#287 Markus Hussle - The Harsh Truth About Making Millions in Your 20s

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(00:00) Preview and Intro

(03:26) Lessons from Scaling and Failing Fast  

(06:19) The OFM Business Model  

(08:45) Picking the Right Clients 

(12:14) The Reality of Online Business  

(17:42) Navigating Hate, Criticism, and Reputation  

(21:47) Flashy Content vs Real Connection: What Works?  

(27:25) The Entrepreneur’s Dilemma  

(33:39) Choosing Freedom 

(36:26) Growth Through Pressure and Repetition  

(40:51) The Psychology of Sales

(47:40) Analyzing Buying Behavior  

(51:18) How to Use Reverse Psychology to Sell

(54:54) The Power of Perspective  

(59:43) The Full Circle of Success 

(01:03:42) Why You Should Be Yourself Online  

(01:08:05) How to Use AI to Scale

(01:12:07) SaaS for OFM?

(01:18:14) Why Storytelling Beats Strategy  

(01:22:37) Loving the Game More Than the Goal  

(01:26:13) The Psychology of Winning  

(01:29:59) The Future of Education

Chapters

• 0:00 Skills: The Only Thing You Truly Own
• 3:44 The Risks of OnlyFans Management
• 8:25 Selecting Quality Clients and Offering Tiers
• 14:32 The Psychology of Sales and Marketing
• 24:20 Material Success vs. True Fulfillment
• 32:38 Finding Balance in Relationships
• 48:16 Building Agency Teams and Creating Tools
• 1:08:14 The Power of Storytelling and Content
• 1:17:47 AI Advancements and Future Business Tools
• 1:27:46 Consistency and Long-Term Success Strategies

Transcript

Markus: 0:00

The only thing in life that you own is what's here in your skill set. That's the only thing that people can't take away from you. Everything else people, materialistic things, cars, money everything else in your entire life can be taken away besides the skill set that you possess. With OFM in particular, unlike most business models, it is very f***ing easy to go from like 200k a month to like 10 or 0 a month. We're very, very picky on who we take on because, simply, we can be. I don't mean to be a prick, but I just simply have the biggest social media in this only fans management space. If you google me, if you google only fans management, if you youtube it, it's my annoying ass face that pops up everywhere. Do you read still or no?

Darren: 0:38

I do intentionally when I when I need to write like pdfs and stuff or actual books I'd read a book, to be fair, but not really like religiously, I'm not like oh my god, I read 52 books this year. Like I think that stuff is just like not cool. But if it's like very intentional, like the 10x versus 2x is like it's a good reminder that all the shit you do fucking doesn't matter, apart from like one or two specific things, and you should get rid of that stuff. You know, and then a lot of my mates read things that are non-business related, so like would it be like spirituality or whatnot, because like that makes you just like an overall just better kind of person for that thing. But I don't know what about yourself.

Markus: 1:15

I don't have the time anymore, bro, I wish I could. But I listen to audiobooks, I listen to podcasts, I listen to courses. When I'm working out, I feel feel like courses, like genuinely, I'm not even just saying this to like, pretend, like, oh yeah, buy my course.

Darren: 1:27

I love, I love me, for, like you know, investing in education is awfully important.

Markus: 1:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah, like, oh man, like you know, I'm not even saying that because of that, I don't care if people buy my shit, but like myself, I am genuinely a product of this stuff. Like I think it's so important. Off camera, we're talking about one of the like recent uh courses and we're both agreeing that only eighteen thousand dollars, like that, should be worth fifty thousand um, and I think most people just don't get it, and I get that.

Darren: 1:56

They don't get it because I was that person like four or five years ago but I think, if you look at it, so I think there's a way to look at this which is like, let's, let's say you had like an OFM program. It's like I'm going there to learn this fucking thing and by the end of it I have learned that I'm at the next point. So I would buy things like sales programs and I would do with the intention of being able to hire sales reps at the end of it. So I go through this program. Likewise, I bought ones for agencies like how to like manage clients with agencies. Likewise, I bought ones for agencies like how to like manage clients with agencies, stuff like this. It was very intentional. But if you go into like something that's quite broad, which most beginners do, and then they go in and they get like a touch of everything and they try to implement it and do fuck all that's when they leave a one-star review and say it's a scam that's a good point.

Markus: 2:36

I never I never thought of that, but it's true. It's like buying a how to start an e-com store, how to start a SMMA and then how to start trading all at the same time. Each one of those do work. They all have pros and cons, but if you try and do all of them at the same time when you're a beginner, I guarantee you none of them will work.

Darren: 2:55

Fuck dude. This is going to be such a good, interesting conversation. So I know I said to you earlier that our last part you're doing 60K a month. That's fucking wild man. What do you? What have you got up to?

Markus: 3:03

since then, we've done more than that this week and how?

Darren: 3:08

how has that kind of growth been? So like, two years ago you had, you had just a coaching program at that time, yeah, and then like basically like what happened bro a lot of personal stuff like um, I will do like a big update soon on YouTube on like how and why everything has happened.

Markus: 3:26

But I'll be honest like we just massively neglected the agency that got us here in the first place because the coaching business was so easy and so lucrative, which it still is Now. With OFM in particular, unlike most business models, it is very fucking easy to go from like 200k a month to like 10 or zero a month. A matter of fact, you can do it in about two, three months. With something like SMMA web design what most service-based businesses it doesn't quite work like that. Maybe a ROAS ads agency you know what they are right, so maybe one like that you could also have a massive difference within a couple months. And I'll explain why. Because with ofm, your clients pay you 50 or, on average, 50 of whatever you make them right or as a total. And when you're just starting out and you've got a client and you're taking 50 of one, that's only making 2k and you've got like 10 of them. If you lose one, it doesn't really okay. Wow, you lost a thousand dollars to your fucking bottom line revenue. You're not gonna die, yeah, but then you got 10 clients and each one of them, on average, is making you 2k and you're taking 50 and some leave, some come, it's okay, but you're kind of you know tiny little fluctuations in your income. But then eventually you do get lucky or right place at the right time. You get a client that's already making 50,000 a month and then all of a sudden you scale her to 70, 80, 100,000. Or let's just say she just stays at 50, which is very unlikely. But let's just say you have a client now at 50k and you're on 50%. So now that's an extra 25,000 a month to your bottom line revenue. All of a sudden you're going to be like right, this one client is making me more money, less effort, less problems, less headache than all of my other 10 smaller clients. I'm just going to put more focus into this one client or actively just drop all of the other clients.

Markus: 5:22

Now, for us it was the first option, which is we just uh, I'll be honest, I can like. This is just a lesson. You know that I learned the hard way, which is I just put all my focus into the big clients that we had. We had three huge clients. One was making like 70, one was 100, one was 150, around that ballpark and I mean, yeah, these three clients were making a dramatically more money, dramatically more money, uh, drastically more, uh, more money than all of our of our clients.

Markus: 5:47

So, yeah, without realizing it, we simply neglected these clients. They didn't get as great results, like it started plateauing instead of increasing. They left and were like no offense, but I don't really. All right, I wish you the best, but, like these clients are making us way more money and then, before you realize it, your risk tolerance is like through the roof, because now your entire lifeline is reliant on free clients and they don't really care about you. You know, like these, you know you try and provide the best service in the world.

Markus: 6:19

But the other thing, when this business model is um, lots of things can happen where a client might leave. Maybe she has a change of heart and she doesn't want to do it anymore. Maybe she gets a partner and he doesn't want her to do this anymore, right? Maybe she wants to move house and that's a big fucking project. So now she has way less energy and focus to create content and if she does that, then there's not much we can do. We can't create the content for her and all these different things, which is what led us to when we have in that conversation where we're pretty much just running the coaching business at that point.

Darren: 6:50

Just want to take one quick break to ask you one question have you been enjoying these episodes? Because, if you have, I'd really appreciate if you subscribe to the channel so that more people can see these episodes and be influenced to build an online business this year. Thank you, it's crazy, right, because you're dealing with all the worst parts of someone's emotions. You're dealing with all the negative sides of people's emotions, but I think you kind of shouldn't be too harsh on yourself because of the fact that the bell curve is the bell curve, for the reason is that you will have people who are outliers and those outliers should be treated with outlier attention but at the same time, when you can service the other people what you were doing, they may be calm outliers, but it's just like a coaching program, it's like a classroom. There will be people who will just naturally outperform. They'll just be killers.

Darren: 7:40

It's your job as the founder to find the fucking killers and then obviously nurture and support them and try to get more of them. But the reason why they're outliers is because they're a fucking outlier. So it's hard because I'll give you an example. There's a personal story. We do sponsorships and we have some guys making 50K a month, 60k a month, 70k a month. We have some guys making zero, but they're in our network and they don't pay us anything. It's to your point, it's rev share. So what I'm trying to say is that not everyone is going to be great. So how do you, how do you build an agency of killers? Right, like, how would you do that?

Markus: 8:16

You know it's funny like you've genuinely just answered it with the first thing that you said. So that's exactly what we do. We have two different offers for two different types of clients with the first thing that you said. So that's exactly what we do we have two different offers for two different types of clients. Now, we're very, very picky on who we take on because, simply, we can be I don't mean to be a prick, but I just simply have the biggest social media in this OnlyFans management space. If you Google me, if you Google OnlyFans management, if you YouTube it, it's my annoying ass, fucking face that pops up everywhere.

Darren: 8:41

I remember when you said that you created the term OFM, to me Quite literally.

Markus: 8:45

Yeah, like, I have a YouTube video that state like, literally it's all dated and I'm like, oh, I think I'm going to call it OFM. So because of all of that, we get to be quite picky on who we work with. Right, we have very, very clear outlines on who qualifies and who doesn't. And what's crazy is it's not about the looks or how much she's making right now, like, of course, these things do come to account in the long term and the bigger picture, but it's not the determining factor whether we're going to work with somebody or not. The main things that we look for is their availability right now, what kind of content they're happy to do, how long they've been already on the platform and also what stage of life are they in right now, like, for example, if they are in their hot girl summer travel in the world phase. All the, all the fucking love to you right, like, go for it, I'm not going to work with you. That's headache.

Darren: 9:35

What's some ridiculous stories you have? Like, you have to have some fucking hilarious stories from clients yeah, just dumb shit.

