#197 - The $100K Trap: Why You’re Stuck (And How to Break Out) | Daniel Linares

0:00 You're talking about elite sales now, Daniel, like this is a class that could be taught. How do we lead salespeople become elite? The things that we're talking about right now. This is how. I always love, Hey, you guys welcome back for another episode. we should have hit start on the record about 10 minutes ago. And what I didn't do as I'm starting to get to know Daniel, I look at this last name and I'm like, here I go.

0:41 I'm going to try to pronounce the last name without getting confirmation. I think it's when Linares Linares. It's pronounced Johnson, actually. It's, it's Linares. be. Okay. All right. So today's guest is Daniel Linares. he's an entrepreneur, marketing strategist and founder of D L E event group. What do you know after his own initials? he started his career as a DJ performing DJ performing at events, but over time turned that talent into a full scale event production company, producing high end weddings, corporate experiences, and live entertainment. Along the way he's built a reputation for premium brand positioning. immersive experience, and helping entrepreneurs rethink how they design their businesses.

1:25 When the events industry shut down during the pandemic, Daniel pivoted quickly, producing hundreds of virtual events and graduations that reached audiences in more than 60 countries. Today, he focuses on helping entrepreneurs move beyond what he calls the six-figure hamster wheel and build companies that create profit, impact, and real freedom. Daniel, welcome to The Necessary Entrepreneur. excited to be here, Mark. We're going to hit the ground running. I know it already. Ready to dive into wherever the wind may take us. So the six figure hamster wheel, it's a big statement. So what is it? People think that they need to be the one producing forever.

2:07 Like the primary producer forever doing the thing. You know, the somebody used this term, the dancing bear. We're like, when the, the dare, when the bear is at the circus and the bear is dancing, the bear is making money, but the bear can't take a break and make money when, when it's not dancing. And so it's like, A lot of people think they need to be the dancing bear forever because their mindset might say, oh, well, I'm the only one that can do what I can do or nobody does it as good as me. And that might be true, but a buddy of mine, Dan Martell says 80 % 80 % as good as you and fully delegated is 100 % freaking awesome.

2:49 And so I think sometimes people need to realize like, you don't need to do the thing forever. And you can. Even, and by the way, that doesn't mean everybody you get is going to be 80 % as good as you. There's going to be people that are equal to, if not even better in certain areas of the business. And so I think the whole operator mindset of like, well, I need to do the thing. If I'm a landscaper, I need to be on site with the landscaping crew. Or if I run an events company, I need to be on site at every event. It's programming and it's been sort of the conditioning that a lot of people have. But there's. many, many people in just about every industry you can imagine that have said, you know what, I've gotten this to this point, but I don't need to do everything myself.

3:34 And I think it's that shift that if people could accept and internalize, it is going to be uncomfortable to make the change, but it's possible. That's what I'm passionate about. And that's what I've actually been able to do for myself. Do you like the word delegation? Because that's what we're talking about. Is that the 80s and 90s and 2000 word and we're talking about it differently? You know, delegate, collaborate, get great people around you, find wonderful who's to help you do the how is a great book, Who Not How, you know, it talks about that. People think that they need to do all the how's or figure out all the how's, but rather just get the right who's around you. Um, so like, think delegation is, um, whatever word you want to, whatever word you want to use to get things off of your plate at different points, uh, different chapters of your life.

4:23 So before we got, before we hit the record button, um, you touched on really quick, like a B and C players, right? So obviously it's hard to get a B and C player to be as 80 % as good and efficient as the person who was passionate and started it. So you must be talking about finding a players to do that with. A players is the real unlock. think a lot of people say, let me, let me save or pay in this medium range for, let's say a great person, but maybe they're not the Olympic gold medalists. This guy, Chris Johnson, had this really great analogy. It's like, you can't make a bronze athlete, a gold player 99.99 % of the time, but could you pay 50 % more, 25 % more, even a hundred percent more of let's say the normal s- or like even incentivize somebody to come on board on your team.

5:16 Um, so that It's always an investment and never a cost is what I'm trying to say here. People think the high investment in a gold player is a cost and it's going to lower their rep. The unlock for a players is exponential. And when you can start think shifting of like, wait, the people thing is not me spending money on a 75 K salary, a hundred K salary, 250 K salary, whatever that number is. It's like that person is going to be able to manage themselves, do things better than me. they're like, like there's a, there's an entrepreneur, name's Cameron Harold.

5:59 He worked at 1-800-GOT-JUNK with Brian Scudamore, who was the CEO. Cameron was the COO and they got 1-800-GOT-JUNK to about a hundred million in revenue. And it got to a certain point where Brian, who's like, he's like best friends with Cameron. had to let Cameron go. And he's like, dude, love you, man. But the reason why he let him go, it's like the person that got him to a hundred million is not the same person that's going to get him to a billion. And so it's just continuing to find A players and thinking about your future vision and how can we get the right people that have already done things that we're trying to do, plug them in and, um, and aim, like.

6:46 People think that they could train somebody up. Let's get somebody on a discount who's got less experience and like, we'll train them up and I'll. I'll babysit them. But the real unlock I've been in many entrepreneur rooms where we've had these conversations is like just aiming for gold from the get-go is where you can build self-managing companies that don't even need your oversight on a day-to-day. In those rooms has the conversation transcended to a place where, do you attract those A players? Cause it's one thing identifying them, having the skill and the ability to identify, but then having the right system to attract them. You know, what I think, um, Charlie Munger used to always say is it was either trying, I it was him where he said, show me the incentive.

7:30 I'll show you the performance. Right. So is it just incentive based? Is it selling them on an idea? Is it building something special? What's the conversation been in the rooms around that? You know, the dream and vision of a big brand is going to attract great people that align with that. So if you're the, you're in the commodity zone and you're like, we're just going to keep chugging along, doing a thing. It's probably going be hard to get somebody excited to want to come and work at your organization. But when you could fit an A player's dream and visions and aspirations of what they're trying to do inside of your dream vision aspirations as a brand. And then make it worth their while to say like, look, there's going to be.

8:10 a comp incentive for, like, I know somebody that gave 10 % to one A player and then eventually 10 % to another A player and he's still 80 % owner, but he's not even involved in much of the ops, but he's still more involved in like the strategic pitching. He does like high-end landscape design in Arizona, for example. And he's like, they have skin in the game. And I'm like, wow, ownership, like actually giving ownership to people. That sounds so scary. Oh my gosh. Yeah, but if you get eight players that just love what they're doing and they have skin in the game, what is the likelihood that they're going to leave if somebody offers them something? It's much less when it's like, the goal in, in three to five years is we're going to exit.

8:51 I'm going to give you 10%. You're going to help us get to these goals. And so like ownership is, is one that I've seen. I'm like, wow, that's brilliant to have an ownership piece. And then there's another, there's another piece. There's a, there's a great book called the dream manager. fictional fable based off of a semi-true story about a commercial cleaning company that started to help their employees achieve their dreams inside of their company. There was a manager that was in charge of helping people achieve their dreams. And they started to ask people like, what are you trying to do? What are you trying to achieve? Or where's their friction points? Why are people leaving? Well, we wish we had a shuttle because there are some people that didn't even speak the language and come from different parts of the world.

9:35 We wish There was a shuttle to get to get home. So you're telling us if we have a bus, we could get people home. we'd love to learn English. Wish English was a part of learning. great. We'll do it. We'll do an English program in our school. You know, I wish I could bring some of my family to the English lessons. And so like that blew up a company, dream manager, really great book. Um, and, and really the theme of the book is people are not going to want to leave when you could. care about their dream, their talents, their abilities, and help them achieve it in your organization. Sometimes it's freedom of time. Allow them to work remotely.

