and they can do it even considerably worse than you. But for people, it's still going to produce some more returns. For sure. The sum is greater.

[00:48:31]

Yeah, well, what happens then when you get to, you know, operations, right. You can do operations where you're kind of managing all aspects of the business. But when you plug someone in there, maybe they do it 70 percent as well as you.

[00:48:44]

But that gives you the freedom to be able to be in on your business, not in your business, not into the day to day, but thinking and and strategizing.

[00:48:53]

And so it's so powerful. Let's say you have five people that you bring in and they all do 70 to 80 percent as well as you do in that role. But you add that up and there's no way you could ever do that. No way. There's not enough hours in the day. Yeah.

[00:49:06]

And what you do is in what I don't remember who said it to me one time, but we were talking about zones of genius, like someone's like, what are your zones of genius? And I was like, I feel like I'm really good at creating content that people love. I feel like that's something that I understand. And the second thing is I'm really good at coaching people.

[00:49:22]

And it came became very aware to me that in my business, as it grows, the only two things that I should ever do is coach people and create content that there is nothing else that I should be doing. And the more that someone gets focus on that, they realize when I stay in my zone of genius, I can then hire people that stay in their zone of genius. Right. So, like, our stuff right now is being recorded through video, through mic, all of the stuff in my videographer, Chris is doing it.

[00:49:48]

Chris is way better than this that I am like she's better at it than I am. And being able to run a business where I focus just on this and be able to bring her in her zone of genius is this. She's also obsessed with it. Like literally Chris is obsessed with this. Right. Colors and all of the stuff. And like that's her life. And that's the beautiful thing, is that she loves doing this thing and creating in my business, but also outside of my business and getting better and better and better.

[00:50:13]

And like we were talking about, we were in the studio. I was like, she's really frickin good at lighting. Right? And she's gotten better and better. And Chris, to tell you, she's she wasn't that great at lighting when she first start, but she's she's improved because she's gone. I want to get better at this. I want to get better at creating content. Right. So now our lighting looks really damn good. And all the videos, I can't set my cameras up to look as good as they are because my zone of genius is creating content and coaching people.

[00:50:37]

Hers is video, you know, making stuff look good. So that's hers then. I have, you know, Dean, who's my director of sales, my best friend, he is obsessed with sales.

[00:50:46]

I love sales. I'm not obsessed with it like I'm good at it, but I get tired of it if I do it for too long. He's obsessed with it. I'll tell you this. When he first came on, I was better than him at the position. He's way better than me. What's crazy about it, though, is he's so good at it.

[00:50:59]

He's gotten ridiculously good in, trained our other three people that they are all probably, if I would be honest with you, all four of them are probably better than me because they've been able to focus on those things. And by me removing myself from the actual day to day of getting those things done, it's allowed somebody else to go, OK, this is this is my zone of genius. I'm going to focus on this Chris and video dean in sales for my coaches.

[00:51:25]

So I have Lauren and Abby who coach people that come into my courses and everything that I do, they coach them what I want wanted. They help them that way. So so then now they're going and getting like Dartmouth certifications and certified and like the the the way to listen to your intuition more and do all this stuff that makes them really good at what they do. Then in my marketing, I have Jeremy on outsourcing to Jeremy because Jeremy is obsessed with marketing, putting colliculus together, making active campaign talk to click for us.

[00:51:50]

Nothing bothers me more than. Trying to set up a page, but these people are all like masters of what they do and the more full autonomy that they have allowed me to have more full autonomy of what I do and not have to focus on those things. And the thing that I see most of the most people is that it is really hard to delegate. And most of the time it's actually an ego issue more than it's anything else. And it's this is my baby.

[00:52:13]

No one else can do it better than I can. But if you're going to completely scale, we have 12 people on our team. I can't do 12 people's job. Right. There's no way it's time wise. It just does not work. But when I let them do it, it frees me up to live my life and do the things that I want to do. And the more that I can do the things that I want to do, like travel, for instance, the better my content is, the better I coach people, the better ideas.