Markus: 9:43

They're just like some of them have just been like stupid excuses and like, like excuse after excuse, like just stupid stuff where, like you just know that it's cap or it's it's, it's, it's true. But then you're like, okay, but why couldn't you just take the photos and videos, like, okay, the one of the most stupid ones that we've had recently is she had a really bad tan line and that was big and like she couldn't create content because of that. It's like, bro, it's just a tan line, nobody cares that much, but anyway. So to answer your question about like how do we find them, is, uh, we give them two different offers depending on, uh, the answers they give us on the call. Right, so if they say, yeah, like you know, I've only been doing it for three months and I'm also traveling around Asia. I'm in Bali right now and then I'm going here and I've recently broke up and split up with my ex and all this stuff it's like, okay, you're probably not in the best place right now to put your 110% focus in, so we're going to give you this offer, which is, in an essence, the same team.

Markus: 10:41

Everything is just they get slightly less things given to them and done for them. The reason for that is because our done for you services cost me quite a lot of money. We have a large team that will edit the content, post it, redistribute it, organize collaborations and so on and so on and so on. Right, all of these things obviously cost me a lot of money, which then means that if the client isn't putting in the effort, aka we don't see a longevity. So, for me, I know that I'm going to spend this much this month and I'm only going to make it back in a month, two, three onwards. So if she doesn't put in the effort and we part ways in the first 30 days which, by the way which is another interesting fact I actually part ways more with my clients than other way around.

Markus: 11:18

When I first started, it was the other way around. My clients would like leave because I provided a shit service, because we were just starting out, like nobody knew what we're doing and I just learned from from my mistakes, you know. But now it's, it's genuinely the other way around. Um, for example, today, literally just today, we dropped another client, like we dropped them. We're very nice about it and uh, um, obviously we're very professional, if anything. Also, we, we have an entire offboarding process where, if they want to, we can actually help them find another agency. So we're not just like right, like you're not making us enough money, you're gone just the way clients would do that right.

Darren: 11:53

Say again just the way.

Markus: 11:54

Clients would often just be like all right things are clients would do that.

Darren: 11:57

You know what I mean like dude I've often just had invoices it's like 20k, just like unpaid, and then like I'll get an email from like a lawyer two weeks later being like can I have the short form content you created? I'm like pro, that's not how this works, you know. Because they're like it's my usage, right. It's like bro, it's my fucking invoice.

Markus: 12:14

You didn't pay bro, the online internet money space is the funny. Like I genuinely find this shit so funny. But, like, when you look at these things in real life terms, like, like some of it is so stupid, like, for example, in the coaching space, and I love, I love it I genuinely like I never get mad or emotional about this stuff. I used to don't get me wrong, I used to right, but now I just either giggle at it or I actually like I'm like okay, how can I learn from this? But most of the time, I find this shit funny, which is like you paid me your hard earnedearned money and I love that and I appreciate that. Thank you so much, because that means you trust in me and my product.

Markus: 12:46

You've then gone through everything and then you've also got results yourself because you've shared it with me. You've also given us a testimonial and I have an entire 15-minute YouTube video interview with you saying how much of a great investment this was. And then you asked for a refund. Like what, bro? As you're going into a restaurant eating the food and be like yo, I can't lie, this is one of the best passes I've ever had. Week later, actually, I'm gonna come back. Can I have my money back.

Darren: 13:14

I have even a worse one than that. I have someone who like bought our service, right, and it's like we produce podcast people, okay, so we, we release them under content. And the guy kind of like fucked around and didn't pay the invoice initially and I was like I'll leave it go. He kind of was a big name as well, so I was like I kind of just let it be. And then a month later he's like this is a ton of work. I don't, I'm not ready to commit to all this work. And I was like, okay, bro, can you just clear the invoice for the work we did. But then, uh, we'll just leave it, we leave it it off, we won't. We have a contract, bro, like a long-term contract, and I'll just waver the contract.

Darren: 13:47

And he was like well, actually you didn't produce the amount of episodes you produce, you only produce this amount. I'm like, bro, you didn't pay for any of it, right. And I'm like I said to him I was like it's kind of like this you go for dinner and and you order the steak, the green beans and red wine, you drink one glass of red wine, half the steak and 80 of green beans and you look for a discount on the remainder of what you didn't eat. I was like you just don't do that. It's also it's like not real. You can't do that stuff, you know, and I think the reason why is because there's no rules yeah, correct, like there's no regulations.

Markus: 14:21

There's no regulation rules set out.

Darren: 14:23

Yeah yeah, I spoke to jordan platten about this recently and he said that is coming, just like regulation in the space. He said in the uk they're looking at scarcity and urgency laws.

Markus: 14:32

I don't know. I feel like jordan's been saying that for nearly two years now. I hope so. I mean, like I just feel like then it would get rid of a lot more of these overnight course sellers. But you know, another thing that I've learned as well and I'm glad I learned this only like last year is like if somebody wants a refund, just give it to them Like it's not like, like think about it, bro, it's like you either.

Markus: 14:54

In very unlikely amount of times it actually is just a dickhead who actually genuinely has got value, genuinely actually has made money or whatever they wanted to get out of it. They actually got it. But they just want their money back because of maybe Christmas or whatever, and like they actually need that money, right, um, but in most cases when people ask for a refund, it's just something was missing, like maybe it was 90% good, but something was still missing. Where they're like I want my money back and it's like, fuck, I've tried my best, but, yeah, sure, no problem. But can I, can I please at least ask you give me some feedback? Like what was it? Just tell me, be honest. And I asked that. I even asked that for my staff members as well, by the way, like with um, uh, one part of my agency, the chatting right so where the guys are essentially doing the messages et cetera Um, there's a fairly high churn rate on that, just because the the role, you know, for some people it's not quite what they expected and they don't see longevity and etc. Which I say that to them up front when I'm hiring them, like I'm like I know you're not going to do this for two years, but let's just do it for at least one and lock the fuck in and make a lot of money. But anyway, some guys, you know, leave after a couple months. And even for staff, staff members I asked them, like I'm literally very like, tell me, please be honest, you're not going to hurt my feelings, is there anything that we could have done differently or helped you with anything more, etc. For you to stay?

Markus: 16:15

I think that's the best way to learn, as opposed to, like with the refunds, for example, just fighting it and then you have a one star review, bro, there's a's a guy, right, there's a true story. There's a kid yeah, he must've been 18. He purchased my course and, bear in mind, by the way, this is the completely evergreen version. So I never. I didn't even know who this kid was. I never spoke to him, I never jumped on a call with him, anything. He bought just my course, which means that he's just watching your course. There's no calls of me, you don't get to talk to me. I didn't know this kid's existence, right? He bought the course, he went through the whole thing and then he must have emailed my support team asking for a refund. But obviously we can see how much he's watched it. And then we do have a thing that they got a tick, which means that if you watched it after a certain percentage, we're just not eligible for a refund because you've watched more than half of it, which obviously must have been the case, and my team must've said no and blah, blah.

Markus: 17:06

And also another thing as well when you get to this stage, like there are so many moving parts, I don't even know some of my staff members that make me a load of money. I don't even know most of my students who aren't in my community, right, and it's crazy, but anyway, this must've been a case where, like, I don't know the guy, the student, and I don't know the staff that must have spoken to him, and the guy right, he made a YouTube video. Bro, he put up a YouTube video and it was like how Marcus Hussle scammed me for $700. Brother, I messaged him. I was like yo, I am so sorry for what this happened. Please let's talk like, because you did not, I haven't spoken to you.

Markus: 17:42

We jumped on a call, honestly a nice kid. There was just a miscommunication. Um, I personally issued him the refund and I was like I'm sorry, like da da, da, da, and he took the video down, like so the point I'm trying to make here with this is like imagine what would you rather, as a business, refunding $700? Cause if I saw his email, I obviously would have refunded him, right? Um, or do you just go through this entire fucking phase of da da, da, da da, putting a YouTube video out and all this stuff?

Darren: 18:10

It's the energy. It's the energy that you give towards that. And one of my mentors said to me, which is like never have a conversation with someone who's not in the room. So, having all of these fucking cross assumptions and having this baseline knowledge and thinking about this, where it's like just speak to the person, hop on a call, like that's a very noble thing for you to do. Most guys would not do it and he was fucking banned, the guy, right. But that that space is also interesting, right, Like the whole. Like bashing, I remember one of my mates recently it seems like a fucking spider man, not like saying, which is like if you're the hero, if you're the hero long enough, you like become the villain, right, and like that's what happened with like shit, like the iman videos and bro, he, he, he's just so smart that, like all these videos were like iman's a scammer.

Darren: 18:53

Then he created his own video which was like 150 million dollar net worth, like is he a scammer? Like where does his money come from? So you have two sides to it, right, which is like these, like these guys are. You know, these guys are, I wouldn't say I'd say lost, but they create these videos for God knows what reason.

Markus: 19:14

And it's how you react in that regard. I think I do know why, bro, because, like me and you, we were those kids. You know where we were broke. We didn't have much money and what did we have? We had loads of time.

Markus: 19:26

So then, if you, if $700 is a lot of money to you and you now feel like this person has lost, uh, stolen it from you, even though technically they haven't you've fucking played it yourself and you've agreed to the terms of services and all this stuff but if you still feel like they've stolen these $700 from you, and then you just have all the time in the world, you'll be like, okay, well, what can I do? Like you know, I've asked them this, I've reached out to the team and no one's getting back to me. What else can I do? So then this is probably where all these things come from, and this is again what I mean is like, if somebody is asking for a refund, I think just get it. I think it's just so much easier With with, obviously, by the way. Like with in means like if. If somebody genuinely has bought it and go through the whole fucking thing and they've signed a contract and agreed in terms of services, and then they're still asking for a refund. It's like right, well, like this is just not fair.

Darren: 20:10

It's like returning your fucking used underpants, yeah, like what the fuck bro?

Markus: 20:13

no one's.

Darren: 20:14

Nobody does that right, dude, it sounds like you fucking learned so much shit, though, like as in, it sounds like you've really matured just yourself in the business context. Right, it's just like you've just kind of beaten through the wars.

Markus: 20:24

Yeah, I feel like. I feel like the last year or maybe even two years since we spoke or some something like this Right, I feel like I've massively been able to take a step back and look at this online space from a third person point of view where, like when we first done the potty, it was like I was very I'm still in the trenches, don't get me wrong, I'm still locked in I was very I'm still in the trenches, don't get me wrong, I'm still locked in, I'm still working every day. But back then it was more of like I'm in between everybody, I'm in the same kind of uh lane as everybody, and I don't mean to sound like a dickhead or like really cocky, but I really do feel like I'm like I wouldn't say above, but like I really do feel like that you know, it's a category of when you're doing your own thing my own thing, right, and I really do genuinely feel like I'm able to look at certain things that people do and I'm like this is so cringe because I used to do that.