10:16 Maybe that's the model. Sometimes it's freedom of travel. Hey, it'd be my dream to have three months off a year. And so it's really just asking the question to the A players is what would make this a world-class collaboration between us? If we're looking ahead two years from now, three years from now, If you could wave a magic wand, both personally and professionally, what would the ideal look like for you? And helping design that for them, because you're literally just asking them what they want and giving them what they want and designing things around it. The people game is, I think, one of the more challenging ones to your point as far as attraction.

10:58 How do you do it? You sometimes need the right collaborator to just help you figure that game out. I've gone through different talent agencies, different recruiters. Sometimes they specialize recruiters in different industries, it's different approaches. I think the wrong thing that I did is like, we're going to just do it all ourselves. Some people do it. Eventually, maybe we'll have a person on our team that completely drives, um let's just say talent acquisition from a performance perspective, but also from a leadership perspective. Um, yeah, that's a little bit on, you know, my, my thinking around the people game. It's like, when people can realize like, you're not that special and you can find great people that want to do exceptional work in the things that maybe you don't want to do anymore as a leader.

11:47 It's possible. People love accounting. Mark, I don't, but they love it. They want to wake up every day and do numbers. There must be a cave. There must be a group of cave dwellers because they're hard to find every once in They must hang out together. Probably, but I mean, that's the beautiful part. It's like the things that we find irritating or, you know, just like we're good and we're okay at it, but we're still doing it every day. It's like, get that stuff off of your plate. Find great people that get filled up by the stuff, you know, you as a leader in particular, first of all, it's not good leverage use of your time. and you know, you should be in your zone of genius, your unique ability, your, your favorite, like, What you maybe know your gift is like you should be in that zone and really trying to get everything else off of your plate as a leader.

12:41 Some leaders are just doing too much. Well, most are, but the tough part is, is that's how companies start, right? That's how they begin. Someone does have to do that. I mean, it's very rare that you'll hear, like I just recently heard the CEO of Uber, um, give an interview and you know, the great thing is, is in this world, especially in this country, we have freedom of expression of thought of opinion. And he said the most important attribute or characteristic to have When you hear people who have done significant things, whether it's a high income, whether it's build a company, they'll make these definitive statements. And think we all do have deep inside, like, this is the thing that really matters.

13:24 But he said, what really matters is hard work. That's what he said. And if you listen to the guy, there's brilliance in a lot of the things he said, but there's a lot of the world that would want to argue with that right now. Right. And so the funny thing is, is to listen to him and listen to people, all these, with these different opinions and different perspectives and how companies are built. And I think you listened to so many examples, just like reading books and we can learn and grow and form your own opinion. But he said, but what I know in listening to him in that interview that he was on the podcast is that guy got there from probably doing what you said. don't want to always have to do. Right. But in the beginning of the businesses and where he started, that is one of the misnomers and maybe why entrepreneurship is so difficult.

14:08 You have to wear a lot of hats in the beginning. And even if someone would have given me, let's say 5 million bucks and wanted to invest in my businesses before I had any receipts, it wouldn't have been a good idea because I would have probably wasted that money while I was learning the same lessons that I needed to learn without blowing the money. And so. You have to wear a lot of hats. And then when you start finding great people to your point, and you can sell them on the idea, the vision of the company, how it's going to impact their life, what you're going to do in the industry, then you can start, I guess, delegating or collaborating and starting to scale. The challenge is though, is you have to do this unless you figured it differently. That's why we're here to have a conversation. As an entrepreneur, I just haven't seen too many people that don't have to give three to five years of just all in craziness.

14:55 Just madness. I haven't seen it. I, I, and if so, Maybe there's an outlier to, but tell us the example, tell us if there's a different perspective. Cause I personally haven't seen it. Yeah. mean, so a friend of mine, he runs a aerospace, his name is Darrell Sutherland. He was an aerospace parts and sort of a factory around parts for aerospace. And he's been on a sabbatical for 10 years. And I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, I've been on a sabbatical for 10 years. so like, what he did is he's like, you just need to find your number two.

15:37 There's, there's working in the business that's working on the business and there's working above the business. Above the business is like, I'll be involved strategically, like board of directors, maybe once a month, maybe it's once a week cause I enjoy it. But like working, working on the business is like strategy, CEO, you know, strategic. and then in the business is like, you know, day to day ops. I've met a lot of people that have built self-managing and self-multiplying companies where they've empowered people around them to, again, back to the A players to find really great A players that have maybe done exactly what they're trying to do in a different industry.

16:20 An example, Alex Hermosy, for example, is a marketer that I, I'm in one of his groups. He just got a president that has helped with a billion dollar exit in mergers and acquisitions world. I forget the exact story. The guy's name is Sharon. forgot his last name. uh Really cool story. was a custodian back in the day and now he's just doing really cool things. like, Alex doesn't know how to build a billion dollar company. has ideas, but it's like, let's get the leader in place. Let's install somebody that can help us with the confidence around doing it. So I think like resourcefulness needs to be some of this. It's like a lot of us are trying to get to where we want to get to.

17:02 But we need to be resourceful as like who can be the guide that has probably been there already. you know, back to what I said about 1-800-GOT-JUNK, like they pulled in people that have done those growth in those revenue arenas in other industries or similar industries. so, um lost my train of thought a little bit there. I that's right. So let me keep on, cause I like to have a great conversation. Like if we were sitting down at a having lunch together and having just a real open conversation where, where Daniel comes with his opinion and I come with mine and I listen and I'm like, yeah, well, what about this? Too many people aren't doing it. but so here's what I would propose about Hormozi.

17:43 If you listen to his story while he was learning, look at what the grind was. Right. And so I, it's tough to think. that he could have the brain and evolve to find those A players without him learning first. Right. He had to have massive failure. And I just, know, whether, whether Malcolm Gladwell has it right about 10,000 hours, I don't know. But usually what I found is yes, we can go get all these traditional education, all the education, all the degrees we can learn from the people before us. But until you're in the seat. until you're making the mistakes until you're the one that has to call the shots until you have actually executed yourself.

18:26 You don't have the right perspective to evaluate to know how can I take a 10 year sabbatical? Cause what I'm assuming too on the aerospace guy, I'm assuming he was in the aerospace business, probably for three to five years, probably working really hard. That's what I'm speaking to here. So, so I think. What, what us as entrepreneurs, what we have to know, it's probably you going back to DJing the amount of hours and sacrifice that you probably made in your life is significant. Yep. Right. And so the challenge is where do we go and find that? Can we find that experience being an employee or being a number two or being a number three?

19:07 Can you find it enough? There's only very few examples like a Steve Ballmer. Right. Who started out as like the 13th or 14th employee in Microsoft. And then he led the company for a decade. Now he's like the 13th most wealthy person in the world. That's a very, very unique story, right? Where he achieved that level of success without truly being the entrepreneur number one. so what I propose as we got off track a little bit is have you seen or been around people that without being in the trenches as the number one for a period of time, two years, three years, four years. Do they have the right mindset, the trajectory, the perspective to make these decisions to build these businesses to call the right shots?

19:49 So like one that comes to mind, Dan Sullivan, he's a mentor of mine. He's sort of the brains behind Who Not How, wrote the book with Dr. Benjamin Hardy. He wrote the book Gap and the Gain, wrote the book 10X as Easier Than 2X. And he's actually written dozens of smaller books that are not mass market in those. um He's built a really interesting business coaching entrepreneurs. And they're up, I think something in the 60 to 70 million in revenue range right now. So they're doing okay. And I remember asking Dan, so like he is so in his zone. He's, he's building coaching tools. He's coaching workshops and he's just living in vision and creation and tinkering land.

20:30 That's it. He said, if I never met. Babs Smith, his life partner and also business partner, his wife, he would not have built this, this beautiful business, but his brain is all the creative into how. He's helped so many entrepreneurs achieve all kinds of things. I asked Dan a question. like, Hey, Dan, so it's funny we're talking about people. Hey, Dan, I'd love to get your thoughts on how to find really good people. Like what's the strategy within strategic coach? He's like, I have no idea. I don't know. I was like, what? Like, yeah, like, uh, not really sure.

