#319 - Raw Reality of Scaling to $535,625/mo

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00:00 Hitting $535K in a Month
07:12 The Real Role of a CEO
14:29 Mission, Team, and Culture
24:43 Building and Keeping A-Players
30:55 Creativity, Coaching, and Business Models
36:05 Ethics, Marketing, and Selling
43:35 Content That Actually Converts
48:05 Chewing Glass and Doing Hard Things
50:53 Success, Grief, and Perspective
58:06 Pain, Gratitude, and Meaning
1:06:45 Authenticity and Creative Freedom
1:15:44 Applying This to Business and Life

Chapters

• 0:00 Breaking 535k And Why It Happened
• 2:00 Delivery Ownership And Energy Management
• 6:30 Right People, Right Seats, Right Product
• 10:30 Founder As Bottleneck And Focus
• 14:30 Vision, Culture And The Peter Jackson Lesson
• 19:00 Marketer vs CEO And Loving The P&L
• 22:30 Objective Tracking And Manager Metrics
• 26:00 Hiring: Developed Vs Developing Talent
• 31:00 Scale Myths, Ads, And Playing To Strengths
• 36:00 Model Thinking, Ethics, And Authentic Offers
• 41:00 The Three Yeses And Values In Content
• 45:00 Chewing Glass With A Smile
• 49:00 Grief, Contrast, And Appreciation
• 55:00 Freedom, Risk, And Choosing Non‑Beige Lives
• 1:00:00 Coaching Without The Messiah Complex
• 1:04:00 Results At Scale And The Money Habit

Transcript

Darren: 0:00

Five hundred and thirty-five thousand in one single month. I put it down to four or five couple of things. So one, I think we did exceptionally well with just doing what everyone else is not doing. Two, I think our tracking is better than everyone else, like basically in the world at this point. Three, I think we have really good clients that want to keep working with us based on the results we can get for them. Four, I think we've gotten really good at using the calendar to optimize the actual longevity of it. And five, which is a new one, is most guys don't make money because they're marketers long term. They quit their business, their profit margin goes down because they're marketers and our CEOs. And our margin, which was funny, I did an adjusted PL last night, was 69% gross margin, 60% net margin. And bear in mind, my personal expenses last month was 17K and 15k was software. So I spent$2,000 last month, which is on like chicken and rice. So what I'm trying to say here is like big months follow like big things. And then like the idea for today is to dive into more into that, more in 2025, and then also look at all the things that went wrong as well, basically, last month and for the past year.

SPEAKER_00: 1:23

Yeah, so I'd add one more thing, and I'd say that's attention to detail with the product and having a continuously evolving product and like really feeling what our clients need and then building the product out of that continuously. It's really really alive. So I'd say that's one thing that's we've done exceptionally well over the last few months, particularly.

Darren: 1:46

Let's double tap on that because like you've really gone all in on delivery. I think one of the biggest shifts we made post Mastermind was getting you to just own all delivery. And I think like with exceptional people, you have to give them so much responsibility to be exceptional, you know, and that's why the incubator and apex and everything has really leveled up because your only focus has just been delivery. What's your what's some of the thoughts you kind of change and some of the beliefs you had beforehand as well?

SPEAKER_00: 2:15

Yeah, I think like it was always moving that way for us, and it it it's it's just this is the thing with like finding your strengths, right? Like finding well, knowing your strengths and then having the courage to just live them out fully. Like when everyone's in their own lane and we can just absolutely like dive into like that, people get the best version of yourself. They don't get the burnt-out version of yourself who's trying to wear so many hats. Like, you get the version of yourself that's dedicated and focused, and that's what they need. And I was speaking to one of our apex clients earlier today, and they've got like multi-seven-figure business, they're doing well, but they're burnt out as fuck. And the I said to them, I was like, what's your priority at the moment? And like his priorities are all over the place. But when you get to that level, your priority has to be you have to show so much discipline for your own energy levels and your own um the way that you're showing up for your team and for your clients. Like that's number one priority. And anything that gets in the way of that has to be delegated or has to be um, you know, automated. And I think that's a that's what we've done exceptionally well, is like, yeah, allowed each soul to find their role.

Darren: 3:18

And I think this is interesting, is like I say this to everyone instead of Apex, which is basically my product, incubators like your product for the most part, even though we both do split coaching. If you're not showing up at your best self for the things that you need to do the most, then your business inherently won't grow and you're gonna get disgruntled and you're gonna quit. Let me give you an example. If your business has grown and you're doing all the admin, all the finance, all the scheduling the short form, all like the copywriting, all the basic stuff, and all even like the manual stuff for your for your delivery, like setting up a coaching call, all this kind of stuff. You're gonna hate your business and you're gonna want to quit. The only thing that you should be doing is content because you can't outsource content. It's you can't outsource your face. You can't put your face on my face and vice versa. Therefore, I need to show up even today in my best way so that people that are listening to this have the best experience. Everything else, for the most part, can be delegated. And what I and I said this to Abex people last night, which was when we made that transition in in Q4, I was never fearful of this, but an idea I had was will people be a little bit upset that I'm not gonna be in the weeds of our program 24-7? And it was actually the opposite. The reason being is because I would spend so many years disseminating my knowledge, you spent so many years disseminating your knowledge, that it can be dispersed because no one gives a shit about how they got the result as long as they get the result. And like also no one even cares about you that much. That's the irony. It's like, it's not like, oh my god, like Imagadzi. It's like, no, no, no, this is like Darren Lee, the Irish guy. It's like what they care about is getting the result. If they can get the result by you know clicking a few buttons, so be it. That's what they'll to be honest, they're gonna remember remember you based on the result. And I find that really interesting because for us, it's been about putting the right person in the right seat, which is from traction, making sure the right people are in the right seats, then making sure three different things people, process, product. Do we have the right people? And we can talk about the highs and lows of that. Do we have the right processes, which is is a scalable, repeatable, and enjoyable? And do we have the right product, which is you know, arrogably the crux of everything? Like without the product, there's there's basically nothing else left. That was a huge awakening for me. And then the other thing, which I thought was quite interesting as well this this quarter was I think the most damaging person in this business is me. And I've come to realize this. Like, I am actually the biggest hindrance to the entire business. And I had a chat with Tiernan recently, who will have the long-term view is becoming like head of sales. And I was like, it is actually me that will self-detonate. And it's that's the irony, is like, you know, it was, I said this loosely, it was like only me that could build from the beginning, just from the very beginning. But I mean the person that can build is often the person that's not going to scale. And it's been this very interesting thing where it's like, where is Darren about to absolutely blow a fucking fuse in the business? And where do we move them from? So one might be like, get you out of everything. Yeah, like yeah, how like how it's almost like it's like a rescue mission, right? It's like the house is on fire. Where do we need to pull people off? And this is this is the same for everyone, and I mean it's in the best way possible. This is me reviewing my own performance. It's like if I'm constantly caught in sales, finance, admin, what am I not doing? Creating content, smiling on camera, thinking this morning. I was walking the dogs for 45 minutes. I came back, I thought of like actually a really good post. I wrote it out myself this morning, all half five in the morning. I was able to do it because I had space to do it, you know. And as we grow, like I think uh somewhere that I would love to kind of get to this year will be like five to six million a year just in general, and then get to like a million a month with that as like a proxy. That's not gonna be possible if I'm fucking you know review in short form.

SPEAKER_00: 7:12

Yeah, this is like the the lesson for entrepreneurship is and why it's such a beautiful game to play because it requires constant self-evolution in a way that is uncomfortable, and in a way that requires you to constantly solve problems in with a new level of thinking, right? And you have to allow space for that. And this is exactly your journey over the year, and like the the the habit usually is is when something either quote unquote blows up, you have that pathway that you follow where it's like, okay, well, I need to do X, Y, and Z. And it used to just really easy to kind of like fall into that. Um, and it makes sense because like this is the thing as a business grows, at every single stage, there's things that you have done and like done to a certain standard, and it's really hard when something breaks, not to go back in and be like, okay, I need, but it requires that that higher level awareness and um of what's going on there. And I like the insight about you know, you're like, okay, well, what am I gonna break? And I I don't think that's necessarily like fully the case, but it's interesting to to note that like sometimes when we we can be uncomfortable when like that we can create problems when they're not actually there, right? Because it's like in order to grow to this level, you have to be constantly problem solving. Another problem, another problem. You have to be so attuned to like what the problem was, and you've got very comfortable in an eternal state of noticing what problems are there and like actioning them. Like, one thing about Darren is like just action, like uh immediately. That's like one of the most amazing things of having close proximity to Darren is like you realize like speed is just everything, and Darren's like so fast with just action on things, but like you you've built yourself in a way where you've you you you action things, and then it the actual uncomfortable thing for you is in action and allowing someone else to do that, and then you're kind of like searching for like well, where's the issue? Because like something's gonna blow up, and then you could sometimes find it. But I think what you've done over like the last few months, particularly, is it's like you know, like that person's got it, and then it's like it allows you, and like you can feel it as well with the content. It's like that you you can focus your energy on the problems that only you can solve, and that's where at this level all of your energy needs to be. Literally, all of it.