Markus: 21:08

And now, like the things that I've learned from it. Like, for example, right, for example, like for all of my competition that is maybe perhaps watching this, you also want to do what I do. It's like think about it this way, right, and I learned this from doing it myself the wrong way. It's like the type of content that you create will attract that type of audience. So if you're just constantly only showing flashy lambos and supercars on your watches, guys like me and you don't really give a fuck about it anymore, this is like zara. Okay, these are expensive trainers, but this is like a normal, like jacket, normal t-shirt this is like a shit $20 top that I painted my company on you know what I mean, like so.

Markus: 21:47

So who are you trying to attract?

Darren: 21:48

you know, and I've realized I was- thinking that exact thing I said to you earlier, which is like you become yourself as a result. You know, like, like I've hit the six figures a month, the multi six years a month, and I realized I was like I just fucking like my dogs, bro. You know, just like chilling my dogs and stuff, and I love the game, but I'm not impressed with a game. It's different, right?

Markus: 22:07

yeah I think, I think, yeah, the biggest thing is you just learn to move smarter and not wasting your time and energy. I feel like creating and don't get me wrong, by the way, there's a time and a place when we're talking about content creation. There's a time and a place to get views, and that is when you show the flashy stuff, etc. Perhaps there's a new event you're releasing or there's a new thing that you're launching and you want to build some hype up around it, you want to get some more eyeballs on, etc. But overall, if your goal is to make money, your content should be adjusted to that right bro.

Darren: 22:40

uh, my mate tom said to me before so everyone knows the emit, which is like your business is a reflection of you, but also your customers are a reflection of you. And I found that a lot in our coaching program because it was guys that were like entrepreneurs, they were doing really well or they were just getting started, but they were serious. You know, they're kind of like they're really serious and hopefully it was a reflection of me which was like oh, I'm not, we're not in this for the 60 fucking minutes of fame, right. I think it's a very interesting observation. So you see that a lot in programs like where guys are just like are they there for the banter, literally already here to really learn? Um, and you can extrapolate that from everything your content's reflection of you, your audience, your followers, and the irony is that you don't actually need the biggest breadth of people, right? So I think it's funny because, like the lambo photos are, they're not conducive towards what you want in the end, right it feels cool in a moment.

Markus: 23:35

But then you're like why am I not getting?

Darren: 23:37

clients. So why the fuck does apple not buy my product? It's like they don't give a shit about this. Also, I want to ask you about that, though, because, like you know, if you, if we stopped talking right now, we'd hear some fucking VA turbo in the background, right, do you? I feel quite desensitized to it. Like, how do you feel, as in? Like, when I see it, I'm kind of like, oh, like they're in the corner of some nice restaurant. It was like a Bugatti out there earlier and I was like it's cool. I was like it's cool, but I just walked on.

Darren: 24:04

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Markus: 24:42

Well, I suppose, yeah, like seeing it is like you just forget about it. It is what it is, it's just another sports car. But I then like, for example, I recently met with one of my friends and we met for the first time in like six months or so and we literally sat and spoke for about two hours about the new helicopter that he bought, and then we're talking about the hanger, that is he's done, and he we're talking about the restitching of the interior and then how he's repainted it and all this stuff. And the point I'm making here is that I feel like these materialistic things they'll never go away. What the fuck we're all men like, let's be honest, like we do this to be able to obviously look after our loved ones, etc. But then eventually to buy fucking cool things that nobody else has, or just things that you've always actually wanted. Uh so, and then they just get more and more rare, which means the price goes up more and more.

Darren: 25:31

It's like if the prius was two million, for whatever reason, people would kind of want that right well, the difference there is the fact that, like this guy is super nerdy around the stitching, like he actually does enjoy it, versus like I got this helicopter, so this chick might actually know exactly.

Markus: 25:46

He's been in aviation since he was like 23.

Darren: 25:48

Well, that's different, yeah, you know that that's like a different case, you know. Um, yeah, it's just unique, right. Does that make sense? So like, if you, if you have enabled yourself, due to the capital that you've acquired, to be able to get the things I know people have, no one wants, that's awesome, and that can be different for everyone but you're definitely right.

Markus: 26:03

like here in Dubai, you do get desensitized like um, whenever I go back to London I have a good friend of mine who owns a luxury supercar rental company and, um, like, I always rent my cars from him and even like an Audi R8, which technically is a sports car supercar, I wanted the fucking two. Um, it's just a hurricane, but like people going insane, you know, in London, like taking photos running after it and it's cool, it's amazing.

Darren: 26:31

And when a kid sees it, there's a knife coming after it.

Markus: 26:32

Yeah well, yeah, they're running with a knife. It's cool. Until they, yeah, bring out the zombie.

Darren: 26:40

It's cool until they break the windshield.

Markus: 26:43

But yeah, but you forget about it, right, because you drive around it here and it's just like nobody cares, like maybe somebody takes one photo. That's about it bro.

Darren: 26:50

The analogy for that is, like you know, in the gym, like once you're like fit for the most part and you can have biceps, you're done, because the only person who cares about your rear delts are the other guys in the gym. Right, that's the only person who gives a shit. So do you really need to get to four percent body fat? No, it's also not really that cool, you know. So that's the irony. Situation is like if you're well, if you're, if you, if you have the capital and you have a nice care, the chicks don't know the difference between a fucking audi r8 and a fucking lambo.

Markus: 27:21

They just don't have you, have you ever? Uh, have you ever experienced the bagels?

Darren: 27:25

I know, obviously not anymore, but before no, because, like I, I've been with at least five years, but then before that has been five, okay, five yeah, I was just fucking broke as fuck beforehand, you know.

Darren: 27:36

So it was interesting because, like when I was traveling a lot when I was younger, it's like when you were building businesses, I was traveling, you know, and like the chicks you run into, you are broke and they're also broke because you're like in a fucking hostel in croatia and it's really based on a charisma, you know, it's also based on alcohol too. It's like getting smashed, you know. But like, if you're like I wouldn't even say in a club, like I would say like in, like a smoking area of a club, it's just based on like game, talking to chicks, like it's, it's based on a different metric. So that's why, for me, I I often say, like, you know, people, people talk about like, oh, should you like make the bag first or get the girl first?

Darren: 28:12

I think, you know, waiting to be rich again attracts the wrong type of girl, because if you're only if you're waiting to get wealthy, you're only attracting girls that are interested because they're wealthy. And then like, is that someone you want to marry? Is that someone you may want to have kids with? You know, like my wife, at the end of the day, like she's happy with the lifestyle she has. She never works a day in her life. But she also isn't in it for the cash right.

Markus: 28:35

Yeah, it's a super interesting one because it's a conundrum right, because when you're broke and then you get a girl, or at least the wrong girl, it's way harder to scale a business because of the wrong girl. It's like can we do this? Can we go here? Why are you? Can we watch this? But?

Darren: 28:48

it's not happen with a, with a, when you're like making 200k a month and you're with like a russian chick, right um yeah, but but you, you get more leverage.

Markus: 28:57

I feel like, at least from my personal experience, I I, instead of having to explain myself, I'm like no, I'm doing this, I'll be back in an hour or two, whereas I feel like when you're on a come up, it's like she's like you're fucking working all the time. Yeah, I don't have a Birkin, so which one is it? Like I don't get to see you as much and I don't get to see the luxury lifestyle. You see what I mean. So it's it's for a girl point of view. It's the negative of both, whereas when you've already got a bit of cash to supplement the fact that you're not there as much, you get to give her money.

Darren: 29:28

Well, how, whatever the girl wants, you know what I mean yeah, well, I guess that's actually connected with the chick on an emotional level though, right, because you're like, oh, like I'm, like she's like the girl is not necessarily interested in what you have. Or you can give them like interested in who you are, right. So like you're someone who's like ambitious, like you can spot those guys right. Like the guys are going through your program that are young, they could be broke, but we just know what are going to be wealthy 100, you know I can just tell it's one call five minutes.

Markus: 29:54

I already know who is.

Darren: 29:55

Yeah exactly, there's a guy in my program right now who's 19 years old. He joined the program making 4k a month. Now he's making 22k a month. He's fucking 19 and he had a tough life. Man mom died of cancer, I think his dad, uh, wasn't present as well. She's on his own, he's living in wisconsin and like that's to go you better, you know, and he's a girlfriend and so on. You know, and uh, I think that's what's interesting, it's a characteristic trait. And then, similarly, if you're finding a partner, you just want to make sure that, like this woman isn't necessarily just there for the bag, right? Um, yeah, there's like a deeper underlying because it is, you know, without going super fucking meta, like the connection for a woman is completely different than a guy, right?

Markus: 30:37

100 you know.

Darren: 30:38

That's why, like often, like a girl would just want you to be like, present in a conversation, versus like here's a new handbag, right, because the handbag is kind of like the man's equivalent of like getting the lambo. It's like yeah again. It's like, yes, that's great, but like you still have to deal with all the other shit that goes on in life, it's interesting but I feel like dealing with women is so fucking complicated and you have to learn over a long period of time.

Markus: 31:04

I guess maybe I've been very fortunate in the sense that I grew up with my mom for most of my life, so my mom taught me a lot of things, subconsciously, like we never sat down and she was like right, this is how women think.

Darren: 31:14

But I feel like over a long period of time I just realized that, oh, if I do this or say this or don't come back by this time, it makes her feel like this and I feel like, subconsciously, you understand these things from observing you and your mother, it seems like she's like very empathetic yeah, super yeah and like that works because you're logical, yeah right, so like it's like the feminine and the masculine, like she was, like she was providing for you and she was giving you lots of like, care and nurturing when you were just like I'm gonna fucking make it, I'm gonna fucking make it and fucking make it.

Darren: 31:40

And that's the way my wife are. So like she is there to kind of like support me. When I'm peeling my fucking head off the laptop at 12 o'clock at night, I'm like my eyes are like trembling and like this literally happens like nicotine, coffee, too many calls, my eyes are like peeling and then she's just there like, oh, like you know, I think I can help wood, whereas I wouldn't want the boss babe because, like she's like what's your mmr?

Darren: 32:05

she just wants. And that's what happens, bro. I can't imagine anything worse. But that's what happens is because if you find someone who's like a boss babe, the two of you both compete on the metric of masculinity. Likewise, if you're a little bitch, you both compete on a feminine scale. So you'll find a girl who's like you know, she's very passive, you're also kind of passive and as a result, then you're both, like you know, talking about like, which fucking conditioner to buy?