21:11 That's not part of my, my zone. I'm like, wow, people get to certain points where they just continue to find great who's around them, where they stop caring or don't even think about components of the business. By the way, this, Hormozi and, and Dan Sullivan are really good contrast. I think Hormozi is the extreme of, he wanted to go deep in everything. He wanted to learn everything about sales, everything about meta, Google. That was his method. I don't know if you saw the conversation you had with Tony Robbins recently. They, Alex Hormozi is. Yeah. Yeah, me too. Me too. Hormozi is not my role model for how I want to show up in the world from a joy and happiness perspective.

21:56 So like for me, I'm building a business so that I could be at home for an intentional amount of time and also working an intentional amount of time. Cause I love to work. love to pour into people. I love having conversations like this, but Hormozi was just like chasing the dollar. We've all heard that story. It's like, okay, you're going to make. A million, okay, then 10, then 100, and then you're still not happy, you're still chasing the next thing. It's like, you never really arrive, you're like always chasing the horizon. uh Dan Sullivan's book, The Gap and the Gain, they talk about that. People are constantly in the gap because they're constantly striving for what they feel like they don't have yet, but the gain is everything you've already achieved. um But I think the contrast back to my, to try to finish my thoughts here, because my passion can pull me way off track is, Hormozzi is really the person who's doing deep consumption, deep immersion, hiring 10 people to learn about sales in a very short amount of time and just rapid transformation type of learning.

23:00 That's been his method. Dan Sullivan's not a marketer at all. So this is like, is there a perfect path? I would say choose your destiny. You want to be hermosy. You want to, you want that to be your life, consuming it, showing up every day, recording a billion pieces of content every month because you want to have a billion and then you'll probably want to have 5 billion in net worth. And then you'll probably want to have 10 million in net worth. The Tony Robbins podcast is like, forgive my oh It was a contrast. A lot of people looking at it. It was a contrast of idea and thought. And, um, when you have two gorillas in a room coming together from what they've achieved, Tony doing it a lot longer, but Hormozis there, man.

23:48 Right. And so you get them together. I think guys like that are used to trying to work it out. I don't think there's anything to work out. And that's what was missed there in the conversation after these are just two. different perspectives. I don't think Alex needs to feel less than I don't think he needs to necessarily try to adopt the way Tony was maybe saying, Hey man, maybe you could do this a little bit more and all that. It's like, well, maybe these are two human beings that they're just supposed to do it two different ways. That's actually a really good perspective. I saw it a little differently. I saw it completely from Tony. I told you I've learned a lot from Tony. I've been to many Tony events Alex has been on the trek to Endless achievement with zero purpose.

24:35 He came to that podcast vulnerable because he wanted Tony if there's somebody that could coach Alex Hermosie and Alex to listen without his ego blocking it Alex showed up to that conversation like I've never seen him show up to any other conversation ever. He's like, dude, I've always been like, fuck happiness achievement. And Tony's like, fuck suffering. Alex's frame has just been like achieve, achieve, achieve, achieve, achieve. And I think it's clearly a lot of his, his belief systems growing up, his dad never thought he was doing the right move, getting into the gym world, et cetera. So there's this like proving to himself that he's worthy.

25:16 But I think people get stuck in this constant achievement where you reach the summit of this goal, but then there's the next summit and then there's the next summit. A big thing I learned from Tony, I think this is what Tony was trying to teach Alex is, is dude, you need to have the love for it right now. Stop delaying the love for this imaginary future. Have the love and impact as the now. And that's really where the joy comes from. Yeah. I think there's a big debate on happiness. Boy, you throw the happiness word out there and highly successful, accomplished people will have a debate. That looks like it's totally different. They're talking about two different words, two different worlds. Right.

25:56 And so some people say screw happiness. It's about purpose. And some people would say it is about happiness. It is about joy. And what I, what I take a step back and say, you know, I think we're talking about a lot of the same things. It's just everybody's journey looks different. And the place that Alex came from and you hear where Tony came from those stories. It's a lot of pain. It's a lot of pain. It's a lot of pain for both of them. And I think, I don't know if you take a guy like Alex, if you really sat down, whoever his best friends are. Cause he probably has a, he probably has like three or four best friends. I bet he doesn't have that much struggle with Betty doesn't, right?

26:38 It's just weird to be that vulnerable in public the way that he was, right? I don't, I don't know if that- He needed he needs purpose man. He doesn't have it I agree. And so maybe that's a part of it, but, I would dare say, here's what's funny. mean, when I'm saying those three friends, if they sat down and talked to him, it wouldn't be very hard for him to get to what his purpose is. I don't think so. Maybe, maybe he's trying to achieve more and it, and it is about the chip on his shoulder, trying to prove to himself in the world that he does belong and he is something. I mean, look how buff and fit and all that he is. But if we're honest though, there was a lot of failure in that background. And here's the struggle for so many people. A lot of people quit.

27:20 Many of them quit. so whatever the thing was in his brain, he was able to tap into something that did get him to keep going. And so maybe he's now in a place in his, maybe he's now in a season to your man, Tony Robbins phrases. Maybe he's now in a season where he can come into more contentment without losing the intensities to succeed. Yeah. I mean, think he's realized like he's achieved. made $105 million in a weekend, launching a book Guinness world record. And he did it. And he's like, wait, what now? Cause I thought I was supposed to, it's like Sean White, the Olympic snowboard player. was the goldest, the gold medal back to gold medals. He's won so many golds in his category.

28:02 He then gets to an age where he's not going to be snowboarding anymore. Actually, I saw Sean White at a Tony event. Funny enough, we didn't talk, but he was there. people that achieve, that get to this level of what they think is going to be it and they get it. It's like, that's it. So you have to find the joy in the now, the frame. And I think when you said happiness, or joy, whatever word we want to use here, everybody has their own definition of what that looks like. Right? So if we were to journal on it and I'm like, this is what my definition looks like at my stage of my life, I'm 38. Mark, what about you? You're in your stage of your life. You guys are doing acquisitions, roll-ups, you're doing expansion.

28:44 What does joy look like to you? Right? So it's almost like there is no single definition. And I think, you know, people have this illusion of maybe what they think it is. And I think living and experiencing and seeing what you like and what you don't like, it becomes more clear what it really is. I've met, you know, as a billionaire on stage in an event I was at, I'm like, okay, this guy's achieved. He's so unhappy. His entire family doesn't really get along with him well. He ruined his relationships with his three or four children and he regrets all of it. He's like, I was on this road of achievement. I just wanted more. I want to grow. I thought getting that big dollar amount was going to make my family love me.

29:26 And I'm so blessed at 38 to have received wisdom that people did not make good decisions when they were younger and now they're older, you know, compared to me, let's say. And I'm like, I don't want that. That's a reference point for me of what I don't want. And I'm going to make the decisions of what I do want. And so we all have choice back to what we spoke about earlier of like how to, you know, how to build a great business. We could do it however we want. We want it to be lifestyle and be more, more chill in your thirties and forties. And you want to, you want to go, go down and scale in your forties and fifties. So could chill back at this. Like the beauty of entrepreneurship is we have choice.

30:07 whatever you want it to be. And my favorite question is, if you had a magic wand, Mark, what does it look like? It's your magic wand. Yeah. Maybe so that I was, was listening to another conversation yesterday and it's good to have this also outside of entrepreneurship. It was one on one of the top podcasts. I was coming back from Florida and you know, I download some stuff to listen to on the plane in case the wifi is not great. And, and so she said that she was an investment banker and I forget which one that she was on, but she was an investment banker. And she said that at an early age, she was high flying. don't know if it was in England or if it was in New York. But she had two complete opposite examples of achieving success and what was trying to make people happy.