Darren: 9:32

And the irony is if you have no clients, you should also be doing this. Yes, you know, so it's like the it's almost like the evolution ends up at the exact same position. If you're a small company, it's e.g. no revenue, you just focus on sales and marketing. If you're a big company, you just focus on sales and marketing, and you go through that evolution, and I and I appreciate that, dude. And I think what's funny is it's it's kind of the Dan Martell approach, you know, and I learned so much from him when I spent the time I spent with him, it was fantastic. Was you know, look, at the end of the day, it's not about this small thing getting it right. It's like for the broader mission, right? So it's like part of the empire building, it's part of the legacy, it's part of what we want to leave behind, it's part of the thousands of people that we want to help and the millions of people we want to help. And that's like part of that is me not doing the minutiae. Same with you, right? It's you focusing, it's a Rick Rubin effect. It's like where you can look at an entire track and then just press one button and the whole thing is fixed. It's like that took them the 40 years or the 50 years. And it's funny because when you talked about, you know, you create problems, I always think about it, like whack-a-mole. And I often view the business like that sometimes. It's like when a problem comes up, you hit that, another one comes up. The flip side of that is when you've knocked everything down, you look at like what's your next play? And without derailing the conversation, like that's where I had the confidence myself to go into like software this year and be like, okay, what's our next play? Right, and like what does that look like? You know, and even I said it to you guys like a month ago, I was like, I don't know where this is gonna be in like fucking three months. All I just know is just like hold on, and now we're at like eight people in like two weeks, right? So shit gets fucking real really fucking quickly, you know. And as I like to say, like first happens slowly than all at once. So double tapping on the like initially like the 500k plus a month. I think a biggest thing that I really noticed is again looking at the marketer versus the CEO, right? We all know the marketers who are good at running offers, even some of the great guys, like some of the greats of the greats from the info space, they will also describe themselves as marketers versus CEOs, and I think that's the reason why a lot of them don't scale because they're not interested in the PL. And one thing I would say just like specifically about myself is like I actually like the numbers. This is the thing, like exceptionally well. Like I was looking over the PL last night, and I like I took joy from it, and it's it's a reframe, right? And I didn't do like accounting in school and all this kind of stuff, but I mean, if I can look at seeing where we can squeeze the juice in our business, and one of our very, very high-end clients in Apex, I won't mention their name, but they mentioned me yesterday about their profit margin was like 18%, 30%, 28%, and so on. Um, I actually get a lot of joy from like looking at like, oh, where can we squeeze the juice? And I genuinely believe that like wherever you're at, you you need to have that view because dude, I remember like when I was running everything just purely on my own. So back in the agency a couple of years ago, like I was still checking all the statements every month, blocking the payments from random subscriptions I didn't want to pay the next month. Just like getting in that kind of CEO view, and so that's one side of it, and then the second side of it then is a tracking, right? Is like I I genuinely believe, like, obviously, not just because I have a fucking sales software, I think it's just because I genuinely do believe that one of the factors, and there's multiple factors the reason why we were out of scale, is our ability to view the numbers objectively without taking any personal uh attachment to them. So, you know, back in the day when the low call volume was super low, when you know you were taking sales calls and you were having a rough time on the calls, like we could look at that as best friends and be like, it's time to get off. And I think if you don't have an idea of the numbers, you and your business partner or you and your team members, you have an emotional blow-up. And I think the whole way through this, we've been able to look at things just very objectively and be like, let's do this. Even with Tiernan, like I don't give a shit saying this. Like I the other day with Tiernan, I was like, you know, I want him to take on more management stuff. And I was like, together as best mates, let's just make sure that the close rate doesn't start dropping. Because if if I'm happy to give you more responsibility, but I don't want it to be at the cost of you and the business, and let's just reassess in 30 days. He's like, and then we look in 30 days and I'm like, do you love it? Do you hate it? Are the numbers good or bad? You want to keep going or not? And I think like anyone can do that. Don't need to make 500k a month do that. You just need to be conscientious enough to know, okay, what are we what are we splitting from objective versus subjective? Subjective is emotion, right? Objective is logic. Um and I think that's why also we work very well as well with that with that kind of context window of how we want to approach problems, basically.

SPEAKER_00: 14:29

Like there's a greater vision, and it's like we're all hacking at it from our, you know, as we're in the startup, scrappy, like as it's been in the past. Like now everything's obviously so much more automated and streamlined, but everyone's trying to do the same thing. Like, we're you know what I mean. That's the the the issue is like I think once you find people where it's like you you just know that you can like go to war with and it's like we're gonna figure this out, and like I'm gonna hack at it from this angle, try this case, this isn't working. It's just it is there's no attachment to like how you did the work. It's like it's like where were we trying to go? It's like that's the most important thing. And I think one of the things I'll go a bit deeper on now because it's kind of relevant, and you asked about you know, like stepping into the CEO role, and then also like from my perspective as well, thinking like big time about product, and then also just really understanding like the people we're attracting and why. Um, I think uh so it's relevant right now. I've just made Julia watch all 12 hours of Lord of the Rings over the Christmas parade. She actually loved it, to be fair. Of course she did. And then every time I watch it, which is maybe once every couple of years, I'll watch the whole thing. I get like so obsessed with it again. So we were watching some of like the behind-the-scenes features, and everyone will know the story of like Peter Jackson was given a relatively low budget to make this film. They were filmed all three at once. And well, there's one story that always sticks out for me. There was these, because obviously they have all the orcs and the elves and the men, and they need all need armor. There was these two guys that spent three years at the same desk in the same room, the same two people, and they manually made every single bit of chain mail for three years straight. Like, that's we want to talk about like chewing glass and grunt work. It's like, and then Peter Jackson would pop in here and there. And me, it was such a big production. Like, it really inspires me watching it. And I'm like, okay, who was like this Peter Jackson fellow then? Because, like, and what was his skill? And if you watch him and you watch him go around and talk to the staff, the employees, everyone is like so energized to be in this product. Like those guys who uh be in this uh process, those guys who are making the chain mail, they're like, this is the best. I can't believe I'm part of this. So it's like, how do you create that culture within a company? And then how do you create that um it throughout the business as well? And because if you look at those products, the films, people love those films and you can feel the love that has gone into them. And it's from every single person being in their zone of genius and being allowed the space to like excel into that. But what Peter Jackson did in an amazing way was he was able to sell you on the vision and get you to buy in and make it feel like your vision as well. It wasn't just his vision. It wasn't like, oh, I want to do this. It's like you want to do this as well. And they did, like they poured their life into the into this work. And I think it was exactly the same as like some of the experiences we've had uh this year as well. And it's it's that realization that SEO is someone who's like leading in any capacity, your team members and your clients can only raise to the level that you're setting for yourself. You have to be that that that that level of energize and allow them room to grow and even go higher if that's necessary. But you have to bring that to them. And like people will sit there making chain mail, chain mail, chewing glass with a smile on their face for three years. Like, how amazing is that? And it's like, but how do you do that? It's that that selling that vision and making it feel like your vision as well. And I feel like that's something that to reflect and bring it back to what we're doing, it's like every single one, every single team member here, like yes, things get tough, and but it's always just like fun because we see the greater vision of it all. And I think we one of the strengths about getting to this stage and like the you know, half a million in month mark is a really cool, cool milestone. But you know, ever every everyone's on the same page with what the mission is, and um that's been communicated clearly, and people who haven't been like aligned or don't want that, there's a very candid conversation of like, okay, well, like we're doing it, like you know, and in a loving and caring way. And we we've got to the point now where we've filtered out, and it's like people who want to be on this ship, you know.