Markus: 32:31

right, yeah, yeah, like you will yield towards that, you know.

Darren: 32:34

So that's why I'm in like the masculine seat, at least in a very feminine, feminine, sweet feminine seat. And uh, I'll give you an example. So I was recording a podcast. I came off a flight on Saturday Saturday, stayed up all flight because I can't sleep on planes trained, worked all day, met my mate Dakota, we recorded a three hour podcast and we went out for dinner together and we were just talking about work and shit. I was fucked, bro, fucked up for two days. I messaged my wife she was planning our dog's birthday party and she spent all day on canva making the fucking poster to send to her tree friends to come to it. That's what she did on saturday and I spent like 18 hours working on saturday that's how it should be, and that's why I said I was perfect.

Darren: 33:23

She sent me on the photo and I was like perfect. I was like, and I was like it's on friday. She was like you got to be there. I was like cool and like that's what I want. I don't want someone to be like. And then I made this funnel and then this vsl hits this lead my client's really frustrating me today like, oh bro, I can't do that.

Darren: 33:39

No way, dude, there's a there's another angle to take on this, which is the net, like income or benefit that can come from the two masculine tackling it out. So I'll give an example. In western world where, like, everyone is considered to be about like, they inspire you to be a boss, babe, and stuff what often matters I get really fucking nerdy on this is like the man and the woman both go to work and then they're both doing like mid-level jobs, making 4k each. Okay, they have a baby. The woman is under an insane amount of pressure from the boss to go back to work. She's like get back to work, get back to work, get back to work. They pay for daycare. Daycare is like 3k, 4k. Now she is literally. They are literally working to put the kid back into daycare, whereas the woman didn't want to do in the first place. And now they're both fighting and jostling to get back to work and they have a massive like issue with the relationship.

Darren: 34:34

And I, I've, I've literally seen that I know, I know people that do that and that's the reason I'm saying I know people do it. And then I said I was like well, if the woman didn't want to work, why doesn't? Why doesn't the guy just make more money. That's literally what I said. I was like it would not be easier, because there's an exponent. Right, money has an exponent which is like, if the goal of money it's not the fucking beat, the fucking dead horse, and uh, people are like oh no, don't, don't, that's, that's bad, don't say things like that. I'm like what are you talking about? Cause, if someone didn't want to do that, why would you ask them to do it?

Markus: 35:14

Right Cause if you're very minor when you know you were your your wife's pregnant, you've got as in they.

Darren: 35:30

What I'm saying is they did it the right way, like the woman wanted to be at home, the wife wanted to be at home, so she was at home, and then the dad worked harder and he was in sales and he was homeless as a kid but then he was making like a million a fucking year when he was 30, and then it worked.

Markus: 35:44

So, case by case, you know the thing is, I think for a lot of people they'll hear things like this and they're like, yeah, well, it's fucking easy to say for you guys in dubai driving these supercars, right, because that was me probably five, six years ago, right, like, oh, yeah, all right, man fucking out. Yeah, I'll just read a book a week and I'll become a millionaire like you. Yeah, sure, but guess what it does actually happen if you just work hard and you just stay focused.

Darren: 36:06

I've never taken a day off, right. I've since I started my podcast, because I was in genesis of everything. I've never taken it off. I worked in tech. I got up at six o'clock in the morning, I did six to nine and then night, then six to nine in the evening and I think, people.

Markus: 36:18

I don't think that will go over people's head. And you still work out, you still travel, you still have a social life, you still all of these things so what's the alternative?

Darren: 36:26

this is my, this is my big thing with this stuff is like, if, like, if you, let's say, you build your agency and you're doing 10k a month or 8k a month and you're fucking stressed as fuck, the answer isn't to stop. The answer is to keep going until it's not stressful, because your baseline levels of stress will increase, your tolerance will get better and you'll hire the team and stuff. That's the answer to your question. The question isn't I'm going to go back to my job. Like what the fuck are you talking about?

Darren: 36:51

People prefer to take a guaranteed level of like terrible life, like a very poor standard of living, instead of the opportunity of going for it.

Darren: 37:00

Right, right With the risk, but the only variable of risk bear in mind is your input, because hopefully, people have seen, like the past couple of years, all the tech companies laying off people. That is the most risky thing you can do. And one of my clients and great friends his startup in his 50s went to shit and then he was going to go take a job as a C-suite executive, probably make like 50k a month, roughly like this guy worked for 40 years. Right, he's going to be like an executive and then instead we built him an offer which was a training program and then he scaled that super quickly to 60, 60, 70k a month and I said to him I was like for your level of input back to how hard you can work, that is the least risky thing you could possibly do, because the riskiest thing is he gets a job and he gets caught again in a six months time you know, but people don't have even even when I was broke, I always understood they're both difficult.

Markus: 37:54

Being poor is difficult, being rich is difficult. I didn't know how difficult being rich was, but I knew it wasn't going to be fucking easy, because if it was easy then everybody would have been rich. So they're both difficult. They've they genuinely are like actually realize how insane that one sentence is like being poor is very difficult. I know it because I've been there. Being rich is also difficult, but a different difficult.

Darren: 38:15

It's more up here but you'll never go back to it though, right, because like shit.

Markus: 38:19

Even if I do, bro, like I'm not scared of it. You know, like 100 I'm not 100 because, like what, I just have to eat pot noodle and live in a one-bedroom apartment. As long as I can get enough money to buy a laptop and have like 4g and wi-fi, I'll get back there and 100, right right, but you have the skill right, exactly, and that's the thing that's that's really valuable.

Markus: 38:40

I think homozy says this all the time the only thing that you actually own, the only thing in life that you own, is what's here in your skillset right. That's the only thing that people can't take away from you. Everything else people, materialistic things, cars, money everything else in your entire life can be taken away besides the skillset that you possess.

Darren: 38:58

And everyone skips. I had a podcast with this yesterday, which and everyone skips. I had a podcast with us yesterday, which was when you someone buys a service, they skip this skill acquisition and experience and it's fine because they pay the 5k a month or they've skipped it. But you have to understand that by paying for it, you still need to acquire it in some way, because people think they can skip the fucking painful part. So can you buy a program? You know how much people buy a program but don't start the program. They think that they got it. They have the dopamine from starting it, which is like you need to learn front end sales and marketing and you need to learn back end, which is just like how to run something, but like that's, that's all you do need. You know that's. The irony is that you don't even need to learn funnels. You don't need to learn vsls in the beginning, right, you just need to learn how do I get users traffic and how do I give them something.

Markus: 39:43

I wish there was a statistic somewhere, somehow, if you could find it on the amount of gym equipment that people purchase coming up to new years that doesn't ever get used, still has the label on it in the wardrobe somewhere deep, deep, far back behind. That's the same point, right? People buy that said thing and after they make that purchase it hits them, that dopamine. I feel great. Okay, this is the new year, I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to get in the best shape. I can already imagine the lads holiday. I'm going to fly to Spain, I'm gonna get all the baddies, and then they just don't go gym ever. They just carry on the same shit. It's so interesting. But you know, I think I was speaking to that friend who just bought the helicopter. We were saying, like about how the fuck we ended up here. I mean, obviously, hard work is what it comes down to, but we're saying, like, what are the some of the things that me and him have both done and learned and developed that has given us a massively unfair edge to get us here? And we both agreed that it was sales and psychology. However, sales, sales is psychology. So then we narrowed it down to just psychology and I've been massively obsessed with human psychology since.

Markus: 40:51

Well, reading books wise about four years ago. But even when I was a little kid like thinking back at it I'll always remember, like self-analyzing, because I was a single. I'm a single child, right, I don't have brothers and sisters. I was always just bored by myself thinking in my head. So I was always self-analyzing. When I'm around people, when I say something, how does that person react to how I said it, what did I say, how can I make him feel different, et cetera.

Markus: 41:14

And then, about four or five years ago, is when I started reading all of the books about psychology and like actually learning, not just like reading for the sake of it and posting a picture on my Instagram story, like actually reading it and understanding, and if I don't understand it, let me go back and reread it again. And like, holy fuck, if that's the one thing that I can help or give advice to anybody is, learn psychology. Cause once you understand psychology, everything it's sales, it's marketing, it's funnels, it's copywriting, it's video, it's the hook, it's editing not physically editing, but it's how you edit and where you add things, et cetera. Cause once you understand, okay, this part is boring. Why is it boring? Because it's a bit too long. My attention span is short. Okay, all of a sudden, everything also goes.

Darren: 41:58

I was going to say I'm dating Right.

Markus: 42:00

That's probably the biggest one.

Darren: 42:02

So what were the big areas? Like, what was it? Which book? Because I have a few I want to mention too.

Markus: 42:08

But for me, one of the biggest things in psychology that shifted to me, that made me go oh, that's how life works, is when you want somebody to do something that you want them to do, do not ask why you need them to do that thing. Position it as why they should do it as a benefit for them. As an example I come to you in here. You're already tired, you're jet lagged, you're fucking tired. Right, I come in and I'm like yo, listen, bro, we've got this party. Do you wanna come? Like that's option one. Right, it's like not really convincing. And it's like I don't know, I think about it.

Markus: 42:41

Option two I come in, I've got loads of energy. I'm like yo, darren, we've got this party. It's like, fuck bro, it's one of the biggest parties in Dubai. Like you have to come tonight. And you're like, bro, I'll be honest, like it's jet lag, I'm tired. I don't really want to come anyway, but then you're going to be two hours late, bro, come on, let's just get dressed, let's go. You trust me, you're going to want to come. And now, all of a sudden, it's the same question. Apart from got, you can extrapolate that, or use that scenario, or use that example in numerous different scenarios for your staff members, your girl, your parents, your friends, your business partner, etc. You always position it as why it's a benefit for them it's so funny, right?

Darren: 43:33

because everyone is so interested in themselves they don't understand that yeah understand it right.