30:51 said, sitting straight across from me, there was someone who was about the next Ferrari. It was the next car and he'd come into work and then, and on the weekends he'd fly off to these crazy. I don't know if you listen to this podcast and where it was, but he'd fly off to these crazy vacations and just live life to the fullest. And then sitting next to her, there was someone that. brought a brown bag lunch in, and these people are making big money in investment banking, brown bag lunch, driving a normal car, nothing flashy. The guy wouldn't stand out. And she said, that guy who brought in the brown bag lunch, she said, when I came, I think she actually is from England. She said, when I came to the country, I just visited him with him two days ago. And she shared that she went to his home and he's pretty much retired early with his family, spending extra time with his kids.

31:39 And she said, but. I'm not going to downplay that that guy on his crazy weekends, getting the Ferraris that that actually didn't make that guy happy because it seems like it did. And so what you, she said the important thing, the important thing is you need to design, you need to write down the life you want and then you can design it. I think, right. And we can reverse engineer almost anything. Yes. And it's okay to change too. You know, in, in this, in this season of your life, oh my, like Ferrari has been my dream for a while and, and, maybe I'll get the car and then, and then maybe it's going to look like something else. Okay. I got the car now. I want to sell the car and now I want to do this.

32:20 And that's the beautiful thing. Like it doesn't need to be permanent decisions. It's like, what does it look like for you now? I tell you what, my 20s of what I wanted and what I wanted my life to look like is completely different to my 30s and I'm sure it's going to continue to change. But the theme that I've seen that has resonated with me is I want to be like, for me, I believe life is around connections and love. I was the best man at my brother's wedding in July and I've been in a lot of weddings because our business is literally in the weddings world. But to give a toast at your brother's wedding, I was like, what advice can I give my brother? And I was like, what is the meaning of life? I was reflecting, like, what am going to say? How am I going to say it? And it sounds simple to say, the meat for me, again, everybody's got their choice.

33:04 Meaning of life might be Ferrari for somebody, but the meaning of life for me is love. The meaning of life is love. I had my first born 19 months ago and I was, I'm still an achiever, but I'm not allowing that to define my, happiness. I have never had more meaning in my life than I did having this little boy, Luca. And it is the best feeling ever to be able to love and to pour into him and instill wisdom and all of those things. At this stage of my life, that is the most important thing. So I'm designing everything around the connection and the love of family for me at this stage of my life. In my forties, I'll probably still care about it.

33:44 Maybe I'll have more A players around me. And I'll just be, I'll continue to stay in what I love to do. writing a book later this year, you know, crossing my fingers. It'll be ready later this year. I love pouring into people like Tony Robbins. like maybe a mini Tony. I feel like I'm on this earth to serve people, Mark. And I think you are too, man. Like I feel your passion for, for being able to add value to people. like, this is not just for us to talk. It's like, and to listen, but if one person listening to this gets value, gets insight, it. sparks them to get clear and to get confident and to take action and whatever that is, that's another impactful, meaningful part of my life as well.

34:27 So talk about, um, Hey, I'd like to know why you named him Luca. It seems like that name is probably connected to your heritage and your last name. It isn't actually. We just liked the Italian name. I mean, I would say, well, my wife and I went to Italy on our honeymoon, but we just liked the name. uh It's obviously a derivative of Luke and Luke means bringer of light. And we liked it. We just, we just liked it. And my wife's, she's from Brazil, but has loved Italian culture. Grew up around Italians in New York. Cause we, both were in, I mean, I grew up in Queens. She was in Brazil, but came to the U S and was around Italians. So she's a Brazilian who's got an Italian New York kind of way about her.

35:10 But no, there's no, so bringer of light felt like the perfect name for our little boy. And he literally radiates that. Awesome. All right. So you had two ideas love, and then at the end you hit on action because what I was going to ask before you went into love is your foundation, your purpose, your reason it's, running through everything you're doing. was going to say, okay, so what's the silver lining through your twenties, your thirties, your forties and your fifties to stay focused to designing the life that you want. Cause I would push back so you can, it can be filled with love, but then I heard you say action. And so went, there it is. So what's that mean? And if you need to take it in different direction, that's fine.

35:53 Cause you, can love all we want, but if we sit around and wait for everyone to come and do things for us, probably not going to the life view that's ideal. Yeah, I said to my friend, I'm like, I don't know, we were at an event and I'm like, dude, I've learned to just fall in love with the now. Like there's this achievement thing that I've seen, forget who did it, where it's like, you're here and you're thinking about there and you delay being happy now because you're waiting to get there. Achievers are always here and excited and can't wait to get there and they're not happy until they get there. What if you just decided you are there?

36:35 You're there right now. That's what I've decided. I'm there. Still crazy ambitious, but I am so filled with joy that I have arrived. Now I'm still, I'm still ambitious. So how do you... How does that work? How do we put it together? That's what we're sitting here talking about. Let's make it practical for everyone. Let's do it. Make your future more compelling than your past. Tony has said this. Dan Sullivan has said versions of this. Mentors that I follow. The reason why I wake up every day is my future is more exciting. It is more compelling. It is more radiant than my past.

37:15 In my business. In my personal life. So I'm waking up. Okay. What are we excited about three years from now? Well, we want to build the most incredible entertainment brand. kind of built a bit of a blue ocean category where there's not a lot of competition in the way that we're bringing entertainment to the wedding world. We're not a band. We're not a DJ. We're this like blended combination hybrid concept for luxury weddings. It's like we're doing cool things. We're continuing to uh innovate. There's going to be, and this could be for everybody watching, there's going to be the fear in achieving whatever's to come next. Territory that you've never done or ever entered. There's going to be the uncertainty.

37:57 And there's going to be the discomfort, the FUD, I like to call it. The FUD exists at all new levels of growth. And I love the FUD. Why? Because the same feeling of anxiety is the same feeling of excitement. And every time I feel it, I'm like, oh, that's my body trying to protect me because it's this new territory, but it's actually excitement. And I embrace it anyway. There's a book called Greatness by David Cook. He coached the San Antonio Spurs. He helped Tim Duncan get out of that slump and create the Tim Duncan legend that we know as an NBA player. He's coached more than 50 professional golfers and he's got a really great acronym in the book.

38:37 Spoiler alert. SFT. Seeing the outcome you're trying to produce, feeling you're capable and trusting that it will happen, trusting through all the fear, through all the uncertainty, through all the discomfort. The top performers People that are not allowing the future to overwhelm them, the past to hold them back or to overwhelm them and to cause this or to cause that are just present in the now. And that's how Kobe became Kobe. That's how Michael became Michael. Is they're not allowing the what ifs of back then or there or the golf stroke that was not successful two strokes before affect their current way of thinking.

39:21 so to kind of just reel it back. Make your future more compelling than your past. For me, I'm building what I'm building now every year or two. It's changing, it's reorienting and that's okay. It's continuing to change. It's continuing to reorient. I look at things every couple quarters and it's like that personal goal is it's still relevant. One of the things I want to become a pilot and I'll be able to fly my family around as we so wish. It feels far out of reach. It feels scary. Imposter syndrome, all these things. I shoot it down. I'm like, I could literally paint whatever I want. I've learned that we could, sometimes we have glass ceilings of what we think our deserve level is.

40:03 And, you know, I've been blessed to learn that like imperfect action and trying new things and all of these emotions are just our own mindset, trying to keep us in the, the safety zone. And, and so that's what I would say about it is, is make your future more compelling than your past. for people that have gotten to out of survival mode, because I think you can't get to these points of I've made it until you've built something that is stable from an income perspective. And so like, if you're still trying to get beyond paycheck to paycheck, this maybe doesn't exactly apply.