[00:52:33]

I come up with all of that stuff and I'm able to stay in my zone of genius and a lot of them stay in theirs. And in turn, I feel like everyone's happier. You know, I feel like people love what they do a lot more than when there's some of us on their ass checking their numbers every single day. Tell me about this. Tell me about this. Tell me about this. This isn't good enough. This isn't good enough.

[00:52:50]

And in the business, just seems more effortless that way, which was a beautiful part about it as well.

[00:52:56]

That's awesome. Well, it's cool hearing your evolution as a business owner and not just the content creator. Right, because you've got both. But I can see a lot of your passions in the content creation side. It's neat seeing all the people that you have come into contact with that have helped you in this world. You mentioned Internet marketing party, and David Gonzalez is a good friend of both of ours. And what a great guy. I just want to give him a shout out for sure.

[00:53:20]

And it's just so cool seeing the way that you have grown and evolved and have just gone from, you know, one business to a completely different business and the success that you've had through and through. Yet you are still this amazing down to earth, humble, easy to hang out with, wonderful guy that, you know, I feel very privileged to call a friend. So I'm just, you know, excited that we could share all this with with the world and people could learn more about you and all that you have going on for sure.

[00:53:53]

I'd love to know who are some of your greatest mentors or teachers? This could be, you know, real life. This could be, you know, books that you've read.

[00:54:05]

Who are they or what are they?

[00:54:07]

So my favorite book, Ever Think and Grow Rich, that was the first book. If you wanna hear a funny story, let me tell you this. We rewind it. So so Saturday we had a party. My birthday was yesterday. So Saturday we had a party and I was sitting outside and I was like, all my friends are here. And I was like, man, it's it's crazy. Like, you know, I'm 35. And so I was like, OK, I'm literally as close to birth as I am to seventy years old.

[00:54:31]

And I started thinking that I was like, man, it's crazy to think of like what what the life that I have created. Right. Life is something that we create. It's not something just happens to us.

[00:54:39]

And I was like it all started because I was reading a book that John Berghof told me to read. I didn't read. I never read, I didn't read in college. I don't read in high school. I dropped out of college, high school. I did well. But it was just because I'm really good at memorizing stuff, like I'm just I'm very good at memorizing, which is why I like I can tell you in Starbucks for this, I was in Jason's I remember I remember almost every detail and that happened to me.

[00:55:00]

It's a skill set. And he was like, you should start reading books. And he he told me to read the five major pieces of the life puzzle about gym run.

[00:55:07]

So I went and got it when all my friends are still here and I went and got in, I literally like almost the whole book is highlighted and underlined and stars and all of this stuff. And I opened it up and I was like, let me just see, like if the universe has a message for me, let me open it up. And I opened it up and it talked about that literally there was a box like this huge paragraph. I literally took the entire box and I put around it and put a star next to it so and so I could see it.

[00:55:29]

And it said, basically what we're talking about is like life is something that you create. It's not something that's just that just happens to you. But if you don't pay attention, it will just happen to you. Right. And so I was like, man, that's crazy to think about. Like, I remember reading this book, another part of me remembering where I was. I remember being in my Nissan Sentra the first time I cracked that book open, first book that I had read without ever being forced to read.

[00:55:52]

And I remember as my Nissan Sentra outside of someone's car waiting for her outside someone's house, waiting for them to show up for a demo. And I started reading it. I was like, oh, my gosh, this is this is good. This is great. And so, like, that was the very first. And Jim Brown is Tony Robbins, his mentor. I a first book that I read that was like opened me up to books.

[00:56:09]

Then I was told, oh, you should you should rethink and grow rich. I think you grow rich. And I was the first book that opened me up to success, whether it's financial success, whether it's relationships, any aspect being being a great parent, all of them have steps to being quote unquote successful or what would just success can basically just be good at it, go to business, go to relationships. All of them have steps to quote unquote success and think and grow rich made me realize I can do anything that I want to do.