Darren: 43:37

It's just that everything is like a first person player game which it is, but you need to look at it from perspective of like how you influence people. So the why that's so important, that framing is fucking in sales, because not necessarily your own sales, but building a sales team, because building a sales team is like one of the hardest things you could possibly do. Right, but the way it was explained to me was sale. Getting a sales rep to sell is not about the commission you give them. It's about how you motivate them, why they should come to their job. Because they believe marcus. They know that marcus is like someone who helps them with their personal goals or personal objectives. Marcus's interests are in the sales rep, even though you might not even fucking know them. But you need to instill that belief in them. And that's the belief because you get in, you do something that's really difficult every day. That's a big change versus oh man, you'll get $500 for every sale you make, because the money isn't enough to get people motivated. You need to literally go deeper inside there. Have you ever read Robert Cialdini Influence Fuck bro Dude. You have to listen to that audio. Okay, if you, if you, if you that's like the fucking og for um, for psychology. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna put up the points right. How do you not notice, like, so you've definitely here, that's a hold on. It's called influence, influence by by cialdini. Okay, there's seven points, so there is um one second seven points. So this is basically. It's how, like, all sales is done, right, so you reciprocity. So reciprocity is I do something for you, you do something for me, so the goodwill that you make. So let's say, you create content, and the more content I put out about fucking ofm but podcasts, I build that reciprocity so that I don't need to do any more for free. You'll come and buy my shit, okay. The other one, then, is scarcity. As we know, things that are scarce, people will actually go, will just jump for it, right, so just by virtue of something being limited and it goes into all different triggers. But he did like a huge analysis of it, okay. Other aspects, then, like authority. So authority is the person who's in a white coat. So that's it. When you're going to, when you're going to a doctor, you see the doctor in a white coat. That's an element of authority. You see someone on stage. It's credibility. Other aspects of liking because you're a nice guy Social proof.

Darren: 46:03

So social proof is interesting because social proof isn't just a testimonial. Social proof can be. So jaywalking is like illegal in Dubai, right, but everyone jaywalks. Why? Because when they're standing there and the lights are like, one person will run across the street and then everyone will go with them. So social proof is actually more like herd mentality.

Darren: 46:23

The extreme example was there was some cult, some like fucking amish cult in america, and they were exiled from wherever it was in america and they went to central central america and people caught on because they're doing like loads of illegal stuff, and the leader basically said everyone has to kill themselves and they're like, okay, fine. So one person killed themselves and he, he lied in a row, like at an angle, and everyone else killed themselves and lied in the exact same angle because of social proof. And the last aspect is unity. So people want to be in tribes. So that's why communities work so well, that's why politics works so well, that's why religion works so well, it's why sport sports or religion works really well. So yeah, man, you have to read that book.

Markus: 47:07

I think one of the out of all of them, although it might seem like the most obvious one or boring, to me, scarcity is one of the most interesting ones about like how. I think the biggest thing is how powerful it is, because you can have the same thing, the same price point, everything, and it's available right now and it's been available for the last four days. Right, and a hundred people are like yeah, I like it, but, and then, as soon as you announce that it's gone out of those hundred, there'll be about 20 that'll go oh, I fucking need it. I'll pay double the price right now. It's insane.

Darren: 47:40

Did you ever hear the story, uh, when I went into the rolex store in bangkok, no, tell me I feel like such a dumbass was it something like this?

Darren: 47:54

so I'm in bangkok, right, and like bangkok can be really bougie. There's lots of like really like fucking nice, like stores and shit like proper. You've like Patek, all the other ones right lined up. So I see I went to see the Rolex store and I was like let's have a fucking look. And I see like gold Daytona on it and I'm like this is pretty nice and I was like, fuck, I'll try it on.

Darren: 48:14

So she has me trying it on and I'm wearing it and I ask her about it and I'm like what's the story, what's the setup with it? And she was like it's not available. I'm like what's the story, what's the setup with it? And she was like it's not available. I was like, okay, it was fucking kind of rude, but whatever. And I was like I kind of presumed that. And then I said okay, that's fine, um, but is there, can I go on like a waiting list for some of this? And she was like no, there is no waiting list and you have to be local, you have to be based in Thailand, you have to be like Thai. And I was like, look, dude, like I like this watch, can I just go on some sort of fucking waiting list. And she was like no, you can't go on a waiting list. I was like, okay, if there was a waiting list, how would the waiting list look? And she's like one, you have to be Thai and two, you'd go on this list and after four years you will get a call. And I'm like what does the call mean? And she's like in four years, when it's available, on that day you'll get a call. And if you get the call and you don't say yes, they will hand it to the next person immediately.

Darren: 49:11

And then, at this point, I obviously want to watch more than ever. And I was like Jesus Christ, I'm all ready, I'm 50k and let's just go for it. And I'm like okay, it has to be a new way to do this, it has to be a new way. And then she said where are you based? I said Indonesia. And she goes okay, you got to go back all the way through the Indonesian fucking application form and start the entire process again. And I'd been in there for two hours. And at that point she was like okay, this is a watch that you want. That's not available. You're not going to get it in five years. And when they do call you in five years. If you don't pick up, it's over. And I got in there to have a look and it was just because of scarcity you actually bought it there and then I couldn't okay, I thought she was gonna go, oh yeah, good

Markus: 49:52

no, no, no, that was the whole thing was like you can't have it bro, and then you were like bro, I now I need this watch, even though, like two hours ago, didn't even know existed I literally walked out of it and, uh, walked out of the place and I rang like my wife's father, like he's kind of been shrewd, it's like wave.

Darren: 50:09

I rang him and I was like when I get a million in cash in the bank, when it's cash a million in the bank, I'm gonna get one. And he was like I said the same thing too and I was your age and he's like I never got in the end. The majority of my guests run content businesses. They've used content as the main element of their business to drive more revenue and build their influence online. We've been doing this through a podcast for many years.

Darren: 50:29

We have many guests, clients and even customers use a podcast as their main source of driving more revenue for their business and building their influence online, and we're offering a handful of spots to book in a call with our team to learn how you yes, you can leverage a podcast to generate more revenue for your business and drive your influence online. Many of our clients and customers start from nothing, but each one of them are action takers and they want to learn more about how to build a podcast and a brand right around their business. So if you want to learn more and you're really interested in building a podcast, check out the link down below and book in a free call with our customer success manager and he will guide you into how you can build and generate more revenue from your podcast this year, bro, you know, one of my friends said this interesting funnel that he does.

Markus: 51:18

So they'll do like a webinar or some sort of a live event and then at the end of the live event event they'll sell like a thousand dollar price point of of their info product, right? And then what happens is, as soon as the event is done and let's just say there's 20 people that purchased it for a thousand dollars every single one of them get a phone call instantly from from their team, right, somebody from their team. They're calling them now and they're like oh, congratulations on your investment. Um, I just wanted to do a personal onboarding and explain the next steps that are just. Before I do that, tell me a little bit about yourself.

Markus: 51:47

And then a guy's like, yeah, this is who I am, this is what I do. And he's like all right, what are your goals? Like, where do you want to get to? And he's like, yeah, like I really want to get to this girl. I want to make this much. And I was like, yeah, because of my parents or this and that.

Markus: 52:07

And then the guy from the team is like dude, like I'm going to be honest. Um, well, this is not even no sales. I think I'm just going to refund it because you have such amazing goals that this is not even the right program for you. We actually have this thing, which is which is slightly more, but this will ensure that you'll actually achieve those goals, the things that you just said there. Like, I'll be honest, this program is not going to help you get there. So, um, let me just issue a refund right now, like I apologize for wasting your time. The guy's like no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What is this now thing that you're saying? And then, all of a sudden, that's how they get a bunch more sales, right, and this is the whole point of reverse psychology and scarcity. It's like the guy's like bro, I've just barely convinced myself to buy this and you're literally telling me that you don't want me to go through it.

Darren: 52:49

and, bro, like it's insane I mean I'm dating uh yeah, here's your handbag, but I'm actually gonna take it back from you because I think you should deserve that back yeah, oh, it's insane dude.

Darren: 53:01

Um, have you ever read a gap selling? You should deserve that back. Yeah, oh, it's insane dude. Have you ever read, uh, gap selling? No, so I've interviewed a guy, his name is keen and he's a fucking head baller, but he's uh, yeah, he's just a crazy. You know it's like he's a crazy dude, but I got.

Darren: 53:13

The whole thesis around gap selling is that you create a gap between their current state and future state. You really get really nerdy to b2b book so, like, what's the numbers, what's how many leads? You're getting All that kind of shit. And then, like you, you create a path, you create a journey and you see the gap. But the big caveat to it that most people don't understand is that that's all logic. It's all a professional logic. But the question you'd ask is just like what does all this mean? Like where, what does this mean for your family and your grandmother who's going into retirement, and your children?

Darren: 53:43

And you and I've used that method to close one of our biggest clients we have right now for years, for years, because the guy wanted to be. So the guy was running this agency and he's doing whatever like the only three millennia, but what he wants is actually to be a world, international speaker. He wants to speak on stage and be an authority, so status. So then, basically, what I was saying was like okay, you need the podcast to be able to become credible so people see you. And he was like done, so it was nothing to do with that, it was actually the goal of being a speaker and that's what made him go.

Darren: 54:18

Oh, that makes no sense, and that was it, because the whole logic was like, when things got tough and you had to record more, it was like, dude, like you need to do these reps because people need to see which is large, which is true, but you've fucking done it before. They put you on stage. And then what was ironic was nine months later we put him on a stage in like Athens, and he made like a shit ton of money from it, from like a one hour speech. And that's the thing is that, like those things do become reality, but you need to speak them into existence and then you, as the seller, needs to understand like what's the driving factor here? Is it the fucking podcast and a short-form content clip, or is it the overarching goal?

Markus: 54:54

yeah, I just think it's super interesting what makes people tick? Every single person is different, you know, like the other thing, so that's one of them. But the other thing is like paradigms. And once you start to understand that every single person has certain beliefs because of their paradigms and their paradigms have been built up against or along their entire lifetime then you start to understand that when they say certain things and they believe in certain things, you shouldn't look at like you, like you're wrong, it's just like all right.

Markus: 55:24

I can imagine you probably feel this way and think this way because of your experiences in the last couple of years. So, for example, if you have been going about your entire life, and you've been going about your life and you get hit by I don't know a red car, and then you're like, oh, that fucking sucks. And then, like a year or two later, you get hit by another red car, you're like, right, I'm probably going to stay away from red cars. Red cars are horrible, I'm never going to buy a red car and all this stuff. Obviously it's a stupid example, but the example is that, based off of your life experiences, you then shape up your belief and, like some people, their beliefs are so, so, so strong that like they live by it.