40:44 But if you're an entrepreneur and you're able to get to a point of having confidence of your cashflow and you're good there, you can then decide. What do I want it to be at this stage of my life? someone said they were at one of the first lunches that Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. think Bill Gates' mom kind of put it together and made him show up. Sometime later in life, someone sat down to a lunch with both of them and asked them, what's the most important thing been to you building your business? And have you heard this almost simultaneously?

41:24 They gave the same answer, which was one word. I think I know what you're gonna say, but I don't think I've heard this story. They both said focus simultaneously. And then what this person shared was it's almost mind numbing how many times they interview and sit down to have conversations with these elite people. And it's pretty much the same word because you brought up Kobe and Michael. That's what just flows out of them is just, just linear focus. So how's that play in your life? And how do we keep extreme focus? If these elite folks who have big achievement in all the areas of their life, mean, Warren Buffett, you know, they say he's still living in the same home.

42:12 Yeah. It has a lot of security, but he does. He still sleeps there at times. He still drive. still drives a Cadillac, a 50 or 60 or $70,000 Cadillac focus. And what they're talking about, I believe is focusing on just one or two or just a few linear things. Yeah. Yeah. So Benjamin Hardy, uh, he wrote a book called the science of scaling really great book, by the way. And he talks about that, that, that focus, if I was to take that word and sort of transfer it into Ben's thinking, it's like focus on the biggest needle movers where that everything else becomes obsolete.

42:57 Sometimes people are like, what are the 20 things we could do to grow our business. Yeah, but what are the main needle movers? Is it just one? Is it maybe two areas of focus? And I think the science of scaling is really good book. Like there's an example in the book that I really love. There's a woman who was trying to grow. She built this like credit repair uh value add to, to, customers, but it was complimentary to like the traditional software. She was like, I need to just go and get. 10 customers this month. And the, the, story in the book is like, stop thinking about just serving one customer, the next customer, the next customer who already has relationships with hundreds or thousands of those customers.

43:45 And how could you add value and actually may potentially plug in long story short in the book, she found a software company that already has relationships with all the customers. She. presented them an offer that's win-win for both of them, that is going to be hero to their same customer, and that will also be an added revenue source to that software company. And she got plugged into seven or 8,000 customers overnight. And moral of the story is sometimes with focus, we need to focus on the end goal, but also think about how could we get there in ways that most people are not thinking.

44:26 I think to your, to your point, sometimes people are thinking very linearly. It's like, we grow 10 % this year? Can we grow 30 % this year? And I think depending on the size of your business, that's fine. If you're doing a hundred million, 20 % growth is great. Um, if you're doing a million, could you potentially do 2 million? If you're doing three, could you maybe go to six with a new way of thinking? And that's what's so cool about this book. It's like, what is the big goal? What is the main areas of focus that Maybe you're not even thinking about pull yourself out of it. Think about it differently. Um, it's like an Elon Musk's book with Walter Isaacson. Hey, we need to It's going to be impossible.

45:08 This is his staff set time. It's going be impossible for us to produce the amount of cars that we need. We only have two production tracks. He's like, yeah, but, to build another one's going to take so much time. Yeah. Okay. How about we use the parking lot and we build some tents and we just use the parking lot as our third production line to catch up to production speed. Oh, well, actually. So I love the. Stop thinking like all the rest approach. Think out of the box. What is the completely different path that you can dream up, that you can imagine, that is so untraditional?

45:51 And that's sometimes where massive leaps take place. Yeah. So I guess the argument would be that he stayed focused. He's just thinking of it differently. Maybe it's because he has such extreme focus on the task, on the goal, on the outcome, right? Where everybody else was limited by what they believed or seen in the past. He said, absolutely not. Like this is what we're going to achieve. We're going to get here. How do we need to, yeah. So, um, so we can sit here and talk forever, man. We're wrapping up our time. I wish we would have started, uh, maybe when you write the book. Who knows? Maybe when you go on your grand tour and you have the plane and you're piloting around, whether you buy a Cirrus or a phenom one, who knows what you're going to buy? Maybe you're going to be a twin twin engine guy and you're going to buy your own.

46:32 don't know. What's the new one's a Prater 600, right? Your $25 million check and buy it. Um, you come and we have a conversation about the book because I know that there's good stuff inside. Of you. I've talked to a lot of people. You've been in a lot of rooms, but I've talked to a lot of people and been in the rooms, but, um, I want to see if you do it. That's what want to The part that pulls it off on a lives, life that you're determined to live now while you also achieve at a high level. Cause it's those examples. Cause I do believe that's what the world is searching for. What you're talking.

47:13 I don't see too many of It's a decision mark like I'm there if I told you I was five years ago, you'd be like you're freaking there, dude and That's why I'm like I'm not delaying gratification to when I get there. I'm already here Will I be happier when I get the plane or will I be as happy and an added layer of? convenience probably the added layer of convenience, but but I'm with you man, like I'm excited that's where my features more compelling to my past. Like, okay, well, we want to go to Montana. Haven't been there yet. My wife and I have it on the list. The mountains, the beauty of that part of the world, or that country, that uh part of the country.

47:55 I want to go a little bit deeper about you're already living the life. we talked about, we talked about Hormozi before on, I wonder if 10 years ago, if you would have given them the exchange, Hey Alex, I will transplant you as if you're in Star Trek to 10 years. And let me tell you the life that you're going to be living, the success you're going to have. Will you exchange it and just be happy there for the rest of your life? I think he would have probably been absolutely because that's far beyond what we're even looking at now. I'm not saying stop, but if Daniel's arrived here now, you're living the life you have, Luca, you have this life that dreams are made of in the, of what you're feeling in the current moment.

48:46 Why keep going? Does it get any better? Because plateauing and not having an exciting future is not... what ambitious people thrive on. You know, in three to five years, I might write a book for my son. The book that I wish I had when I was in elementary school, middle school, whatever. Like I have a friend, Scott, who's got four kids. He's building a whole brand about pouring in to the youth. He's got four kids. His meaning is bringing value to his kids. I'm not there yet. um But I guess what I'm trying to say here is And in five years, I'm probably going to have an additional two properties.

49:35 My wife and I, said, okay, we'd love to maybe get a, we joke about it. We haven't even been there yet. A place in Montana. We have a place in Connecticut. We have a place in Sarasota, Florida. We want to get a couple others. But I'm, I'm, I'm not delaying my joy. I'm not going to say, you know, I, Like I stay up late just like all of us ambitious entrepreneurs. I'm writing, my God, I got an idea. I ship it off to my team in the morning. What is changing is what leverage do I now understand that I did not understand many years ago? For example, I've learned that based on my wiring, there's something called the Colby A profile where people could take it and you learn about how you strive as a person.

50:22 There's no wrong way to strive. People are wired in different ways. This is a very eye-opening thing. If you haven't done it, I'd love to do it and tell you about yourself. You'd be like, what? I could probably guess what you are, but I digress. The concept of ColB.A is, where are you as, how much facts do you need before you take action? What is your likelihood to follow through on something that you start? How much time do you need to leap into something before you take the step? They call that quick start. And then the fourth one is implementer. How hands-on do you need to be? Turns out I'm a very high quick start. What does that mean? I love risk. know, sort of the classic risk-taking entrepreneur is usually a high quick start.

51:04 Low follow-through, huh? It's magnetic forces. Lots of ideas. I'm gonna guess you're a high quick start and maybe a low follow-through. That's why you have Dave helping you out in the studio because if you were to do this yourself and have to upload this to yourself and da-da-da-da-da, there's a low likelihood that you're probably gonna do all of it because you have other things that you're worried about or other priorities. What I've learned with my Colby, the way that I strive is I need finishers around me. What does that mean? Back in the day, I used to start things and do all the heavy lifting to bring a project to the finish line. Now it's like, what if I got one finisher to help me with this thing? Huh. Full-timer, part-timer, freelancer. Huh.