Darren: 18:44

And I think this is what big companies struggle to do, right? They sit down, they're like, oh, we want to be fucking peace core, right? And they don't connect it to what you want to do as the actual team member. And I said this to our sales team on New Year's Eve. I was like, look, guys, like, you know, you're gonna have long careers, you're gonna want to build companies, education businesses, software businesses, and I hope to one day like invest in your businesses. And it's important that you guys understand fruitfully what you want to achieve in your life in general and see how we can also help you get there, whether that's skill acquisition, capital acquisition, network acquisition, was totally chilled by me. I joined the fastest growing startup of all time in the UK. For two and a half years, I was there because I was there to learn skills and to develop a chewing glass mindset, which is what exactly I did. And I left with, for the most part, very little resentment. That's a different scenario. But I think that's that's important too, right? Because that's their own personal goal. So looking at their professional goals, short term, money in the bank, personal goals, what they want to achieve, and then also how well they're going to develop personally, like your business reflection of you, you are only going to grow as far as you develop. And one of you and our sales are upset the other day, he said he he's felt like he's grown so much in the past 45 days, and his sales have got And better because that's being echoed. The universe is sending back that signal back to him, which you don't get if you're working a nine to five. And that's where you get the most out of it. Now, I want to talk about a lot of stuff about hiring. So we know we'll go, but we'll go in and out of like some of the positives and some of the negatives. I think or some of the challenges. One thing that was very interesting to me this year, especially just looking back in it, was something my father-in-law said whenever he talks, it's always you know makes me feel like a dumbass, but it's always very valuable. He said, like, are you committed to developing talent or are you getting developed talent? So if I look at some of our more experienced sales reps, for instance, they're developed talent, eight years, 10 years in sales. If I look at some of the developing talent, that's like your typical setter or editor. And I think, you know, if you have no money, you can only get developing talent until they're developed. It's like playing FIFA back in the day, right? You get, you know, you get a scout and a scout goes out to get some 16-year-old, and the 16-year-old takes off eventually. That's what developing talent is. And it's important to understand from an expectation perspective that you put on your team, where do they sit? Can I expect someone who's developing to understand all of these subtle nuances about sales and marketing and product and delivery and operations? Obviously not. But the people that I bring in that are developed, I gotta make sure that they are doing their fucking best and they're taking the responsibility off of me and off of you for that thing. What I guess like a few kind of issues I've had this year. One on developed talent is that if they're if they're given the role, they're assigned the role, and they're ramped, they should have full ownership of positive and negative. But that's often not the case, right? The negative always falls back on the business owner. But I believe that it can actually be transferred to that individual if they truly are willing to be developed, as be considered as someone who's developed. That was one issue that I think is is very important going into this year. So as you're hiring people and as you're as you're spending money, because like some talent, the way I think about it is like you should look to get like a four a 4x return on every single person, right? At the very least, you pay someone 100k, they should be bringing in a 400k, bring someone it pay someone 20k, they should be bringing in 80k. So I think about that from that lens, and then the other side of it then is uh looking at it from a like the the concept of like A players and B players, like what actually is that concept? And I think hiring has been so a topical for us just always because you know we grew to maybe 30 people in total this year, and we've had to prune so much people overall, and I think it's very interesting because A players will show themselves within the first 24 hours, B players will complain, whine ultimately until they get kicked out of the company. But an A player can become a B player if they're underperforming, and they can fall into an in-guessloppy, and conversely, a B player can actually become an A player with the right support, support and training and so on. So I think it's it's interesting to observe, right? It's like do you have patience to develop talent? And if you don't, do you have enough money to attract A players? And if not, then are you because like everyone is no one is like uh no one can possibly get out of the path of slowing down if they're not improving. They all fall into regression. Everyone, so if they're not actively improving, they're actually gonna get worse. And if you think if you don't know are you improving or not, you're actually progressing going backwards, being being realistic. And it's something I said to our team the other day. I said, like, you know, guys, everyone is commission only. If you're making if you're getting a six-figure salary, you're still commission only. It's a business, it's dependent on paying that salary. So you have to always think in terms of outcomes, and you can do some funky stuff. Like you can obviously sales reps is very simple because you have performance bonuses and you actually literally give them performance bonuses, but you can also do that with editors, you can do that with delivery, no complaints in a week,$200. And I think a big thing for me is about looking at incentive-based rewards for 2026 that give people much more of a higher upside than you know any sort of fucking basic salary, because then they just they're like, Oh, I'm getting a salary. This isn't worth it. It's not worth working on the Saturday or the request change that comes in on a Sunday afternoon. But often that's what's necessary to make 535k in a month.

SPEAKER_00: 24:43

So a couple of reflections. The first one, I was I was laughing a little bit as you were speaking. Like, we're talking about like these problems, like how we hire A players and B players, what that even looks like, trying to understand that. And like, if we reflect back to this time last year, you were taking sales calls, and then I came in and took some sales calls. We were trying to throw together a program on like Slack, and like we just like it, it was funny, like a little reflection moment. I was like, that was only a year ago, that was only a year ago. Like, it was like with the education side of the business, we were like, right, let's fucking make this thing work, and like so much has changed in the meantime, and it's funny to even be having this conversation. Um but I'd say, like, the the the funniest thing here is like you're absolutely right, and it's the it's the Matthew principle. It's like first it happens slowly and then it happens all at once. And say the reverse is also true. Like, that's not just a positive thing.

Darren: 25:35

Oh, 100%. It's from a negative, yes, yeah. It's from a negative. So they always say that there's a 10,000 ways to get rich, there's only five different ways to go broke. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:44

So it's it's the the the blessed position. Well, the earned position you're in now is like, yeah, there will be A players and A star players and S tier amazing players because there's the the momentum and capital there to attract it. And that is kind of like part of it. That's still even so, some of them will come in and like they won't be a good fit. But to get to that stage, it's interesting. And hopefully, this is maybe relevant for people as well, like thinking about building uh the the team up. It's usually like the simplest bits of advice that are the most poignant. It's like, how do you know what someone wants? It's like ask them. And the like we have a marketing module in the in the incubator as well, and I make everyone go through it first um before it offers. And I'm like, have you spoke to your audience recently? Because otherwise, like, what the hell are you doing? Like, who are you talking to? And we we have a whole protocol for that that's really valuable. And it's that the quote I kind of like put in it is like, how do you find out what someone wants? Is like you ask them. And we often forget that. And I think one of the the things that you can do with like employees coming in or like team members, doesn't matter if they're commission only or whatever. It's like, okay, well, what does this role actually mean to you? Like, let's be real here. Like, let's know this, let's drop the performance. Like, oh yeah, I'm so dedicated to like, okay, right, good. Yeah, I know you had to say that, but like, what do you actually want? Like, tell me, like, for you selfishly, and it's not even selfish, like as a person who I presume wants to grow, and some people are like, I just want to make money, like, because of whatever happens, I want to lift myself out of this, or even because it's like like, oh, this is just fun. Like, I was doing, like, I was doing something else that I fucking hated, and like now this is an opportunity. Like, I just love editing videos, or I just love like working with people, and it's like, this is an opportunity for me. Like, I'm actually gonna make less money, but like, okay, well, that's incentivizing you. And it's just like really understand, spend time with people you're working with, and it's like, what do you want? What do you need? What do you need out of this? And like that's for me, like, those are the people that become a players is because they feel seen and heard, and they they're getting that that that moment when it's like, oh yeah, something's come through on a Saturday, I need to make this change, or whatever it is. It's like, oh, well, you know, I've I've supported here, like I'm actually getting to do what I want. Like, there's that uh in that that that's like, I mean, we we're always working with people, right? And you know, that's what people want is they what they want to improve, they want things, but you it it looks different for everyone. It's not always money for people. That's the important thing.

Darren: 28:10

Yeah, and this is where it's like uh freedom is broken up into you know, time, money, energy, whatever, lifestyle, and it's understanding what your team actually need, because they may not all want to get to$100 million exit. And that's true, because it takes a different types of person to do that anyway. So maybe they can fill in a different role that's super important, super required, but just at a different pace. And they know that they're only working, you know, four to six hours a day, they can log on from fucking whatever wherever country they want to, and that that's like that's winning to them. And dude, that was winning to me when I was working remote back in the day, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 28:47

And I think you have to allow people to sit in that version of themselves that like they've desperately or really were working towards and allow them to like saturate and soak in it for some time, and then the next layer of like their personal evolution, like this is why important check-ins, it's not just like, oh, they want that one thing and that's what they want forever. It's like, but allow them to experience that thing they wanted and actually like allow them to be grateful for it as well. It's funny. I had like where after I kind of had worked in the music industry and like uh helped build one of like the the largest music education businesses, I took on like some personal coaching clients. It was all sorts of various things. And because of my background in the music industry, I attracted a lot of musicians, right? And like every musician's dream is they do like musicians do not care about money, like they care about like, can I make my music all of the time? Like that's what they want to do. They want to make the music, they want to perform whatever it is. And I remember I had a client and um uh we we got him to like two and a half, three K a month with his um, he was he was and he would be bearing in mind he was like working odd jobs beforehand. He was like up and down, and we managed to get him to like two and a half K a month pretty consistently. Um, and he had the system in place. And I was like, man, you're doing amazing. All right, let's jump on a call, let's talk. Um, I want to talk about like maybe running some ads, or I want to talk about like how we systemized this. And he was like, What the fuck are you talking about? He's like, I'm living the dream right now. He's like, for years, all I've fucking wanted is to like be able to like produce my music, make money on my music, and like be playing. He's like, I'm like, he's like, I'm doing that. And then I checked in with him uh maybe six or seven months after that. And his income had gone up, but not because of I touched anything and I was like, oh, I need, but because he had spent so much time actually building out of love and appreciation for what he was doing right there, that his skill set became better and it just naturally started to come to him. Then we could have a conversation. And I think one of the realizations were there was like we're so focused on kind of like growth, growth, growth. It's like again, for clients and for employees, it's like there's there's a a period they have where like this is what they wanted, and it's like enjoy it. Like, you know, it's our job to be like, okay, we're going here and we're going here, but also can we also at the same time allow you as you're growing to actually enjoy where you are right now because that's what you wanted. And this, I think, is quite a beautiful thing as well.