Markus: 56:02

And then you see, like I'm not going to say, but some people online with like pink hair and all this stuff, and they're like no, no, no, no, no, no. And you ask them it's like so, why do you think this? I don't want to talk to you. Like they can't even think for themselves, Right, it's crazy. So that's another thing. I think, another reason why, whenever people say certain things and they comment certain things as well, like I'm like bless your heart, like I get it, I get why. You'd probably think I, this is not my lambo, this is not my watch, this is not my girlfriend. Like I I get why you would probably think that so I don't even bother responding. That's what you don't see people like me, me and you, ever, ever, whenever you see like Iman or somebody like responding to a comment, I'll be like no, actually dig my car.

Darren: 56:47

Here is my P&L and I actually I noticed that as well, because I put out a lot of feedback. I was getting from guests where, like I don't know what your story is, like people were like I don't really know what your story is, and that put me on a whole path of like storytelling and origin story, which I think is really fucking important. And when I started putting that out, people were commenting on my post like guys that I went to school with, and they were like, hmm, I remember it differently. I'm like it was my fucking experience, bro. You were like someone who lived like 60 miles away from me, because that's what happens, right, it's a guy that's making 20k a year who's just disgruntled in his office and the 24% body fat is like this is not the way it should be Right. And that happened more and more when people were like seeing the like successes. Okay, there was that. And then there was a few other things too, which was, again, guys I've been friends with who's became like very disgruntled or because it's a mirror. Everything is a mirror, you know. It's a mirror backwards.

Darren: 57:47

And I had an experience recently as well, which I don't give a shit all about, which is like you know, when you were in that grind phase, that come up phase, of course everyone in your school thought you were a loser 100% everyone and probably people think you're a loser to this day because everyone probably thinks the exact same.

Darren: 58:01

I got a a message from someone who when I saw the message I didn't open it and I checked that he like followed me on IG typical litmus test and he didn't because he obviously had unfollowed me when he saw me pounding at the podcast content and stuff. And then he was asking me for a favor to go to like a fucking dumb like school reunion or some shit. To go to like a fucking dumb like school reunion or some shit. And I was just like you openly were probably insulting me and and like saying I'm a fucking x, y and z and talking around the table and saying x, y and z about me, probably saying my yellow fucking hair is gay, which probably is um, and then you you come and ask something right, right, and it's just like I think that happens to absolutely everybody, everybody.

Markus: 58:46

It pisses me off your friends and acquaintances, if you want to call them. They'll initially be like come on, what the fuck are you doing? Come on, let's just come out drinking whatever. Then you really start getting on their fucking nerves because you're just working Sure, you're not successful yet, but you're just working. Sure, you're not successful yet, but you're just working. And then, and then they start chatting shit behind your back because they can't get to talk to you anymore because maybe perhaps you cut them off to focus, etc.

Markus: 59:10

And then and this is where now it spreads and everyone's chatting shit behind your back like, oh, what the fuck is doing his little podcast? Like it's just silly, right. And then, and then you do find some success. And then some of them are like, hmm, all right, yeah, like maybe this guy's onto something here. And then you do find some success. And then some of them are like, hmm, all right, yeah, like maybe this guy's onto something here. And then you become even more successful. And then they either are congratulating you, which is too late I mean, some of them are like I appreciate it, but most of them is too late Uh, or they ask for a job, and it's kind of like this full circle of like every single successful person that I know that has come from nothing. Every single person has gone through this.

Darren: 59:43

And the logic is it's like an association bias. It's like, association rule is a term, which is how much? People say that they went to school with Leonardo DiCaprio, you know, or lived in the same hometown as this famous person, or whatnot, because they want to be associated with that. And I'm not saying we're fucking Lear and DiCaprio, but it's the microcosm example and it's a, again, it's a mirror, right, because like, and you didn't cut that person out because you were like fuck them, you just are so in your own zone. And, dude, like I don't know why hermosi gets a lot of shit, because, like, he's just a guy that just does his own stuff, right, like he has a zero tolerance towards bullshit, which is why he, like you know, doesn't do like calls and doesn't do all this stuff because he just he just doesn't have any time for that bollocks I think you should do a podcast with hermosi this year.

Markus: 1:00:39

You haven't done one yet, right? No, I've tried a few times that would be so good because you ask some incredible questions and you really listen to the person. You ask deeper questions and I feel like with homozy um, what is that one fitness guy? He's on like two free podcasts with him. They're like three hours long each. He's got like a buzz cut.

Darren: 1:00:56

Chris williamson yes, yeah, yeah, those are really good and I feel like you'd ask similar and better questions yeah, because, like, I think to some degree, like I have a lot of pain from just like my childhood and stuff and I really resonate with his stuff because we have a very similar structure in terms of how we view very similar like outlook. Now I don't know that I inherent that outlook from him, whatever, but um, we have a similar viewpoint. I would put it that way and I think that would yield a very different conversation, right? Because, because, like I, I do, you know, like one of my good mates was on earlier. He was like you know, people have great intentions and I assume the best.

Darren: 1:01:29

This person Sometimes I don't think that's always true, you know and I I do think that there is this weird pendulum continuously. Um, I think I'd have a good podcast with Ian as well, because I don't give a shit about this, because I think, like, um, you know the podcasters kind of, who get the most views, it's kind of we talked about earlier, you're talking about the same shit, right. We're just like how do you escape the matrix, right, and like that's the stuff that that like makes me want to get a fork and pull out my eyes, you know. I think that's why my podcast with luke did pretty well luke bellmer, because I think I well, I'm not him, but I think people weren't expecting someone to be like. So like, where in the funnel do you do this?

Markus: 1:02:10

because that's what I'm interested in, right, it's like the real fucking nerdy stuff yeah, well, at the end of the day, I feel like what really people care about is one, the things that they've never heard this person say before, and then two just in general, like actually seeing who that person is, cause I think that's the whole point of. Well, not the whole point, but for me personally is why I appreciate listening to certain people on podcasts is because it's them, so for most people, their short form. I even class YouTube 20 minute videos still technically short form compared to a podcast, right? Um, a lot of it is very curated, planned, scripted, edited, etc. Whereas a two-hour podcast I mean maybe there's a cut between the camera angles, but like you can't fake it for two hours, I mean it'd be pretty fucking difficult if you did, and for so many years, right, and I was familiar with that in the beginning which is like everyone's gonna know do you really give a fuck about it?

Darren: 1:03:03

And everyone's going to know what the guests and stuff, and for the most part, I think like everyone I interview is like a nice guy, but like you can kind of tell not necessarily smokes and mirrors, but I guess I can tell if someone's really an operator or not. You know, if someone's like I'd be asking someone, I'd be like, oh, so, like how does that thing work in the background? You're like, uh, you know, which is fine, like they could be the front end of the business, you know, but uh, that's not happened. A lot, I would say. But I just think that sometimes, like we talked about, like earlier, but like authenticity, I think authenticity is like a terrible word, but, but the meaning of, though, is just being like very, very comfortable, right and like in your own kind of skin.

Markus: 1:03:42

You know that specifically, that. That point, I think, is what's happened to me in the last like two years, but I think it will happen more and more as the years progress and as my income goes up. At least personally, I feel like it is correlated to income. I think it depends on how you make that income. So let me just explain right.

Markus: 1:03:59

So, like for me, one of my main ways to make income is through social media. So I put myself out there, create videos. They gain views, I gain leads, I sell them something right. And then, obviously, the other business, which is my agency. Technically, although I do still get models and clients from my YouTube. Technically I don't have to put myself out there. But, like I said, the other business, which is this content, content side of things. That is how it brings me a lot of money.

Markus: 1:04:24

And when you don't have that much money and you're comparing yourself to the likes of email and etc. You are almost trying to compete in your head with them, in the sense of how you're going to be perceived. So then you say and act and do certain things that don't align with who you actually are. However, however, which is the interesting thing, is, the more money you make, the more you realize, oh, I can just kind of just be myself and I'll still get the views. If anything, I might get more views.

Markus: 1:04:52

And then you're like, okay, why don't I just be myself a little bit more? And then all of a sudden it flips and then you become your own person and this is where you like branch out and you dress like you, talk like you, you do things like you, and then and then it becomes a lot easier. But for me and you to say that now is easy because we are relatively successful, like I'm sure where me and you want to get to, we're not successful, but for the grand scheme of things, me and you, me and you are very successful. But it's so. It's easy for us to say this now, but me and you four or five years ago we were that fucking guy that was like, should I upload this? Read, read a bad comment.

Darren: 1:05:29

It's like, maybe this guy's right, yeah I don't know, and I think that one I completely agree with you one variable in that, as well as experience. So, the longer you do something, that's why people that are like 60 years old are just so they don't give a shit, right, they walk around because, like they've just gone through it, right, like they, they see like the lines beneath the world and they're able to really deduce that. And I think, um, I think for people that are like listening this and getting started because like this is just a, it's a fucking great podcast, man, it's like and it's really fun because it's like a flow in terms of like your actual experiences. But I think what's important is like I was that guy that was trembling over his phone, bro, when I started my podcast. I had no background in this shit or anything and I had recorded three podcasts, put them up. They were in draft and I was pressing publish and I was like hovering, like this and I was like what's my high school friend going to think about it? You know what Fucking that guy didn't even get started.

Darren: 1:06:26

So I was immediately ahead and that's the mental model I have. I have two mental models around this, which is one if you start, you're already 99% ahead of most people in the entire world, because they don't even start. And then also, if you see someone who's super successful, like in Iman, you have to realize that he is a beginner at 99.9% of things that have ever existed in the world. He's an absolute master at his craft, but he could still learn a shit ton from you. He probably learned some stuff from me too, because anyone who's a master, anyone in general, is a beginner at everything else. And it's amazing, right, dude, like like I've had conversations, people and they'd be like so tell me like how I should post my videos. I'm like what are you talking about?

Markus: 1:07:09

you've taught me how to do it.

Darren: 1:07:10

You've got millions of views and even and even the flip side, like people being so helpful.

Darren: 1:07:14

Like I remember we talked about alex earlier. Uh, my wife runs like a really big instagram for our charity, so it's like a faceless instagram. And I remember they were sitting at the kitchen table together and she and Alex was teaching my wife about like how to get more story views is Alex famously gets like 500,000 story views a day and he was like, yeah, like you positioned this way and he like drew it out and mapped it out and I was like I was like bro, you don't need to do this at all. And he was like I like, he was like I like teaching, you know, and it was really nice interaction Cause what happens is if you're someone who's curious, people will actually like to help you Cause you're like genuinely interested, and then, like Elise will be like oh yeah, and like now I'm up to 4,000 views on my story and stuff and she proactively thinks about it. So you'd be surprised how people in the space again, like you know, hate never comes from above.