51:45 Okay, we have SEO, we have paid ads, we're doing stuff here, we're doing stuff here. Could it be one of our team members or could we actually get a specialist to just do that finisher thing? So what I'm trying to say is I've learned that the new leverage for me is not me doing everything. It's me doing the first 10%, somebody else doing the 80 % and then maybe I'm involved in the final 10 % to just make sure it gets signed off. And so I think I'm going to be even more ambitious year after year. But my way of thinking of collaboration, the way that I'm thinking about leverage, the way that I'm thinking about growth, the way that I'm thinking about people, this took the longest for me, which is, oh, well, I'm gonna delay getting the gold medalist.

52:33 I'm gonna delay getting the A player. I'm gonna get the B or C player. Let me save money and do it this way or do it that way. The big unlock is get the A player, because oh it's gonna be the biggest exponential. unlock as leverage that you will ever have in your life. And so I'm going to be achieving even more year after year, just like many of the entrepreneurs that I've learned from, but they're just continuing to get great who's around them to do more of the heavy lifting. You're doing acquisitions. Maybe there's, you know, three to five areas that Mark is doing right now where it's like, could I get somebody to do this part? Like maybe it's the underwriting or maybe it's this, or maybe you have all those people.

53:16 But for me, it's thinking about the ambition with collaboration, not with Daniel being the dancing bear doing the thing, but Daniel having the, uh bad analogy, but Daniel having the great circus of performers that love to be in that creative zone because it fills them up. And so that's the way I'm thinking about it. More from a leverage perspective, not from lacking ambition. I love to be in the strategy. vision world as a person and pouring into people. And so I know I'm being a little repetitive here, but that's kind of how I'm feeling, feeling about it. You're talking about the infrastructure for scaling.

53:56 Every everybody talks about the word scaling, but they haven't really constructed what that looks like. Yeah. It's Elon Musk. It's Elon Musk. Elon's just like, who's the best? Who's the best? He pulls them, he incentivizes them, installs them into the next thing he's doing. So I've talked, um, I've talked about him a couple of times in the book from Walter Isaacson. was a great book. Those are big, the Steve jobs book and about Elon. Um, people shouldn't judge judges or they shouldn't do, they shouldn't judge. They should first understand, understand someone. And then you can evaluate. There's no reason for judgment. Evaluate, learn, grow, but let's go back real quick to the 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Right. This is something I think that's tough for people to hear.

54:38 Cause we love loyalty. We love reciprocity. You know, all the business owners from the past, if we look at past generations, you'd work at the same place for 30 or 40 years. There was this understanding that you might start at the bottom, but if you work really hard and sometimes it was unions, but you would get a pension and retirement would look good. I was just sitting at the airport at Tampa, um, yesterday, and there was a couple that was a generation or two older than me. And I was sitting right next to him. know, those restaurants, they pack these, they pack the tables in. so. I saw right when I sat down, I said, well, it looks like you two are the lucky ones today. I sat down. I first, I listened, I listened. I was looking at my phone, reading some things.

55:19 I ordered something to drink and I was listening. I don't like to impose myself on people's conversation, but I listened long enough and I picked up on an accent. said, you all, I have a really good friend. Sorry to impose, but I said, I have a really good friend who has an accent similar to yours. And I said, he grew, he was born in Texas and grew up in Eastern Kentucky. And I said, It sounds like your accent is almost identical. And she smiled. said, where do you think you're from? And I said, well, I must've hit on one of the two since you're smiling. And she said, we're from Eastern Kentucky. And so I went in a little bit more and I asked them about them. That's one of the unlocks to relationships, right? Make it about people, learn about them. And he worked in the mining industry for 45 years.

56:00 And I asked him about that. And then he was in upper management and he would move around. But. You talked about the guy who started 1-800 got junk and the, CEO, yeah, he helped him. He helped him and the CEO. helped him build to a hundred million dollar company. And you said what got us here is not going to get us there. Okay. Not from the CEO perspective or the entrepreneur perspective for everyone else. What are we supposed to make and do of that? Do with that. If you're the CEO, if you're the CEO. if we're the employee, if we're the employee, if we're the employee and we're working for the number one, and if we understand the dynamics of the world, if someone's really trying to grow a business and what got them here, which is a part of me, what's going to, we're not going to be the one that gets them somewhere else.

56:49 And one day he's going to come in and maybe get this pink slip. What can we do productive that we can actually take valuable away from this? from that exact scenario of this person being let go. Yeah. Yeah. You know, honestly, I It's not the world of working at the same place 45 years anymore. That's right. That's right. So in the moment, it's like, it probably feels like a punch in the gut to say, Hey, love you, man. I think he was the best man at his wedding. Like something crazy like that. uh Love you, But here's the thing. And we're We're trying to get to whatever the revenue numbers and we're going to actually pull somebody in that has done this with other companies multiple times.

57:31 I love you. And at the moment, in the moment he was like, probably crushed. He was like, my gosh, I built this, helped build this baby up to a hundred million. I believe the frame in all of life, all of business, as hard as it may seem to say, is what is the abundance frame of mind that I could take from this circumstance? Now in the moment, it probably feels like grief. my gosh, this baby that I helped build is no longer my involvement. I'm sure he got a pretty, you know, severance and maybe even had ownership. don't even know what, I'm sure he had some sort of equity in the game. He's fine. I guarantee he's not worried about the money.

58:12 It was building and scaling this thing. The abundance frame. is where you win in life, in my opinion. The reason why I'm so optimistic on regular basis, maybe I get some of it from my mom, because that's her wiring, and my dad's a little bit more of the realist and he's the skeptic, you know, a little bit, a little more scarcity minded, not really scarcity minded, but more the skeptic. I think people could sit in the scarcity frame of mind. So let's just pretend we're Cameron. I just got let go. Scarcity frame of mind. Let me be down on myself. This was traumatizing. This was not what I expected. I can never trust anybody anymore. I can't do this.

58:53 That's all scarcity frame of mind. And okay, if you want to live there for an hour, a day, a week, because it's a tough thing to probably be downgraded to not even having a job yet you were on this big journey. But at a certain point, you need to get back to either baseline or you need to get into an abundance frame of mind. to say, what am going to learn from this? What am I going to do about it? And how could I actually seek joy from the circumstances that just took place? Like in the moment I got fired from Apple. worked from Apple from 2006 to 2009. I got fired because I believe I was a big fish in a small pond.

59:34 I gave a discount to an old man, education discount, and management said, you're not supposed to do that. Blah, blah, blah, blah. My frame was maybe they just. Felt threatened by me. I was ambitious. I loved what I did. I love people. In the moment, I was crushed. Looking back, last job I ever had, best thing that ever happened to me. And so sometimes in the moment, you don't realize it, but I've learned as I've gotten older, more mature as an entrepreneur and as a man, it's like, even with anything in business, and you probably have the same frame, this didn't work. This was actually a failure. Okay. Experienced entrepreneurs are going to be like, what is the learning?

1:00:17 Not the failure. What is the learning? What is the readjustment from here? And now Cameron's doing really great things. He's got a group called COO Alliance. He's teaching number twos. He's built this cool thing. He's pouring in and helping number twos. If you're in a, in a season where you just feel like you got the wind knocked out of you because you were let go or something just happened, how can you look at it in a positive frame? Because I believe we're all guided. And when you fast forward to some of the last years of life and you look back and you're like, my gosh, life is beautiful. Even the parts that looked really tough in the moment were just beauty in disguise.

1:01:00 My wife turned me down three times. What's the abundant frame? When I first met her, what's the abundant frame? Well, she wasn't mean about it. Let me go back a fourth time. And she said, yes. And the rest is history. So like, I've learned that the positive frame, I wasn't a thirsty man walking up to my wife, but it was just approaching her, hey, would you like to come on over? And she turned me down three times, but the abundance frame is, well, she didn't say no. The abundance frame is, what can I learn from this? How can I pivot from this in a positive way and keep it moving? Hmm. So if we go back to, if you ever write a children's book for Luca, um, you said, write the book that you maybe wish you would have had, or if someone would have written for you, what would be in that book?