Darren: 30:55

Yeah, that's the creative art of everything. And people people think that that's not inside business, but it is. Because like we're running our next mastermind in the Ritz Carleton and Bali, it's gonna be beautiful. Like, I'm actually excited for like how we're planning it out. We're gonna get great results, and what's gonna happen? It's gonna grow, it's gonna bring us in new business. Why? Because we have the care and the essence, like the creative aspect of it to make this event like super fucking awesome, and we put all that time into it. I was thinking a lot about about Magnus. So Magnus obviously started out with me in school, he was like 17 as like an editor, then you know, was editing videos, and then went on to like manage all our core clients and our agency, and now as left at become like my full-time creative director, and it's like me and Magno don't know where we're going, but we're going there together, and that's what it's saying for everyone, and it's like allowing him to just really lean into his fucking autism side of content, and he loves it, and it's like just do that. Like, you like the cameras, just do the cameras, you know what I mean? He's literally adjusting the cameras now, and it's like that's the beautiful part about it, though, right? Is like we all have different things that we're good at. You shouldn't be restricting people based on what you think that they need, you know, and all of our careers will change, like you said, how how much we've changed since last year, which is fucking crazy. It's fucking crazy. But having said that, it's like, okay, where are we gonna go from here? Do you get me? Just like in general, right? And if I was to look at how we're gonna like really scale up the coaching, it's like, yes, improving the delivery even further, like getting that next step up there. You know, dude, remember back in the day we had one coaching call a week. Now we have like 15, you know? And if you look at some of the huge coaching programs, I won't name names, but I mean guys that like have been cooking for a long time. Some of them are doing seven to eight, seven to ten sessions a day, different time zones, different coaches and stuff, you know. And some of them are doing like you know, five to ten million a month. So it is really interesting. Also, one thing that I have kind of found to be true, and then not to be true as well, is like what people think scale is and what people think scale isn't. I remember, you know, a lot of guys talk about how info becomes very unscalable past like a certain point, like whether that's like a million a month or two million a month or whatever. And I'm good friends of Matt Lakovich, and I remember I spent a bit a lot of time with Matt here, just like personally, just hanging out in the gym and stuff. And he was telling me that, like, you know, the amount of people that he's literally seen that are doing 20 to 40 million a year, and they're just still growing their coaching business. You know, Magnum was telling us about like the Brazilian market being so hot, guys doing 500 million a year straight info, and it's like you only rise to the limits you put on your head based on what someone told you that just wasn't even real to begin with. Like, dude, Harvard sells info, they have a coaching program, and it's in person. Do you think they say that they can't get past a million a month? Of course not. So all these fake barometers and fucking houses we put on our on our mind and our potential is the reason why we don't grow, and it's something that's really like been huge to me to kind of get through this year, and I think you know, taking the rest of it or not, one thing for me that was a huge unlock this year mentally was ads. So if we go through where we were on like uh Q1, Q2, Q1, we basically had no ads, Q2, we were like figuring things out, yeah, and slowly getting it right, like running like uh follower ads or however you want to describe them in Q2, Q3, then getting my ass ripped open by Jeremy Haynes on a podcast, really going all in, starting working with Leo, Leo running the ads, and then just getting that process right, you know what I mean? Like that was that was such a big process, and I really wanted to commit half a year to it. I remember I came back from Europe in the summer, and I was like, I want to commit Q3 and Q4 to just ads. And look, we're still not even there. We spent 15,000 last month on ads. Like, I want to spend 100. Like, I'm happy to spend 100, 200 a month to get us back like an extra six, seven, eight hundred just from the ads alone. Like, I want to get there, but we need to scale it with results. Um, and yeah, I think that was interesting. The ad side, also the type of things you were doing with the ads, like follower ads, I felt like were working a lot better. I feel like they're kind of up and down still to this day. VSL ads, I still find very hard to crack, you know, at a high scale. And then I find the webinar ads a lot easier to crack. And like go back to why. It's like long form is my jam, it's your jam. Long form is what we sell. Uh, in like event and speaking to people, it's what we sell. So when I'm on a workshop with someone that I've never met before with seven slides and two hours of a workshop, I find it really easy to connect with a hundred and or let's say 500 people on a workshop. Why? Because that's where my strengths are. So why try you know stick a sweat square peg through a circle hole and wrestle the VSL world again back to living in opposite land, right? Doing what everyone else is not doing. Yeah, any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00: 36:05

Well, what's coming up for me here is like again, we will talk about it. It's it's this model thinking that I I think we both have a particular, not problem with, but like we we notice this in the space. It's this model-based thinking, and that like the model is your savior, and when the model stops working, like you need a new model, and like now I'm gonna sell this new model, and it's like this weird land of like everyone and like try not to like hate on it because it's like the the more like hate you give it, like the more energy it gets, and and it is kind of silly, but like we notice it this year, it's like contemporaries in a way, like everyone's like, I'm showing down my business, and then they kind of just like keep it open, but the now the acquisition method is different, and now I so it's like, hey, I have an acquisition method, and I will teach you that acquisition method. This acquisition method is not working anymore. Now I'll teach you the new acquisition. That's basically what you're saying, right? And it's that's fine, but like the problem is that like this very divisive marketing of yeah, like the old way is like broken and it's ruined, and it was making me so miserable and all of this, and it's like, okay, and it's like now this new way. And it's like, look at those, okay, okay, cool. But if you just look at that objectively, it's like, and you follow that down two years' time. Are they probably gonna be saying, have they found the answer, or are they probably gonna be saying the exact same thing in two years' time? And this is one of the things you spoke about, is like putting the limits of yourself. That's like model-based thinking. You're like, this model will get me a particular outcome. Okay, which is if you that's what you want, that's fine. And then when it stops, you're like, oh, everything's terrible, everyone sucks, you're all doing it wrong. And it's like, no, that's a reflection of you and your unhappiness that you feel. And now you're putting that on the market quite uh persuasively and actually um successfully putting that on the market, and people are like, unethical. It's it's a little bit unethical. It's like the people who use Jesus to sell as well. Let's have a bit of a problem with that. It's like, are you a Christian-based like coach? And like would like remember mate, like it's Did you see the Dan Henry clip on this?

Darren: 38:01

No, I haven't. Oh, so funny. Like, so Dan Henry converted to Islam, corn if I'm wrong on that, but I'm sure he did quite recently, and he was in a video that's like, dude, if you're the guy that's using Jesus to sell and saying that Jesus is telling you to buy now, then you are 100% not religious. Like you're literally making this shit up because you're using that as a way to get people to lower their barriers, right?

SPEAKER_00: 38:29

Yeah, it's it's so like it's it's amusing, but it's also so deeply unethical because, like, okay, whatever you think about religion, I don't know. I have my own thoughts brought up religious. I'm not religious now, but I definitely have some sort of like interested in developing that connection myself. It's been very meaningful to me. But I know that like at the lowest moments of my life when things are rough with my family, like we've had some terrible news, or like personally things, like there's been some sort of feeling and essence and like spiritual thing that I've really felt like drawn to or has appeared to me. Now, for many people, it could be Jesus, it could be Islam, it could be something else. A lot of the times when we find God, quote unquote, whatever that means to you, it's not relevant, really, is because of like a great deal of suffering, and like and like real suffering, and like whoa, and we look to like that bigger picture. So to you to leverage that to sell a fucking program is like it's really fucked up, and like people are looking, and maybe it could be newfound faith or whatever, and they're looking to you as an authority. Like, in my opinion, that's very blasphemous. Like, it's one of the most blasphemous blasphemous things you can do is uh using the Lord's name in vain. And it's that's not saying, Oh my god, or Jesus Christ. That's like pretending that you're acting virtuous. That's like Jordan Peterson's definition of blasphemy. It's like pretending to embody the qualities of God like or Jesus like qualities for like your own gain. And that's essentially what's happening.