Markus: 1:08:05

But it's simple, right again. It's such an easy, simple concept to say and you hear this all the time, but once you actually visualize it and you go through it like oh right, and then you just kind of get over it. Who cares? Who actually cares?

Darren: 1:08:16

no, it's not that deep it's a halo effect, right, like everyone thinks that, uh, everyone's looking at them, or spotlight effect sorry, spotlight fight everything's. People are looking at them, but they're not. And the halo effect is that you think this person is amazing at everything, but they're actually not they're actually not a human.

Markus: 1:08:31

They're just another human.

Darren: 1:08:31

You know they don't have a third eye, or a sixth leg or something. They're just, they're just fucking human. You know they just, every once in a while, go to the fucking mcdonald's, and that's, that's the reality.

Markus: 1:08:42

Like everyone passes mcdonald's, or like I might just get five hamburgers I mean, it's also the good thing about podcasts and and vlogs, where you see this famous person and you're like oh wait, they are actually just a normal person as well so.

Darren: 1:08:53

So what are you thinking next?

Markus: 1:08:54

you're thinking of creating a tool so this inflow, uh software that I'm talking about, which, which is fantastic, I've actually partnered with them they do the actual on the OnlyFans platform. That's where they shine, right? That's the only thing they do Off of OnlyFans platform. They don't help you in any way, shape or form, right. So don't help me like book calls, send emails none of that, it is just on OnlyFans. So think of it like it's an extension to Shopify in Ecom language, right? So what I'm building is an all-in-one tool for off. So, before you get a client, you need to have a CRM, you need to have a booking page, you need to have a website, you need to have a funnel for onboarding and offboarding, you need to have email automations. Uh, and those are the five main ones, but the main one being CRM funnels on a website, right? So we'll be essentially white labeling kind of like go high level, right. In an essence, to get people to envision, like what it would be like.

Markus: 1:09:51

We've pre built everything that I just mentioned. So you'd have pre built CRMs specifically for OFM. You'll have three different pipelines in there. You have a pre built website. You'll have three different pre built websites and you just get to pick the one that you like the look of the most and you just edit the images and the thing you have like three or four funnels, so like a booking page, an onboarding page and so on and so on.

Markus: 1:10:13

You'll also have automations built in within the software. Meaning, for example, if you let's just say you have a CRM and you have a client which is booked in for a call, you just move that lead over to booked a call and it'll automatically send them email reminders, text message reminders, pre-written. And then let's just say you've, you've want to close the client now you want to send them the contract. You just simply drag and drop over to the next part of the CRM and it will automatically send them a document that is pre-written already in there and then, once they sign the contract, it will automatically trigger to move them along into the next CRM and then send them a welcome email with an onboarding process and everything. So all of the like. No, not a single agency is doing this. I don't think right now. So most agencies, most agencies are super unorganized, they don't know what they're doing, et cetera, and this just solves that in one go.

Darren: 1:11:04

Have you looked into like AI agents?

Markus: 1:11:06

You mean like creating AI creators and like scaling them.

Darren: 1:11:11

No, like there's a thing that's kind of getting really trendy in 2025, which is called AI agents. So it's basically like an agency. It's a AI fucking. I wouldn't say tool.

Markus: 1:11:24

It's an AI like archive of AI bots and they can do certain things for you.

Darren: 1:11:29

It's like an AI bot yes, that's a good way to put it that basically can do multitask, okay. So let's say the prompt is is analyze this lead, check where it is in the call booking stage. Check from the sentiment of the call, from the transcript did it close or not? If it did move it along, if it did move it along to the contract, issue the contract, send the message in Slack. It will do multiple different things. So you don't need to set up the automations, it will intuitively do that. So you work on training that model. So the goal is with these AI agents is that they can do multiple things. Speaker 1. How does that?

Markus: 1:12:07

work Like. Is it a software that you're?

Darren: 1:12:09

you don't know yet um, well, I think they're building it into like chat, gpt, they're building into a few different things where this is the next step whereby they have agency. Basically that's the whole. That's the whole. Idea is like an ai bot will have agency. It won't be generative, whereby you have to input something to get something out. It will have like an authority, so basically it will be like an operations manager, so that will. So the ai agent might say, let's say, in the ofm space might be like notify the client in the morning they need to take their fucking photos. Notify your team, get your team's content checked as the content team's content worked good like is it good, do a qa. And it will have multiple different dependencies and that's like the next wave of ai this year.

Markus: 1:12:48

So the idea is that you can basically run an agency on your own you know, I feel like ai is genuinely like just a few steps away from like revolutionizing everything, like it truly is, like I know everyone says that and I feel like the only thing which is it's easy to say, but this is obviously difficult, hence why it hasn't been done, and it's a very broad thing but it's to humanize it so, like you can ask it certain things and it will understand it and it will also even respond in certain like.

Markus: 1:13:18

You know, you can talk to chat GPT and it will say like um, like uh, and it'll like stutter and it'll make it sound human-like. But like, for example, um, like AI, the videos that you can create, etc. A lot of it it doesn't understand. Like, for example, if you type like create a short video of a horse running on a field, it won't quite understand where the legs, like which leg goes behind which one, and then it creates this weird distraught of like both of the legs at the front or some way. So there's just like it's there. You can, you can understand it's a horse on a field, but you can see it's ai generated. You have to learn to work with it, though.

Darren: 1:13:57

That's that's what the problem is yeah.

Darren: 1:13:59

so, like I think, when it popped off in 2022, I used it. I was like this is fucking stupid, like as in, it wasn't good, like the copy was shit, the editing was shit, even the video clips to this day is shit. But over the past two years it's gotten so good at reading, specifically copy, that if you're a good copywriter and you know like different elements of psychology and copywriting, you can feed that in. So the big thing that I'm doing right now is like, for all the copy that we write for our clients, we're training it on influence by robert cialdini, cash advertising, a few other books, and then we train it on a few writing styles from Twitter and maybe Instagram, and then it has this brain of like the top performing people and the tonality, the punchiness, the readability, because I'm also good at copy. So I kind of I'm educating it on the best way to do.

Darren: 1:14:45

And then I have miniature projects. So a project for me, a project for you of how my tonality works, and then all we need to do is just literally say here's my rough outline for my post today. I want to talk about growing a podcast and break some limiting beliefs. Here's some limiting beliefs Keep it punchy, keep it dialed in and it will nail my voice.

Markus: 1:15:05

Fucking nail. Can I ask, is it where you go into the settings and you untick to search online? If you ask it a said question, it will only be able to search for the answer based off of the information you've had it not necessarily because I'm not doing it for search in that regard, it's just mainly for like readability and copy.

Darren: 1:15:23

Okay. But then if I am doing like search, I think like it's getting to the point now whereby it's like a better version of google you know, so I said earlier about how, like I fucked up my ankle because I'm such a loser.

Darren: 1:15:35

I literally checked I like looked on chat gpd and I was like how much aspirin should I take? And I was like this is how much you should take, whereas I would have looked on google beforehand. And the difference is that the comprehensive answer you get is not only just the answer but it's also a recommendation, yeah, yeah, it's more.

Darren: 1:15:51

Yeah, you know I think that's a big thing that we're trying to look for. We're using it, which is like the next step in the idea. So let me give an example like you can fuck in all your sales transcripts right now and it will analyze everything and then give you genuine feedback. But you have to work on it saying I have an OFM offer, here's my close rate, here's why it's not at 80%, it's at 60%. What's your take on this? And I'll analyze it.

Darren: 1:16:17

Bro, I built, like a fucking. I built a Python script from AI without knowing Python. So what it was was it was scraping my emails to check my inbound, to check a sentiment score of. Was my, was my? Was their response to my email positive, negative or neutral? And if it's neutral or positive, put it into a certain list, build that list. And then I had loads of price anchoring and all these different other like weird nerdy shit and it basically was just a script that kept on running. So every email that comes in like dings, dings, dings, bounces around the internet and just lands and it's like, okay, this person you should contact because they're saying X, y and Z. And this is going back five years of my emails and it's just a script, bro, and bear in mind, like I did engineering in school and I had no idea how this was done.

Darren: 1:17:10

Like no idea, I built it in ChatGPT.

Markus: 1:17:15

Bro, do you know? The reason I'm laughing partly is one that sounds sick. But then two, how easy is to run like make money on Lighten Out. Like bro, like it's insane Like none of this was a thing like five years ago. Six years ago, covid Okay, yeah, years ago.

Darren: 1:17:32

Six years ago, covid okay, yeah, five, six years yeah, but like eight years ago but the way that it is now right even like, uh, whatever about the fucking scaler bros, it's the person on the other end buying it. That's the biggest thing. Like buying sentiment has changed, whereas before it was like I need to meet you in a coffee shop and I you need to fly over here, whereas now it's like, okay, we get on this call. I know it's a call, I know it's a sales call. So buying consumption has changed. You know, I know it's a coaching program. I've been in a bunch of them beforehand, you know so. They buying habits is different, so that means it's even easier, bro, you know so. I think it was funny because, like everyone thinks that, like these programs are the same and stuff which is actually not, it's easier to stand out as a result. What do you?

Markus: 1:18:14

think, yeah, if you, if you just put some thought into it. This is why I really appreciate what alex is doing. Alex g, like he's the only one that I've seen to actually be different in his marketing, like in his organic marketing. I don't know about his paid I haven't seen any of it but yeah, his organic is just like, it's fun, like, and I personally I don't give a single fuck about trading and I don't think I ever will like. I just can't be bothered, however, and that's all he does, like his main thing, at least on social media and I know he does way more than that, but on his on his social media thing, that's his main thing that he offers. And even to me, who is not his target audience okay, maybe I am, but like I'm me I know I'm not gonna do it right even I'm interested and so locked into his story.

Markus: 1:18:56

He's watching this graph case yeah, yeah and they're like watching the graphs when I have no idea what the fuck. I just see green and red like, yeah, cool, but none of this he's talking about. How is the drop down the shoulders and the head? I'm like, brother, you got sick cars, you gotta. You got christmas lights on here's bugatti. You see how he took him up. He, bro, just ripped it off like he's actually hilarious, shout out, alex, he's actually sick. I'd love to meet him one day yeah, oh man, he's so funny dude.

Darren: 1:19:24

I saw in his fucking uh, it was his lamborghini bugatti went on fire and he's like he's like standing at the side of the street and he's like fuck that, he just walks away. He's like fuck that car.