[00:56:40]

I've just got to figure out these steps to success are. Doesn't matter what it is, no matter what it is, I can figure out the substance. That's because somebody else has been successful in this thing before me. So I can find out, you know, get their autobiography or if I can get myself around them, you know, if they are still alive or if it's possible for me to learn about them. So for me, it was like that was the very first book where I was like, I can do whatever I want, which is not was not really normal for me as a child because I didn't come from a place where there are a lot of rich people around me or people who had money.

[00:57:07]

So it wasn't like I knew wealth in what that looks like, but I was like, oh, I can get into it. I wasn't surrounded by it at this point. So like for me it was always really big. And then obviously Tony Robbins helped. But what's my biggest mentors for me now are actually really deep philosophers. So I went on a really long Alan Watts kick. I love Alan Watts. I love thinking really, really deep when when I can be quiet in, like, you know, outside.

[00:57:35]

It's just all natures so I can sit outside and I can sit and think deeply. My best ideas come from that in the that's what I really like. I love the philosophical side of life. And so for me it was like, I love Alan Watts. I've been on this for a couple of years. A Ramdas kick like I love Ramdas and just. Yeah, just just spirituality in general. I feel like the first 35 years of my life was very much like business and make money and do this.

[00:58:03]

And now it's like kind of the transition of, you know, if that was the first 35 years of my life and I've got another at least another 35, hopefully, what do I want those to be on? And it's much more of spiritual development and character development of who I want to be. And so I would say like as a you know, and then there's a lot of different mentors. I'd say like Bob Marley opened me up to some different stuff where he was speaking different and talking about money differently.

[00:58:26]

And I think that he kind of open you up to different things. And, you know, there was also like music of music really opened me up to as I listen to my music from high school, go back and listen to it. I realised that the music I listen to made me think differently. And the music that I listen to is never like anarchist type music. But it was always kind of like screw the system type music. Like Ben Harper would kind of talk like that.

[00:58:50]

Jack Johnson, when he talks about, you know, the there was a song talks about it's called Cookie Jar, where he talks about the people in the news and, you know, all of the stuff that's happening. And, you know, then there's like a John Mayer song where they talk about they feed you, you know, they give you the music, they give you the the news to think you think certain ways. And I'm sorry to Lissa's music to go, oh, my God, the music that I listen to in high school made me go, I'm not going to follow the rules like that's that was the music kind of brainwash me to go.

[00:59:18]

I'm not going to follow the rules because I'm not good at following rules. I'm not good at being told what to do. I'm real good when I have my own thing. And I like we've been talking about full autonomy of what I want to do. So. I would say, like there's so many mentors and songs that I've listened to in books that I've read and people that I've talked to growing up along the way that have opened my eyes to the world doesn't have to be the way that I think the world is.

[00:59:40]

And I can create it to be whatever I want it to be. And so I think that a lot of people don't pay attention to the people that they surround themselves with enough. I don't think they pay attention to the music they listen to enough, because I really do believe in the fact that the words that we use, especially in our own heads and out loud, will change the way that we think. And if I'm singing something out loud, that is a verbal incantation or affirmation.

[01:00:04]

And so I'm starting to change the music I listen to and go, oh, yeah, you know, I do like the beat of this, but I would never say that to a woman like, you know, to me, like, there's a lot of music like that where I'm like I actually don't believe what they're saying. Maybe I should start listening to music that I do believe. And as I started doing that, started going back to music I used to listen to like, oh my God, I can see how these people were, you know, as my podcast is called Minds Mentors, these were kind of mindset mentors for me in high school.

[01:00:30]

And I had no clue where I was like, I'm not going to follow the rules. I'm not going to care about this. I'm not going to care. I'm going to do my own thing. And once I started listening to music, I think I kind of clicked out of the rat race from there on and then went to college was like, I don't like this at all. And then I found Cutco and I was like, whoa, I can do my own thing and make as much money as I want.

[01:00:50]

And I could be my own boss. I don't listen to anybody. This is amazing. Oh, I can open my own office with them. And then I went back in the rat race and I was like, no, this doesn't line up with who I am at all. And so I think that there's been so many different mentors along the way.