1:01:56 think it would be a lot of the thinking mindsets that I didn't learn until much later in life. mean, I was blessed. My dad was born in Columbia, came to the US, uh very kind of lower to middle, really lower started and he just was around the wrong people and had a, literally took psychedelics, which I just learned like five years ago. And he's like, I'm goofing off. What the heck is wrong with me? And he's like, I'm going to get on the straight and narrow. And he became a dentist. He worked really hard. And, and I'm very blessed to have, uh, have had my, an amazing father to be the rock and foundation of the family.

1:02:36 And my mom's same thing, just grew up, you know, sort of middle-class, but high-performance mindset, growth, risk-taking. My dad comes from a poor part of Columbia and he's coming to the U S is my grandmother works at the Drake's making devil dogs. She didn't have money. I didn't come for money. My family doesn't come from money. They're not programmed on abundance. you know, there's not a billion dollars in the bank for us to rely on. And so like, I think took a liking to entrepreneurship because I was bouncing off the walls in school and I didn't realize it. And I'm like, I was just a creative that was being, I was in a cage, which we're thinking about homeschooling our little boy, Luca, cause I see a lot of daddy in him, but like, A lot of the mindsets of like repetition.

1:03:26 Oh, that didn't work. I'm not good at it. No petition is, is the mother of skill as Tony Robbins would say. And it's probably not even Tony's line. Somebody said, Oh, Tony recycles lots of people's lines. I'm like, I don't care. Tony's been really helpful. Like repetition. If I was to just give you a few. Imperfect action. Mark. Perfect action. When you feel. 70 80 percent ready do it so don't do on my book Do I feel ready, worthy, blah blah blah? Like we're going to talk ourselves out of so much if we wait for the 99 100 % perfect time to do the thing Stop waiting for the perfect time to do the thing.

1:04:08 Most of us are going to have the perfectionist mindset Ship it at 80 % 85 % ready to go and get people around you be resourceful Stop thinking you need to know everything I think her Mosi thought he needs to know everything and look it's worked out and he's gone down the down the deep down into the deeps with just about every area of marketing and entrepreneurship. And I'm not discounting it. He's probably one of the smartest marketers, entrepreneurs, maybe of all time ever. But then there's other entrepreneurs that are like, I'm going to stay right here. Like Warren Buffett, I don't know much about him. I guarantee you he's only doing 2 % of what he maybe originally did because he just loves to do this one or 2 % of stuff.

1:04:51 And he's got great people around him. And so like, that's the contrast as entrepreneurs that'll do all of it. So imperfect action. I would say the, fear, the uncertainty, the discomfort. Hey buddy, you see that feeling inside of you, Luca? Like today we had a swimming class. This is pretty funny timing. And he's been swimming since six months. So about no four months. So whatever the math, about 15 months, he's been swimming once a week. comes, goes with daddy. We go swimming with a couple other parents and their kid. And we put the ring at the bottom of the pool. He holds onto daddy sometimes he doesn't want, doesn't want to do it. Sometimes he'll jump right into it. I'm like, I cannot wait where we can start having conversations about it's okay.

1:05:36 You're going to feel a little uncomfortable and do it, but you got this. And so the fear, the uncertainty, the discomfort, I'm going to teach him that those feelings are growth in disguise amongst other Mindsets, I think that would really much be the book now. That's probably not a kindergartener book. Maybe I could make it a kinder one lesson for each small book could totally be something like that. I could see the image in a cartoonish way of a dad and a son in the pool with a ring at the bottom and you don't have to provide too much context around it. That's it. Oh my gosh, it was easier than I thought.

1:06:17 Oh my gosh, you know, overwhelm, I believe this too. Overwhelm is 90 % self-induced. Yeah. A lot of the anxiety you're worried about, you're worried about the things that, you know, are going to happen that eventually never do. That's right. Yeah. That's right. What seems like now with AI that you could write this book in about a day. So Luca might be getting a book next week. A day. Yeah. I mean, you're right. I'm probably going to use AI to help with a little bit of framing of like table of contents, stuff like that. But I believe I write books through communication. So I'll probably be talking with somebody who's going to be my kind of brainstorming partner.

1:06:57 And we're going to be like, what are we going to say about this? What are the lessons in here? And somebody's going to just help me bring frame to it. And I'm going to just dive in and, and, you know, kind of have the outline and such. If you, I don't know how to write a book. I'm going to be resourceful and work with people that can help me have the correct runway where I nail it for the first time. What, uh, you know, your great mentor, Tony Robbins, what he said is he talks about, but it was a couple of years ago when he started getting down the path and sitting down and doing other people's podcasts and really starting to rebrand himself. I noticed it. I haven't read it anywhere, but I noticed he was, he was making a different move and it was in an interview and he was wearing his, um, clover hat. don't know what the significance of that is the Irish.

1:07:39 I don't know. It probably it's something, but he said the tyranny of how. I've never heard him talk about that. He said the moment that you pause, I'm paraphrasing the moment that you pause. Because you don't know how. You've pretty much lost. Oof. It's good. I actually never heard him use that term, but so good. Google the tyranny of how I just heard it one time. I've never heard any body. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. By the way, I'm wearing a, is this one set? Yeah. I'm wearing a black clover hat that Tony wears as well.

1:08:19 What's up with that? Live Lucky on the side. It's a brand Live Lucky. A lot of golfers wear it. uh Tony just so happened to wear it. I think it's just been a hat that I've worn because it's been a comfortable hat and I like what it stands for. know, Live Lucky, right? Like Live. I mean, I'm just going to put it into my own perception. Live with the abundance frame that life is happening for you, not to you. Live with the abundance frame that you could pave the path that you want for yourself, as scary as it sounds. And so that's where I, if I was to convert this brand, Live Lucky, it's also known as Black Clover.

1:09:00 think that's the brand, but it says Live Lucky on, on the hat. It's like Live Lucky. Put yourself in environments where figuring out the result, the tyranny of how, I mean, that's so freaking good. It's be resourceful. You know, Tony doesn't know everything, but he knows people that know people that know the thing. And I think once you could just have that shift of, wait, I don't need to know how to do the thing. I need to know with clarity what I want to happen. And then if I could articulate with clarity what it looks like, then we can go out and find the. person that has experience for the thing. And this is where the leverage piece comes in is, is I mean, I'm taking the 50 % good, you know, ready, 80 % ready mindset when I have no idea how I'm going to do that thing, but I'm going to find somebody that does that.

1:09:53 That's a huge shift for people. You don't need to know how to do everything. Yeah. All right. So as we, we actually wrap up here, um, we both have big days ahead of us. Um, you went from being a DJ to now having this entertainment company. seems like a big part of it is playing these outrageous exclusive weddings. Right. Um, COVID, what showed up in a lot of people's lives is very challenging and shut down a lot of businesses. The ones who thrived through it thought about this the way that Elon thought about, well, let's use the parking lot as the third manufacturing line, right? uh Did you see in 2020 at the beginning of 20 when COVID was happening pandemic, it's crazy.

1:10:42 It's six years ago. Did you see yourself here or has this been just grow through it to realize to come to this moment, how to build this now, how to build the mindset, how to be abundant. boy, those are big lessons in my life. You know, I look back, it's like, did I have all the tools I have today back then? No, but looking back, like in the moment, back to what we said earlier, looking back, it's like, my gosh. It's like, what is the abundance frame? I want to get back into it. We were in New York city that one of the strictest COVID rules shut down every wedding venue, shut down all events. All events are canceled. That is the bread and butter of our business.