Darren: 1:19:36

I'll get another one, yeah he's like I'll go figure it out from here. But, dude, that's, that's part of storytelling, right? Which is like you pull people in so that someone like you, who's in a complete different field or something like me, is enthralled in the story. And that's why people and that's why people are always like, oh, but like am I in it? I'm too specific for my niche. It's like no man, your niche is just a vessel of how you do it. But who you are is when people attach to you, right, they attach you for the story I think people forget about that yeah.

Darren: 1:20:04

So like that's why you can talk about fucking anything, so you can be after your niche and after your, your specialty, but then you can pull in everyone else and that's why you said to me earlier like I would listen to that podcast, and it's like you didn't need to listen to that, but you're interested in the story, right, and I think that's uh, if you know, I know you said you're interested in psychology, but you should take the next step, which is storytelling. And uh, if you go really nerdy on storytelling, like that's how people move crowds, bro, it's how it's how nations are moved what would you say have been things that helped you with storytelling?

Markus: 1:20:35

is it just a natural thing or was it over over repetition?

Darren: 1:20:39

that's a good question. So it's you can tell something that's very, very tactical and very like uh yeah, tactical or technique based. True, your own personal experience, a story. So it's a combination of your own personal experience and story. So it's a combination of your own personal experiences, like being fat, lazy and broke and also the transformation that comes with it. So I can teach something very tactical about that fucking roadcaster, mike over there, but tell it through the experience of.

Darren: 1:21:03

I started my podcast, I was broke, I was lazy, I had no idea what I was doing, and then I found this and then I found that, but then I found this, you know, and then there's some nice frameworks you can use, which is called like and but. Therefore, so it's like this I started a podcast and it sucked, but I stuck with it. Therefore, I came through the other end and 99% of shows quit. So that's a simple example. But like. That's how all great storytelling is done and it's all based on the outcome. It's all based on the benefit. Again, as you said earlier and again, it's based on the user right. That's why Steve Jobs stood up when he said a thousand songs in your pocket versus 26 gigabytes of RAM for the iPod right.

Markus: 1:21:42

Yeah, I think that's also so interesting when it comes to sales. It's what are you actually selling? Because the price point is the same and the deliverables are the same, but the marketing and the position of that certain thing changes massively the conversion. I think it's such a nerdy thing, but like it is. So I don't know.

Markus: 1:21:57

I've just always been fascinated by all this stuff. It's funny because, like Tom, when was the last time we drove the Lamborghini? Yeah, maybe even longer. I mean like three weeks ago. Like I haven't driven in such a long time and I remember when I was. There's a reason why I mentioned this, by the way. It's because I remember when I was like starting out, I was like when I, I'm gonna make money, I'm gonna buy supercars, I'm driving them around, I'm gonna make money, I'm gonna go to fucking dinners with hot chicks and all this stuff, and it's like fuck man, I just like the nerdy shit, like I just like just like sitting at home and making a fuck ton of money. That's so fun to me as a but like yeah, obviously the driving the supercars is fun, but like it's a pursuit man.

Darren: 1:22:37

Yeah, it's always been the pursuit.

Markus: 1:22:38

Yeah, but you don't realize it when you're in the trenches and you're just starting out.

Darren: 1:22:53

It's right. So like, even like in a fitness context, I've been on like a heavy gaining phase for a true four months. I fucking hate it, especially in bali, because, like, everything's like outside and you're like wearing a top and shit, but it's a necessary evil, like to put on more muscle. You have to go through those phases and I've started dieting again, just like past a week or two, and I'm like it was worth it, like I'm not like half an inch bigger, you know, and it's like it was the pursuit versus like getting super shredded and being at the fucking five palm right. I think that's when you make the big shift and for me, like bodybuilding was the best way for me to think about more the journey than the actual destination right.

Markus: 1:23:19

How did you get into that, by the way?

Darren: 1:23:20

bodybuilding uh, I played rugby at a high level when I was like really young, um, and then I blew out my kneecap, fucking destroyed my leg playing rugby, uh, dislocated my kneecap, tore my acl and then I was in this huge like forest gump um, like fucking leg brace and I would. I went to the gym the next day so I literally got fucked up like fucking destroyed my leg. I was in the gym the next day because from rugby I enjoyed this training conditioning the most, but it was kind of like shit. It was like dead lifting and fucking. It was just like, yeah, it wasn't really like proper strength and conditioning.

Darren: 1:23:56

But then at 17, the next morning I went into a bodybuilding gym so it was guys that were getting ready to compete and it was these fucking killers, bro, they were just fucking, they were just mental man and I was 17 and everyone was like 25, 30 and they were actually on like a, on like a pro circuit and, um, I just fucking fell in love with man and it was just like the numbers on the on the bench number, the weight on the scales, tracking the food, like it was just like you want goal, you track, this metric number goes up and then you get what you. It was literally like you get what you want. You know, I had to put on like 15, 20 kilos in like an off season, and then I lose it down.

Markus: 1:24:37

I get like six percent body fat, seven percent body fat, and it's just like everything is numeric, just like a business, like everything is numeric but here's the interesting thing about gym, unlike business, like, gym and business, in my opinion, have a ton of correlations, but this one thing isn't, which is in gym, the progress is quite visible, at least for the first year and a bit if you've never gone before. So whether you're trying to put on muscle or you're trying to lose fat, for like the first year, if you actually try, you're going to be able to see the gains you know. In business, however, you don't like. You feel like you're not, like you're putting in the reps. You're putting in the reps, you're doing outreach. Doing outreach, cold calls, booking podcasts, doing episodes. You know like 20 views, maybe 50, 50, 70, 70, 80.

Darren: 1:25:22

It's like fuck is this all worth it? Right, but it's almost execution, right. If you focus on the inputs, then the outcome is under a variable t which cannot be manipulated. You can't manipulate time, but you can. You can influence the inputs and then the output then is just like you know you go, you feeling tired from the gym, or you're doing 50 cold outreach that day, or getting seven responses, but the outcome is inevitable. You know, like you're talking about the software you're working on right now, that will 100% work. When you work, you have to work. I think that's what was the biggest thing for me from sport was we're from bodybuilding, because in rugby which a team sport, it was a fucking scam, bro, like everyone be like, oh, well, done, for we all won. And then when someone loses, like it's that guy's fault, it's like bro, that's not how teams work you know, that's interesting

Darren: 1:26:13

whereas before that I ran track like 100 meters, and 100 meters is brutal, man, it's like it's the most cultural thing ever, which is like it doesn't matter what color you are, doesn't matter how high, how tall you are, but I want gender. You were, here's the time and here's how fast you are, and you can't argue it. It doesn't matter what the wind is, here's how you placed. If you won, you're the best, if you lost, you're a loser. And the whole logic in athletics is uh, you're always a loser until you're the winner. And that was just a really good lesson that I learned. That I try to take with a grain of salt now, um, but that put the savage in me because it's broad. There's nothing worse than losing, right?

Markus: 1:26:52

right, if you're second, you're just the first to lose 100 and they'd like, imagine even worse, like.

Darren: 1:26:56

So a big thing that happened to me was I used to always, uh, get disqualified because I was like, yeah, because I might, because I'm small, the best part of my race was the beginning. So if I didn't come out first I'm fucked. And a big part of doing that is that you get dq'd sometimes for moving too early. So, bro, I'd fly to Scotland and get disqualified in East. So, like, that's what I'm trying to say. Like, what I'm trying to say here is that you know, the difference between you becoming an absolute loser and a winner is fucking minuscule you know, tate always says this is like uh, there's a misconception.

Markus: 1:27:29

Which is like oh, but it's okay as long as you tried your best. And it's like it's okay if you fail as long as you tried your best, which is like it's bullshit, because if you actually try your best, you can't fail. Like you actually can't. You can't. The only way you can fail is if you give up. Right, like I know, these things are so common and obvious, but like I don't know, I feel like people need to be reminded about these things because there is no profound like what's the quickest way? How did you do it overnight? Like bruv, you can go back on my YouTube, your YouTube, scroll down there. That's the answer.

Darren: 1:28:03

And it's a small thing, right. That's why I talked about also with the microphones, because I use like my old mic and then I use I use my laptop camera and then I use my iPhone and I stuck my iPhone to the wall, then I got a webcam, then I got my first Sony camera and those small incremental changes didn't lead to more views, but they just led to slight improvements. And then you actually speak to yourself at a higher level then and you accept no bullshit, which is why Hermosi does right. Hermosi doesn't accept someone speaking poorly at them. You just cut them out, you know, and you set that new standard for yourself. So then, when a client's looking for a refund or a discount, you're like this is the bear I've set for myself, um, and the hopefully, the goal is you just continue to move up that ladder and you learn these things over time and from failures, or you buy some of these course exactly, yeah, you know like, all jokes aside, that is literally the whole fucking point.

Markus: 1:28:55

But I feel like the course scene is such a meme nowadays like I think it's just funny.

Darren: 1:28:59

So I think will brown put a spin on that though in?

Markus: 1:29:03

in what way?

Darren: 1:29:04

like will brown, kind of showed up like, oh, you know, it's more like selling your edge, selling your knowledge. You put a really nice spin on it and it was like you're selling education and you're giving people like an education platform for them to speed up the results. So I think, like he really changes the branding and positioning, like he really was like yeah, he really turned a fucking corner for a lot of people, right, because I agree with you like the course, mentality and reputation was getting worse and worse, whereas he was like no, no, no, it's actually more your education or more more your knowledge, and you were just selling being a specialist and ofm or podcasting or whatnot you know, I feel like in the next coming years, starting with this year it kind of started already with back end of last year I I don't know if you noticed it I feel like everything is now going more into giving away the information but selling either a software or a tool that will help you get there, or the implementation.

Markus: 1:29:59

So, for example, I don't know if you've noticed, but if you go on YouTube, you can find a YouTube course on anything like anything. People have taken their entire course that they were selling, put it together into like an eight hour long youtube video and uploaded it for free, but then what they sell is either a software to use within this thing and a bunch of affiliates or, um, yeah, like a community, or the or okay, you've learned how to do it. Do you want me to do it for you?

Darren: 1:30:24

it was. It was a jordan brown did that for ecom. Jordan Brown, something Brown, really big Ecom guy. Serge Guterri does that always with his release and building release offers. We're actually doing one for a client at the moment which is going to be a sales training.

Markus: 1:30:39

It's going to be like a five hour sales training and then that's enough for you to do what you want, and then that video will gain tens of thousands of views over the coming months, completely passive.

Darren: 1:30:49

And it's just a book, a call funnel, yeah.