Darren: 40:00

Did you see this a lot when people like dude like the the crazy example is like they cheat on their wife and then they convert to religion? They're like, Oh God said it's forgiven, it's forgiven, and they're using that as the proxy, and then often those people then know that that's the what's happening in between as well. They're conscientious of it, right? Because they can use it as a scapegoat, and it's it goes back into the model-based thing. And I think to me, it's like that stage one where it's like, how can I use literally a funky mechanism, e.g., religion, to shroud people's fucking behavior. But and then at the end, to share people's behavior so that they don't judgment, share their judgment so that they don't have any awareness about what I'm gonna give them. Because the funny thing is, right, we have never sold a way of doing things.

SPEAKER_00: 40:52

We actually struggle with that. Yeah, we're like, should we should we name it something?

Darren: 40:56

Like we No, no, no. We just literally just tell people like we'll help you make money, and then what we'll do is we'll look at like what's wrong, and then we'll fix it. And they're like, really? And I'm like, how's like how does it work? And I'm like, you generally need a product, which is called an offer, and then you'll probably need to get attention, so that's gonna be called content, and then we'll you will need to tell you to teach your sales, right? So whether you want to sell by a napkin or you want to sell on a on a call, like whatever, we'll we'll show you what that would look like. And they're like, Oh, that's great. And I'm like, Yeah, it's pretty logical, right? And I think that's where a lot of times, if I ever have to do coverage on calls, like I took a few calls on Christmas Eve and stuff. A lot of times I love taking calls, like it was weird. And uh I I kind of get to the point where people a lot of times it's part by design and part by just kind of intuition, where it's like, it's kind of obvious where what we would do next, right? We would just work on this next, and then providing everything you told me wasn't made up, we just fix that issue, yeah, and then you'll just you'll just get some results. Like I remember at a call with a woman recently, and literally on a sales call, and I was like, if I do nothing else, and I mean nothing else, but fix this one thing and I'll do it in the next 15 minutes after we get started, it's gonna be worth the money. And she's like, Yeah. And I was like, if you don't do anything, like anything, if I run away with the money now from here, if we just fix this, it's gonna be worth what you sent me. Then she's like, Yeah, perfect. Because we again back to what you said in the beginning, I'm in this, I'm in the market of solving problems, bro. Right? I'm not in the market of designing a funky system. The reason why Dutchwood, we've had good success with Aura so far is because I'm insanely focused on the problem. And all I care about right now, all I care about right now is how hard is it to track your sales? Like if you get into the nitty-gritty, you got a VA, you got a shit sales rep, you got someone who's not tech savvy, you got an older person, is it? How hard is it to track your sales, which is preventing you from making money, which is the you know, the nuance there. So why aren't you making money? How why is it so hard? Okay, it's hard because I can't see the leads. Let's do that. It's hard because I can't schedule the calls, let's do that. It's cards can I can't see the numbers, let's do that. It's hard because the payment processor isn't integrated. Let's do that. I've never once told you I'm gonna do a backflip, and I've never had to. And the irony is I've had extreme expos, I've had crazy exposure to some very, very high levels because of Aura in the past couple of weeks, and it's always the same thing. It's like, I can't believe you're solving such a big problem. And I'm like, Yeah, it's yeah, the problem's on your nose. Yeah, solutions on your nose a lot of times.

SPEAKER_00: 43:35

Yeah, and I think that's like we could talk about various things here, but one of the most powerful things, and again, this is like translates to content as well, is like the the front end needs to match the back end, and I think a lot of the times, front-end-wise, even like ourselves, you can want to like wrap things up in a little bit delicately, and it's like, oh, isn't this nice and consumable? And yes, to a degree, you have to become consumable online, and that is part of the process is making yourself consumable for others. That is important, but like I think just allowing people into your world where people can see spend time with you solving problems, and like this is the most powerful type of content, is like, oh, I can see him, I can see how he's working through that problem and solving it. That's interesting. And then naturally, as you're watching someone do that, you start to think, I have a similar problem, or I have other problems. I'm like, I wonder how he would think about it. It's like, oh, can I send him a DM? Oh shit, I need to buy his program. That's what I mean. Like, is that's why proximity works so well? It's like, and he and also you like you don't need to necessarily wrap things up in content of like too much. It's like just showcase like your way of thinking, your way of doing things. I think that's that that's the important thing. And we spoke about this on the last um podcast we did together. It's like a lot of people, I spoke about like the three yeses people need to buy. I think it's worth double tapping on again here. It's like they need the logical yes. Like, do I actually think this person um can like get tangibly get me the outcome? Like logically. Um, you know, like for example, like I could see someone out there who's like like running like a marathon or whatever, and they were super skinny. And I'm like, do I logically think they could help me run a marathon? Yeah, probably. They look really fit, they're wearing a fucking hawker things and they've got special sunglasses and they like look really sweat. Okay, they could definitely help me run a marathon. And then it's like the next yes, so that's my first yes. My next yes is like, but do they get me? And then do is there like an emotional connection? Like, do I feel like we're gonna like get on? Well, do they get me and my problems? And then I notice that, oh, I like a brand they're wearing. I wear the same brand we have. Okay, we have the same values. Okay, okay, I like them. And then that's usually where we stop with the yeses. But then the third yes, which is like the most important yes, is like, do I like the way they're gonna get me there as well? And like that person, they're like, okay, what I need you to do, are you gonna wake up at 4 a.m. every day? We're gonna do five hours of running and you're gonna eat lettuce. And then you're also gonna have to like, I'm like, oh, I want the outcome, but like I don't want that way. And I think that's the powerful thing with like content is rather than focusing too much on like how do you wrap it up, showcase your way of doing things. Your logical yes is gonna be an easy tick, like stripe screenshot, whatever, like the fact that we're running masterminds, people are like, okay, these guys know what they're doing. Logical yes is tick. That's done. We don't need to convince people. Then it's like the empathy that comes through through content as well. But also it's like, do they get me? Do we have similar values? And that's why like there's so much abundance in in this space is like no one's in competition because like you either like like us and our values or you don't. And that's fine. Like, I'm not here to convince you, but then the most important piece, because this is the piece that you're spending the most time doing, do I like the way they do it? And if not, like don't do it, find another way. But like, you know, that and I think that's a powerful lesson for content. It's like, how can I showcase the way uh I'm doing something?

Darren: 46:50

And just to add to that, so I completely agree, and it's such a great point. You also want to make sure that you're showcasing, as you said to me the other day, it's just like you actually, as cliche as it sounds, you want to be yourself. So if you're someone who likes to do cardio and you help your clients lose weight, well, then you want to teach them how to do cardio. You don't want to hide what you like or what you're doing just to make everyone feel good about themselves. And this is where I kind of like really went back to just sharing like how I do things, right? Like I'm someone who I would say chews glass. I was always on as I was younger. It comes from like a place of insecurity, a lack of skill, a lack of like knowledge. It was like I could always overcompensate with the workload. Who does that attract? A Mary Scott, who's in their 70s, who's an absolute animal who's basically doubled her revenue in a month. That's who I want to attract. That's how I want to attract them. Whereas if I said, hey guys, you can you know work two hours a week and then you do this, and then next thing I know, I have this fucking loser on a sales call, and we're like, ugh, get away from me, right? And there's a place for that person, but that place isn't an incubator, and that's like the irony, and it's chill, yeah, it's fine, right? It's just this is where you stop making beige content and you start just being your fucking self.

SPEAKER_00: 48:05

I'm gonna double, I'm gonna, I know you say chewing glass, like I would add a line to that. It's like you chew glass but with a smile on your face.

Darren: 48:11

Yeah, that's the difference, right?