1:11:24 What the heck are we going to do? My wife's like, all right, we took like a week or two off. chilling. Everybody's like, we're going to pause for like a week. then bam, was very extended many, many, many months and really years. I forget how long it was for schools. And we said like, all right, but abundance frame, what value can we bring to people that need us? And I see your shirt says pivot. We pivoted to produce. virtual graduations for schools. And we were relentless with who do we have to speak to? Who do we have to have a conversation with? Can we do events? Can we do graduations? We didn't even think about graduations, but those are mandatory.

1:12:04 People don't need a dance on Zoom. They need a graduation. That's the truth. And so long story short, we found the right decision makers. We had an interview with New York City schools and they said, hey, well, if we were to give you 20 or 30 graduations, could you do it? Oh boy, Mark, this is such a learning lesson in my life story. said yes before you knew how. That's it, man. Absolutely. We're going to figure it out. The tyranny of how? We're going to figure it out. We did 54 in 2020. We did like 104 events in 2021.

1:12:44 We had some pretty big, pretty big years and what many people in our industry who maybe didn't pivot or just sat back on their reserves and just waited for the rebound. We had very big growth and we very blessed for it. We still have relationships in schools. We're creating new value for people in schools. But my goodness, that in the moment, I learned about imperfect action or it became part of who I was in like 2017, 2018. And then that moment came in 2020 and I'm like, yes. And it was going to be high quality. I'm not saying yes for everybody watching.

1:13:24 Yeah, but you said, yes. Did you give them a low quality thing? No, I'm going to find the highest quality thing the year after. Hey, we're not back in school, but we want to do events outside. There's no internet and there's no power. Could you do live stream graduations? Yes. And I remember no power, no internet, phones break up when I'm on zoom out in a field. How's this going to work? Be resourceful. I found a guy. He's like, oh, there's these devices that have three modems and it's on a 30 second delay because if one modem loses some signal, it shifts to the other modem and it's seamless streams.

1:14:10 30 minutes, it was all solved with the right who. And so pivot, abundant frame, how are we going to do this? Being curious to your point earlier about building relationships, but about figuring things out. What must be true for this to happen? Marie Forleo wrote a book called everything is figure out. We did a book study on it in one of my companies. Everything is figure outable. Sure enough, Ramon. Yeah. And then like the third door, there's a book called the third door. Most people wait on, if you're trying to get into a nightclub in New York city or Vegas, choose your busy city. Most people go wait on a general mission line. Hopefully you'll get in in two or three hours.

1:14:51 That's door number one. Door number two, the VIPs. If you're lucky to be a VIP like Mark, who knows a lot of people to get into a very specific. Sweet I mean lucky to get in I need the third door as well Third door is how else can I get in? People think there's only two doors. There's somebody that works in the kitchen that has the door propped open around the back that's smoking a cigarette. Make friends with Absolutely. Go hang out with him. See if he's smoking a cigarette and say, man, you know what? I meant to get me a pack of those earlier. Which one? I'm going to go get us some. And whether you smoke or not, go buy a pack, come back. You're going to get in the venue. And this commonality, you know, he's got a tattoo and this commonality because of your tattoo, this commonality of sneakers or the shoes, like, and then you get in the door from the back and you...

1:15:37 You're talking about elite sales now, Daniel, like this is a class that could be taught. How do we lead salespeople become elite? The things that we're talking about right now. This is how, and it's a tough class to teach because you do have to learn. It's almost. You have to be aware of everything at all times. You have to see it all happening, but it, have, you, there has to be calmness in those moments. There has to be intentionality behind it and calmness. And you have to be watching and searching for everything and looking at it. Not the old Daniel or not the old Mark way, because to your point, it doesn't even occur to people about the third.

1:16:21 But even if it did occur to them, there's a lot of people that would convince themselves not to. because of self-talk. Yeah, because why would they let me in? How could I do that? They're not going to let me in. They're going to just talk themselves out of it before they even give themselves an opportunity. But the third door is the way for many of you listening to this in many scenarios that life presents. You don't need to be on the first door and think that's the only way in. And if you're not the VIP, that's fine. Most of us are not. There's always another way. And if you could be curious and not come off like a Like that's the other thing, go into that environment around go searching for a third door is how can I be a nice human?

1:17:10 How can I add value? How can I be nice? I use this term called random authenticity back to sales. How can, how can me and Mark bond on something completely unrelated as to why we're, we're meeting today? Well, he had a tattoo of I don't know, New York Yankees thing on his arm because that was his dad's favorite team, but he's from Cincinnati, but his dad's from, that was born in New York. my gosh. Hey man, I'm from Queens. I was actually a Yankees fan, even though the Mets are in, in Queens, but I've rooted for both teams. But in the Subway series, you better believe I was rooting for the Yankees. Sorry, grandpa. He's a Mets fan. Um, but look, random authenticity.

1:17:51 I'm bonding with that person who had the Yankee tattoo. Same thing in the sales capacity. I love sales. I don't think it's sales because I'm just passionately helping people make a, making a buying decision. That's going to be a big, big benefit for them. Random authenticity. You bring up Italy. Let me riff on my goodness. I had the best time ever with my wife on Italy. Where did you guys go? Ask them about their, everybody can ask, they're so scared, but ask if you see the cloverleaf, ask about it. Say, man, that's an intriguing hat. That's really cool. Like where would I get one of those? And it's not going to be where you would get it. It's like, you're going to find out why the guy loves it. And then like your last name, you brought it up to Jerdabless Columbian. But before that, I would have said, man, I want to know the heritage behind this. Ask someone about their last name, where they're from.

1:18:34 You're going to have a door. You're going to have a third and fourth door into a relationship, a friendship that asks someone about themselves. And they're going to walk away from the situation. They're going to love you. True. Because then if they're meeting with others, let's just say before they make that decision and everybody's sticking to the script and they're only going through the motions and not connecting on a human level, they're just going to say, Your commodity. Everything about, yeah, yeah. Everything about meeting with Mark was human. I liked him. I can't put it into words. I love that Marie, the Maya Angelou quote. People won't remember everything you said, but they'll remember exactly how you made them feel.

1:19:16 And, same re same thing with this podcast, man. And I'm not just blowing smoke. This is probably my favorite podcast of all time. And I've really enjoyed our conversation. Cause you're only getting better though. And, and, and here's what's funny. I have a screen in front of me. showed you all the stuff, right? You don't, pick this up one time. That's what people know. Like inform yourself about the human, but just find out what makes them special. Find out what makes them tick. Find out what's inside of them because, man, the biggest growth moments I've had in my life are finding out what makes other people great and how they do it. Cause I already know, I already know my thing. I didn't know my thing. if you want to know about that's fine. I'll tell you, but I'm going to unlock and go higher by finding out what other people's things are.

1:19:59 So, Hey, maybe you fly that plane in here and maybe you're already teaching Luca how to fly it when he's like four years old. 100 % he's already driving cars. Please don't tell the police that Jesus. Okay. Hey, uh, and you're in Sarasota. So maybe I catch you. fly down there every couple of weeks. awesome, man. Hey, thank you for joining us. I love the conversation. Didn't go too much into your business, but we're going to tag all those things and what you're building and stuff. It's more about the person and the human than the one to do business with us. 80 % of your success, people watching this right now, is your psychology. 20 % is the strategy, the mechanics, the doing of the thing.

1:20:41 People think it's the other way around. well, I need to know the perfect strategy to do. If you're not thinking about the third door, which by the way, is not a strategy for marketing, it's a strategy for mindset and perseverance, 80 % of your success, somebody who's watching or listening to this. is your thinking. And the more you can be vulnerable yourself to think about my thinking, is that really true? Can I attempt for that third door? I've never been used to that. My family never been the third door type of family, but could I be the start of it? You 100 % can. Daniel, you're the man. Mark, pleasure, brother. Thank you so much for having me, forward to watching it and reconnecting down the road.

1:21:23 Yes, sir.