[01:01:02]

And Rob, ten years ago would have been like, yeah, I'm nobody's help me. I'm completely self-made. I'm a you know, seven years ago I would have been like, I'm self-made. Like I've I've made all the money. And I don't I don't understand what they mean when they say no man's an island.

[01:01:15]

But as I get older, I realize every single person I've talked to, every single thing that I've read, every single thing that I've listened to, the music have all changed me in some sort of way to become the person that I am. And so I think mentors are literally all around me my entire life. That's awesome.

[01:01:30]

What a cool answer. And it's interesting to think about what music did you listen to and what influence did it have? Because even when you don't realize that it did, it may have. Right.

[01:01:42]

It's it's a subconscious thing. And there trends and themes that you'll see show up later on in life. I think that's incredible. It's great recognition. And I appreciate you pointing to that as an influence. And I've actually never really considered the lyrics of the music that I listen to, to be some of the influencers or major influencers of my life.

[01:02:07]

But I think that you are on to something which you start going back and listen to the music when you were younger and you go, oh, my God, like this has influenced me deeply. Why? Because I was saying it out loud to myself, hundreds, if not thousands of times. Right. Of of all of these different, you know, like the stuff that I listen to is just a little bit on the rebellious side.

[01:02:28]

Right. It was never like burn the system down, but it was always like, you know, more of just a little bit like, hey, we don't like the way that things are going. We don't like this. And I'm like, I don't like the way things are going. That is true. Like, I don't like the government in the way that it's set up and the way that they treat people. And all these, you know, left or right doesn't matter to me.

[01:02:45]

Right. So it's like I've come to realize that, like, every one of those things I listen to literally made me who I am. And so literally mentors are everywhere. And that's the beautiful thing about life that is so cool.

[01:02:58]

So if there is only one other thing that you could share to kind of wrap up our session here today, what would it be?

[01:03:06]

Um, the same way that I leave every single episode of mine, make it your mission to make someone else's day better. If everyone listening did one thing positive for one of the person today, it would make you feel better. It would also make that person feel better. And there's a good chance that that might turn into a chain where they help somebody else out because they feel better. So the same way that a virus can spread, as we can see over the course of this world, you know, and what's been happening the past year, same way the virus can spread, you know, from one person to another, you know, positivity can spread from one person.

[01:03:36]

Other also negativity can spread from one person to another. So if everyone just goes, you know what, I'm going to figure out a way to do one good deed for someone today. I guarantee you it is going to be a lot better just by doing that. I like it. Yeah, and so motive matters. And if you're doing something for what you're going to get out of it, there is, you know, an aspect to that.

[01:03:55]

But at the same point in time, doing things because it's right or because you want to make a difference, you want to make change in the world like that is a great motive and you're going to feel good no matter what the motive is like. It just feels good to help people. And on that note, I'd love to wrap things up with what I always say to our audience here, which is to take some form of action and what you learned today.

[01:04:19]

And that action should show up in a way that gets you closer to living a life with financial freedom, a life that is by design, not by default, not by autopilot, but intentionality.

[01:04:32]

And that's by taking one step closer, just moving in some way, taking some form of action towards a life of financial freedom.

[01:04:42]

So thanks so much for joining us today. Where can our listeners find out more about you?

[01:04:48]

Mindset mentors, my podcasts. And if you put my name anywhere on the Internet, Rob, dial RBD. I'll it's going to pop up on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube. You know, all of my stuff is I'm everywhere on the Internet. Just put my name and you'll see me. And in the podcast, this is usurer. Most people end up listen to me on.

[01:05:05]

I love it. Well, you've done such a good job that you can actually say that. Just throw it in. It'll show up. That's me. I'm out there somewhere. So nice job. Well, thank you for your time today. There's been a lot of fun and I appreciate getting a chance to do it in your home studio. You've got a gorgeous home. Thanks for an awesome property.

[01:05:22]

I've got a chance. I'm just checking out the pool and the hot tub. Right. You know, out behind you as we're communicating here and what a fun environment to be able to create content in. So thank you for welcoming me into your home so that we should do this at this point. But you're an inspiration, Rob.

[01:05:37]

Thanks, but I appreciate it.