SPEAKER_00: 48:12

It's like is not you're not resent right resentful, but like that is like definitely like the ethos, and I think that's again like where we originally had tried this because like you recognize it. It's like people that doesn't mean that it sucks, it's but it means it is what it is. It's like it's hard sometimes, and that's like, but you can still do it and show up and like have a smiling face because there's like that greater purpose behind it. And I think one thing I'll just like mention here, and I say this to like on our calls all the time, Apex and Incubator clients. I'm like, okay, we're all talking about offers, we're all talking about marketing and everything. Okay, very, very interesting. And I kind of like sometimes like to take it all the way back. I'm like, just remember, offers, marketing, sales, these are all words that humans made up. We are giving meaning to these things because there's like structures to them and they're it's useful to convey ideas that way, otherwise, you know, we'd be lost. And same with business, it's a word we made up. It's a it's it has so much energy and history attached to that word. It means something different to you than it means to me. And and I'm like, okay, so like good, we could we could sometimes I notice with calls like we're getting caught in the weeds, and I can see someone like mentally banging their head. And I'm like, okay. And one of the things I always like to bring it back to, and it's like, if you want to think about offers, you want to think about this whole online space, is no matter what you're doing, doesn't matter if you're a fitness coach, business coach, um a relationship coach, whatever, you are selling a greater degree of freedom for somebody in their life. So you're you're you're selling a greater degree of freedom that they can unlock within themselves. That's what business coaching is. It's like really when we look at the motivations behind that. Yes, that's usually like an abundance and uh income goal attached. And there's always a why. Well, why do I want that? I want to look after my mom, I want to do these things. Relationship, it's a greater degree of freedom. Like, I want to be able to like approach the people or to experience like the love I've always wanted, like it's a greater degree of freedom. And this is what all humans want at like a fundamental level, is like a greater degree of freedom in some capacity. And like, I always like to bring it back to that because I think it's really, really important. Um, that whenever you're thinking about building a business, like unless you're willing to like embody fully that greater degree of freedom, whatever that looks like, that has to be your own personal mission as well. And rather than thinking, like, hey, I'm the guru, you're the student, even though you play out that relationship, which is fine, it's more about attracting people who are interested in feeling that degree of freedom as a human. And that's what we're doing with business. That's the whole business game. It's all made up. It's all words. It doesn't mean anything. Offers doesn't mean anything. They're words that humans made up. And it's like the the real thing here is like, how can I attract a tribe of like how I'm trying to express more freely as a human through business, through relationships, whatever it is, how can I attract more people like that as well? And I like to always bring it back to that. And I think that usually clicks for people, it's like, oh, I need to like embody this and I need to do this.

Darren: 50:53

That's the reason why the flywheel works. That's how a flywheel is created. Because if you did this in isolation and you would just let's say I coach you want to walk, and I get on a call and I'm like, do this, Tom, do this, Tom, do this, Tom. You get off the call and be like, I fucking hate that guy. Whereas if we've shown you connected to your goals, connected to your vision, where you want to go to, you're coming back at me, or going around the flywheel, and then you're starting to learn, and then it's the reason why I love coaching so much is because you actually liberate people, you liberate them to think, to act, and have freedom. And the beautiful part about that is they go on without you and surpass you, and that's the best part. Whereas if one-to-one is obviously the antithesis of this, or that's why building out programs are really helpful, is because people work in unison, right? And we just started the sprint challenge yesterday, and it's interesting to see everyone's energy come in, they feed off each other's energy consistently, and that's why Apex is so amazing, because with our group chats, they show up for each other, and they're like, Hey, I made 250k this month, I made 400k this month, I made 50k this month. And they're like, holy shit, it's possible. It's kinetic energy, man. That's literally what it is. And the most importantly, then is it does tie back to like our ethos of how we get things done as well. I think one thing just want to tap on lightly is uh one thing that I I felt that was crazy this month is like we had the best month we've had in business this year, however, like I've had like the worst month ever personally, and from two different angles. Like, obviously, Sega passed away, super super sad, really like tragic dead, all that kind of stuff. But at the same time, the business kept growing while I was barely working, right? So that's one thing that's one thing that's quite interesting, right? And one thing I want to say on this as well is like just because you make more money, your life doesn't become more miserable. Misery is gonna happen simultaneously to whether you're broke or whether you're super rich. Like I literally became a millionaire in my 20s, yet I still experience grief the same way anybody else does. It doesn't like it doesn't it doesn't protect you from those things. Now it doesn't say that as you grow your business, you're gonna hate your life like all the other coaches talk to you about. What I'm suggesting here is these things are mutually exclusive, and that's fucking interesting because you know, Christmas Day, I'm lying on the fucking hospital floor of my dog, and like the brutality of that, that it's all meant to be on Christmas and family, and if anyone knows me, they know that like you know, I don't have a family and all that kind of stuff as well. So there's like extra layers to this, so to add like fuel to the fire, it's like I'm here with like a dying dog with my wife who's obviously like insanely distraught. I have no extended family, and you can still have the best month of your life in your business, and then I'm also not suggesting that it's like a fucking trauma reaction that you grow your business, right? Pretty dialed in personal life, relationship, and health-wise. I just think it's an interesting observation, right? How like on the same day Sega passed away, we hit 535k a month. It's just interesting to observe.

SPEAKER_00: 54:09

Would you feel like your if you had to concentrate that into like a lesson a title for one of the chapters of your your future book? That feeling that contrast, um how would you as of now, and I know it's fresh right now, how would you distill that into a learning um about life and business? What would what would you say?

Darren: 54:38

Like when it when it happened, I was kind of thinking to myself, I was like, if I had the opportunity to exchange the 535,000 for an extra day with my dog, I would do it. Obviously, the sales reps wouldn't be that happy with that. But you know, in in the moment you think about those things, but then most importantly, I thought about a few things. One, it's about like how precious time is. I know everyone fucking talks about time and it's all cliche, but it's true when you experience that. And up until this point, I've never had like a serious debt that I like you know cared about. Let's put it that way, you know, that I was close to right to get me. Um so what was interesting there was like one about the precious unit of time and how little time we have and how we take things for granted, right? Like we've been working together for years, we've never had any issues. But me and you are very settled, right? We just we bounce very well off each other. We don't spend that much time together, but we'd never have any issues. Do you get me? It's like that's a relationship that like we should like be, and we we do appreciate, but I mean just conscientious, do you get me? Like, yeah, yeah, it's just conscientiousness, and then obviously, like you know, you with Julia, me with Elise, it's like making sure that like, and I feel like I do this really well with Elise, to be fair. It's like valuing that time as much. And like obviously Elise is a lot younger than me, so maybe she doesn't value time as much as I do because she's not 29, right? There's that, and it obviously feeds into the you know the dogs and stuff. I think it was interesting. Observe with dogs because obviously, you know, people can value whatever they want, they can value that sign as they want. We obviously value dogs at a very high level, obviously, because we own charities and stuff. But what is interesting, as I said to you earlier, was like many people don't have dogs because they're afraid of what it would feel like when they die. And then I used to always think that was crazy, and then when I did it, I when I had it all the past, I thought, oh fuck, like I never want a dog again. But the extreme joy that they give me is the cost of the pain that it causes me. Right? Or else we'd all be living in beige land and everything would be a four out of ten. So it's like we want to optimize for experiences that have a 10 out of 10, right? And it's like I'm super grateful for our business, I don't take it for granted. And you know, if you ever see me with the guys, well, I take everything, I really, really take it, take it in. But I think obviously you should really be taking these things in more, especially when we're like running masterminds and they're huge events and people love them. So yeah, that's what that's the way I think about it. It's just appreciation, man. You know, um, it's a it's appreciation for what you're doing and even things that I'm doing, and like on the side of the aura, it's like, dude, I've been trying to build software all my life, you know, and in three months we got a product that has you know a huge community now and loads of huge introductions to people. It's like it's like these are the fucking good times, man. You know what I mean? Like we're like we're in like the extreme good good times right now. Even if like I think bad things happen, we're still in the good times. You know, and I think that's what was really interesting was like your your bad times don't alter what you're doing. You get me? Just because a bad event happened to you doesn't mean that like your life is terrible and it's interesting because like Elise was obviously just so upset, and of course she's still like extremely upset, but I mean like Elise will come out the other end stronger, you know, with more appreciation for our dogs and stuff like this, and yeah, it's interesting, it's beautiful, man.

SPEAKER_00: 58:06

I think it's there's a few things again, it's like you said, it's like yeah, money's gonna help you solve your problems, but this human experience everyone's having you know, grief and loss is one of the flavors that we will all experience, and it comes at times that are poignant for us, and um you know I think one of the things, and it's amazing you're already there, is like grief isn't the same as suffering. And it's like something can be painful, but that doesn't mean you need to suffer. But because you don't need to suffer, that doesn't need mean that you need to be walking around with a grin on your face. Like, grief doesn't have to be suffering. Grief is grief, and usually at the other end of grief, it's like a every everything in this realm, it's like you said, right? Everything would just be beige. If everything was just neutral and beige, it's like it's just that. It's like there's no up and down. And the the the beautiful thing, uh usually at the end of grief, hopefully that one of the lessons that grief has for us is that the the the appreciation piece, like you said, it's like, oh, it brings you back to like the moment you have with the team, the moment you have with like the family, and you're like, oh, these are good times. This is so much fun. We sat here just like in Bali and we're like recording a podcast, and like because we wanted to, and it's fun, and also like making money. It's like a midday on a Friday, it's like day on Friday.

Darren: 59:28

You don't have any shoes on, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 59:30

Like, what the hell? Like, this is pretty fun, and like I think grief is a funny way of of showing us that, right? That it's like the the the the bringing us back to like what we can appreciate now, and um yeah, I love that I love that like you're you're there with that, and I think it was beautiful everything you said.

Darren: 59:46

I think just and just to add to that, is like like the pain that is grief is better than suffering. So let me give an example. It was like in Sega's like last days, and he was like, to be fair, he wasn't that. Bad, but then he was getting worse. It was like you're in purgatory, right? You don't know it's gonna get better, worse, you're in no man's land. And whether it's a person, dog, fucking elephant, it's all the same. And it was like we were mean Elise had been so used to him being sick that we'd wake up and we'd be like sad, and I'd rush to my phone, I'd check the divette message, you know, like anxious, nervous system, screw it up, we're going to bed. Like you'd be working. And I said to Elise always, it was like, all right, the day now has two days. We're playing daytime and nighttime. We just got to get through the day and then we get through the night. And then that was always a philosophy. Every single day for the past month was we get through the day and then we have the night. So that sucks way more because there's no closure, right? But then when you close a loop, like the pain is way harder, but it's almost like a slow release. And then over time, then you kind of learn to integrate, not forget, but integrate that kind of grief component and like you know, getting his ashes as he was cremated. It's like a Hindu, a Balinese Hindu uh ceremony, which was so beautiful. We're getting like his paw prints like in clay and stuff like this that's going to come into the office in a few days. It's like that's what you remember him by. And even shit like this, like I was driving by, like, there's like a some sandwich place around the corner, and it always smells like burnt toast, right? For the past five years, it's always smelled like burnt post. And whenever I drive past, I always just say burnt toast in my head. And then whenever a Sega's with me, he'll always sniff and he'd have his head up. And I thought of it, and it's like, oh, that's a good memory. It's hard, but it's like your brain goes to that. Does that make sense? It's very interesting, you know. So the smell, the the emo this the sensory of smell is now attached to that memory, which is great, like there's nothing wrong with that, right? And I think I felt like me and Elise, well, we're like we we approached it really well in terms of the last couple of days. But what was interesting was like Elise, like when she was really upset and like distraught, and like you know, feelings of like anger and all this kind of stuff is you know that come up momentarily, it's like feel them, you know, like just let that emotion ride to get me. It's like that emotion is completely fine to internalize. It's not like you're pissed off because the caption is wrong on your Instagram title, it's like shut the fuck up and just fix the title. But when this comes up, it's like yeah, just feel it. And it's interesting because a lot of those emotions they're very momentarily, um like they're they come in momentarily. So what I mean by that is you could cry for 30 seconds and you could we often would laugh out of that same emotion in the same minute. So in the same minute, we'd cry and laugh, and it's like that's just that's just cool to leave happen. Does that make sense? And yeah, I think that's just interesting. It's just it's maturity, right? And then you go into your business then it's like all right, let's fucking do this. And it's like less and then you know what that makes you think about as well, is like, okay, if we're all not gonna make it out, we all have a guaranteed success of not making it out, and we have a guaranteed uh experience of experiencing death and loss and grief, then go for it. You know what I mean? Because you can't take your money with you anyway, right? And you can't take anything. So I'd prefer to die with nothing than to just sit in beige land on the beige bench and just wait for life to pass me by. Because bear in mind where I grew up in Ireland, that's what it was. A lot of have you noticed this? That a lot of people are more scared to do things or scared to like try things, and it's like they're in a fear mode of any of anything, just like anything, right? You know, go on vacation, go travel, do this shit. And it's like, you know, we were talking about going to a mastermind. It's like, yeah, let's just let's just go to Dubai for a couple weeks. And it's like, let's just figure out everything else while we're there. We'll figure out the coaching, we'll figure out the work, we'll figure out a sales code, whatever. Yeah, we'll whatever, who cares? You know, because y'all are not getting there. So so let's just confirm that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:56

Yeah, but this is this is the beautiful thing with, and I love the turn this is this is taking because I think this is these are the deeper questions that are important to ask in business. It's like, what am I doing? Like, what do I actually do? How do I do it? And then the one they want to ask is like, well, why am I doing this? And like these are great moments to to experience that and to to really like lean into those questions with like what you are, how you we like you said, we have a limited time here on earth. You have a limited amount of creative potential that you can impress onto the earth in order to experience whatever you would like to experience. So, how are you going to spend that creative potential and how are you going to optimize that creative potential as well? And I think like one of the beautiful things here on like with with everything you've spoken about as well is like you spoke about your time in Ireland where it's like it's not that people are like really sad, it's like they're just kind of like okay. And I've noticed that within the UK as well. And I think this is this is one of the lessons of life, right? Is that we do learn by contrast. And the reason that we're both here in Bali, it could be anywhere, you're in Dubai, you're in is because that feeling of being stuck in the UK, in Ireland, was so painful that like there was that was beautiful because it created a desire to experience the opposite. And this is life. This is like how how we experience them. The the the price of experiencing amazing things is that like the other side of it is there as well. Otherwise, how would you identify it? There's yes, you have to have the flip side, so it's like the deeper you love, the deeper you care for that animal, the deeper you you you you are in love in a relationship, is like the more grief you will feel as well. And that's actually like beautiful. And that's the the the the the price for entry, and it's like I always view it the the the way to think about it is like understand that, but don't identify with it. Like it's like, yes, this is like a deep if you view it like a flavor, like grief or like joy, it's like ultimately like that's not you, it's like an experience that is happening, and you can like lean into it and feel it. It's like watching a movie. It's like the best movie is the one that like makes you cry and then excited and then scared and all these things. You want to feel like that was the point of it. It's like to experience, to feel into it. And again, this is when it comes back to bringing it back to like offers and why like entrepreneurship is such an exciting world as well. It's because we're all trying to unlock a greater degree of freedom. But then perhaps another way to phrase that as well is like we're also trying to unlock a um uh a greater degree of like experiential potential, like that's really what we're doing as humans, and and I think that's why like I've really just it's it's why you shouldn't take advice from business bros who are like oh that business is gonna make you burned out.

Darren: 1:06:45

It's like fuck off, like do what you want to do. Like, I have recognized that all of my life has been about building. How you say that the sassy way you said that. I've always always been about building, right? So whether I was younger, it was like you know, getting on the track and running and running up fucking hills in the winter. When I was a little bit older, it was getting in the gym, building my body. It was people telling me that I was small in school. I like doing that. It was me being a dumbass in school and devoting all my time in the library and scraping into college, getting to college, putting all my time into trying to become great, and then actually doing really well in college and then getting into jobs and building myself up, and then building businesses, building those up. And then when I build up those businesses, I didn't want to be like, it's time to quit because I'm I'm burned out. It was like, no, I'm fucking chilling and I appreciate this, and I know that my like my like world, my like fucking path is to build, right? And everyone builds different things, and it's for me, it's like I like this creative aspect of building. I like the idea of getting my hands dirty and getting in the hands of other people, people telling me it's fucking shit and have to go back and redo it. Like, as in that is that's the world telling you what you should be doing. It's like if you're waiting for other people to tell you how to live your life, whether that's like take it easy, you work two hours a week, all this kind of shit, you're gonna find out pretty quickly that you fucking hate doing that. Like, dude, I can right now retire for 20 years. I don't need fucking money. Fucking give a shit about money. I don't need money, I never needed money. This is a t-shirt that was cut down bear mind. I do it because I enjoy it. And I like coming in here and I like building shit and I like doing cool stuff and me and the team working on new stuff. It's like that's awesome. Because if I wasn't doing that, if I wasn't doing that, what I would be doing is I'd be partying, I'll be smoking those fucking cigarettes again, I'd be drinking alcohol, and I'd probably be taking some sort of drugs. Being fully transparent because the mind will occupy itself, so time will fill, and you'll fill it with whatever, whatever, bro. I'm not gonna be filling it with books and shit and all that kind of stuff. I'd fill it with something, and that's why even like for me, it's like if I it's actually funny because I gotta limit myself what I do in in the athletic world, because I I'm I have a tendency to go like all in on something like that, and if I was to do that, I would do the exact same thing. I would go all in and I would try to become a fucking ultramarathon champion somewhere. And it's like if again, it's like it's like know thyself. If I know this to be true about myself, where can I where can I channel my energy in the best possible way to have the most reward possible for the people around me? What I mean by that is like the impact, success, uh, financial situation for the people around me, all that kind of stuff. What can I do? How can I channel my energy the best way? And that's the kind of that to me is like the crux of life, right? Um, and look, it takes a time, a long time to figure out what you want to do. But if I was like to observe like Magno, he enjoys this shit. So, like, why would he need to take a break? Like, I don't understand this. Like, why would you need to take a two-month break to go around Machu Picchu and do what?

unknown: 1:10:03

Right?

Darren: 1:10:04

It's like shit. He's not. But do you get me? It's like it's like, and you said this as well with taking time off over Christmas. It's like the re so you take a break to like recharge, whatever, but you go back to the thing that you actually inherently liked. If you don't like admin, fair. None of us liked it. You didn't get into business because you liked the admin. So fucking hire someone to just do the admin. Get back into business for what you enjoyed. I started creating content, recording podcasts. What are we doing today? I'm recording the podcast 320 episodes later. Yeah, it sucks. Scheduling the guests, we have to move two guests, one from today to Monday, another one to next Wednesday. I'm recording a webinar and a podcast, two podcasts on the same day next week. Not ideal, but I enjoy doing it, and even though I have a lot of shit going on personally right now, it's like it's great. It's great to come in here, I'm not on my phone, not checking dumb shit, you know, I'm not putting myself, I'm not blowing up my business. Do you get me?

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:02

Yeah, this is awesome. I think like the last thing um maybe say on this as well is this is why, and it's funny because like we said halfway through this conversation is like it's like we kind of like can help you solve problems. And the job, like rather than giving you a mechanism, is like, hey, we have a golden funnel. Would you like the golden funnel? Is that how we can help you? Or like the just something dumb like that. It's like, oh, I have the hybrid method. Okay, like whatever. Like, I think one of those, like one of the challenges we definitely face is like, okay, like, do we have the ecosystem model? It's like, yeah, that's a good way to describe it. And it's important to give things names, but like, really, like the crux of it was like, okay, well, how can we allow people into like this this like vortex of solving problems in a way that is like, you know, and and the biggest thing I always think when it comes to to marketing creating content, it's like, are you talking to someone when you think about who you're talking to? Are you talking to someone you believe is intelligent and is capable of their own agency to make particular decisions? Because please hold that belief. If you don't, then like you're basically talking to like a child and you're going to attract, guess what? Childlike or dependent relationships where people are like, You're my savior, you told me how to do this, and now it's not working. And it's going to be very um uh turbulent for you. And it's like, I think one of the things you need to look at, anyone can look at honestly with their content with a business is do I have the belief that this person is an intelligent person that is capable of making their own decisions and their decision to move closer into my world is one that they have made on their own accord and they have found me. Not that I have persuaded them into doing anything. It's like, is this an intelligent person and that this is they believe this is the right decision for them? And I'm here to help them make it if possible. Okay, like that's that's the start of a great client relationship, like, you know, where you trust their autonomy as well. And I think there's beautiful lessons for that within content as well, about how we show up. We don't need to perform, like, speak to the people like uh you really want to attract. And I think the last thing I say here is that one of the things that cool I had this morning with a guy who's like on paper very, very successful. He started talking about, yeah, maybe I need to fix this. I think I need to change this. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like, first of all, like I've from doing this long enough now, like I don't have the audacity anymore to be like, I know what your the solution to your problem is. I don't have a fucking clue. But let's sit here and we can figure it out together. And like I always start those calls. I'm like, all right, let's talk about like what's coming up. Like, why do we why are we on a call together? What's going on? Like, let's, let's, let's just get some stuff out there. I want to hear it. And initially, like, came onto the call, like, yeah, I probably need to fix this. We could maybe hire someone here. There were two words I picked up on. It was burnt out and I feel dread when I do this. And they just skimmed over it. And I was like, okay, thank you for telling me everything. What do you feel dread about? Because that's really important right now. There's something you're dreading doing within your business, and you use the word dread. It's like the Freudian slip. It's like, we usually mean what we say. I dread doing that. Like, okay, well, let's look at that. If there's something you that you have experienced dread in, well, let's double tap on that. What is that? Okay, why? And we managed to like unpick it from there. And it's like, okay, that then points to the best problem. That points to how we're going to solve a particular problem. But you've got to pick up on those things, right? And I think that's like the thing like I'm learning with coaching. I'm learning with like all the clients. We're like 150 plus clients we have now. It's like, it's like, I don't have a fucking clue. I believe in my ability to ask questions and to be able to point you in the right direction, but I believe you have the answers. And like that's our job as a coach, right? That's our job. We we we're gonna solve problems, we're gonna do it together. But anyone who is telling you, like, I have the solution to your problem, it's exactly this, like, that is naive. That is not correct. Like, you know what the the solution is to your problems are. We can help you, we can provide support, we can provide scaffolding. That is gonna be our job, and we are gonna support you and pull you up as well in in various ways. But I I think one of like the the beliefs, because we can we can we can get ahead of ourselves, like, you know, I'm helping so many people, I'm blah-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. It's like, I think the best coaches know that they have no idea what the person needs, but you know, and I think that creates a really good client relationship where you actually, if you actually want to not have like some sort of messiah complex, some sort of guru complex where like I need to be needed in this way, but you actually want to optimize for impact, kind of putting yourself on the same level and being like, well, actually, I don't know what that is until we kind of build out this relationship together, is is is something I feel like for me anyway, has matured in my coaching over the last couple of years as well. And I've I've I've found it much more familiar fulfilling and much more impactful as well.

Darren: 1:15:44

Yeah, man. And I've learned this from you. Like I consistently just say how awesome you are coaching people, and it's always a feedback, man. You know, it's a feedback from every single person I talk to, is that when they speak with you, like it's just so impactful because you're able to find out you're able to teach them the thing for themselves. And I actually said this earlier in the podcast too, which is like the goal here is to liberate them so that they can go off and do it themselves. And it's like, yeah, we can help them with setters and we teach them certain things, but it's I think it's it goes back to again, it's it's shared responsibility, which is we'll get them to see what they're doing, and then it's like we can help you fill in the gaps. Whereas a lot of guys will not help you fill in the gaps, you're like, oh you know, like guys teaching you how to hire setters or how to get how to scale a business with setters, but then not giving you access to setters. It's like that's literally like trying to, I don't even know what the equivalent is, man. It's just so outlandish, it doesn't even make sense. I don't see other people doing that because it's fucking stupid. That's a good point to finish up on, man. I think uh just to look at this year and to look forward for this year, I think we can we can definitely do so much bigger numbers as well in terms of on the screen, but that goes back to helping more people find out their own problems and solving their own problems and creating more of a flow. The reason why our ascension is so high for people moving from incubator to apex is because we're able to get them results in a in a context window of where they're at, and then they're able to see they want to see, they want to get more out of the juice, you know. And I think that's a big goal for me this year, and a goal for yourself as well, is just like how can we get more results at scale? I think other thing as well is like looking at these challenges that we're running, like the 30-day challenges. I know it was a great idea I had just over Christmas was just like how can we condense all this down into just like a ramp, you know, just so that they come in, they work hard, they get results, and they feel like they're winning. Yeah any any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:47

No, I don't know, nothing, nothing to say there. It's uh yeah, it's that building that that feeling of like, I always think this as well. Like when I've had like when I was working on my own as well, I always used to like let's say I'd have a slower month and then I'd have a good month and then a few good months. I'm like, oh yeah, making money is just a habit. Like it's just you just have to be in the practice of it. Like it's not even like I think we sometimes can pedestalize this, like, make money. Like it's like, oh, it's like this elusive thing that I need to like go out and catch. It's like, no, it's just like a literally like a habit and something you can get into the habit. And I always used to think I'm like, oh, I'm in the habit of making money right now. And it's not like this like crazy wacky thing that like I glitch, it's like, oh, it's just habits, and like I have the money-making habit right now, and it's and it's just that's fine. It's just like I have the brushing my teeth habit. And I think once you can get people into that state of like, I'm in the money-making habit, like great, stay there.

Darren: 1:18:37

And uh, yeah. That's why I know it's actually interesting you said that, man, because I went through a lot of the documents for the challenge this morning with one of our clients, and I just thought it was very interesting because when you back all that stuff up with numbers and data and results, and like actually like doing shit, like do this KPI, do this, get this result, then your life is a lot easier. And this is where we go from like your world, so my world, and we combine both of the worlds, is like you can develop the identity, which you need to do. You can find out internally what you want to achieve. You can look at your vision, look at your mission, and then you need to follow these specific numbers in this specific way to actually realize that identity. Yeah. Dude, you're a legend. Love you lows.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:21

Yeah, thank you for all the help. Yeah. Another year ahead, another year ahead. Let's get it.