Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Dane Maxwell: How To Stop Self-Sabotage | E66

Episode Date: May 21, 2020

Today on the show YAP researcher and podcast host, Peter Sumpton chats with serial entrepreneur, Dane Maxwell. Dane started 5 successful software companies with many of them becoming multi-million dollar businesses. Dane never has to work another day again in his life with all the passive income streams he has created, but he still works tirelessly to help other entrepreneurs become as successful as he has through his content and platforms. In fact, he’s created over 15 millionaires with his teachings thus far. Dane recently put out a book called Start From Zero which outlines how to build the brain of an entrepreneur, and start meaningful business and income stream from scratch. In this episode, we discuss how self-sabotage can manifest itself and how to stop this from happening. Why using your intuition is an important skill to learn, and how your future wealth all starts with solving problems for people and not your expertise Listen to Marketing Study Lab: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/marketing-study-lab-actionable-marketing-knowledge/id1375904962 Follow YAP on IG: www.instagram.com/youngandprofiting Reach out to Hala directly at [e-mail] Follow Hala on Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Follow Hala on Instagram: www.instagram.com/yapwithhala Check out our website to meet the team, view show notes and transcripts: www.youngandprofiting.com   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the show. I'm your host and executive producer, Halataha. And on Young and Profiting Podcast, we investigate a new topic each week and interview some of the brightest minds in the world. My goal is to turn their wisdom into actionable advice that you can use in your everyday life, no matter your age, profession, or industry. There's no fluff on this podcast and that's on purpose. I'm here to uncover value from my guests by doing the proper research and asking the right questions. If you're new to the show, we've chatted with the likes of negotiation experts, Harvard professors, self-made billionaires, sleep psychologists, CEOs, and best-selling authors.

Our subject matter ranges from enhancing productivity, entrepreneurship, the art of side hustles, and more. If you're smart and like to continually improve yourself, hit the subscribe button, because you'll love it here at Young and Profiting Podcast. Today on the show, we're chatting with serial entrepreneur, Dane Maxwell. Dane started five successful software companies, with many of them becoming multi-million dollar businesses.

His companies include the foundation, which specializes in training people to start a business from scratch, swipe my ideas, which gives away profitable business ideas, and paperless pipeline, a real estate transaction management software. Dane never has to work another day again in his life. He's created so many passive income streams, but he still works tirelessly to help other entrepreneurs become as successful as he has through his content and platforms. In fact, he's created over 15 millionaires with his teachings thus far.

Dane recently put out a book called Start From Zero, which outlines how to build the brain of an entrepreneur and start meaningful businesses and income streams from scratch. In this episode, we discussed how self-sabotage can manifest itself and how to stop this from happening. Why using your intuition is an important skill to learn, and how your future wealth all starts with solving problems for people and not your expertise. Today's show is a bit different. My father passed away last week, God bless his soul, and so I have Peter Sumpton covering

for me on the interview. Peter is one of my YAP researchers and host of his own podcast, Marketing Study Lab. I would highly encourage you to check out his podcast if you enjoyed the conversation. You can find it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen to your podcasts. I was actually featured on Marketing Study Lab for episode number 62 if you want to learn more about me and my career journey. And don't worry, I'll be back in action on YAP next week. Enjoy the show and thanks for covering for me, Peter.

Dane, welcome to Jung and Profiting Podcast. What does it do, Santa? Absolutely, thank you so much for joining me. I know Hala was gutted to be missing this and you and me both wish her family well at this time. I know she's ready to get back onto the podcast but you know life throws you things that are far more important than that which will be back as soon as possible I know. So, Dane, just a quick intro to yourself. Very early on in life you had a number of businesses which led to a number of failures but from these you learnt what worked and what didn't. Fast forward in your life and you now have multiple successful profitable businesses

that allow you to never have to work again, not that you do this as you're still very active with projects such as the foundation. Your company that specialises in training people to start a business from scratch. Away from those businesses, and that one in particular, you have your own podcast, SFZ, start from zero, and have authored a book of the same title. So before we dive into any of that, I'd love to know what life was like growing up pre-entrepreneur's success for you. Infinitely creative, taking apart remote control cars, building forwards underneath the deck, really experiential with my hands.

Not gifted in the classroom. Okay, cool. So that's a bit of a crazy way to start building businesses, but you built the companies that you own without any prior knowledge of what you were selling at work in terms of the software and how it was built and all those kind of things. And now, like we're saying through the foundation, which is one of your companies, you help people do the same, be successful within business.

All this started for you at a very early age. So what interested you in entrepreneurship? Well, it may have started at an early age, but I got brainwashed by society into thinking that an employee was the Holy Grail. So I got brainwashed and then it wasn't until I realized that as an employee, the more successful I became, the more trapped I would be because the more promotions I would have and the more demands would be on my time. I made a very conscious choice to say, the more successful I become, the more free I want

to be. That's cool. So just to put some context behind that, when you were in a career as such, how far or high up did you actually go and how traps did you actually feel? No, I didn't get it all. I didn't get very far. But that made you feel trapped enough to want to not do it at all. Yeah, my first day on the job. Fantastic, really. I'm sure a lot of people can appreciate that and associate themselves with that as well. I mean, I wanted to say,

if you're clear on what you want without any internal shame, you know what's important to me is that the more successful I become, the more free I want to become. And you resolve that right in the center of your spinal cord, beyond your mind, down into your spine, and the nerve endings of your spine, like really embodied. The more successful I want to become, the more free I want to become. At that point, you'll begin looking at options, and you'll match those options against your very clear intention and it will no longer be what can I do or what can't I do or what I'm born for or what am I not born for. It'll be more what's my really tender but

solid consistent desire and then how can I build my skill set to put myself into a vehicle that will provide for that desire. So it becomes internally directed. You're within first and you make a very clear statement. And it's no ego. It's not to be better than anybody else. It's not to look better than anyone else. And it's certainly not to feel a wound within you. It's just, this is where my joy is. Is an XYZ desire. So when I did

that, I said, the more successful I become, the more free I want to become. I then started attracting into my life a set of skills that were not skills that you would do to exchange time for money. And I had to almost go against the wiring of my whole nervous system because I had spent 18 to 20 years learning skills that would require me to exchange time for money. But I was clear more success equals more freedom. So then with that in mind, I attracted a whole new skill set of skills that I can do that free me from exchanging time for money. And when I would actually engage in those skills, it almost felt as difficult as trying to breathe underwater. It was

that difficult and it's interesting. So let's just take a very tangible skill. Let's say, now you don't make a lot of money doing this, but this would be a very easy skill to understand. Writing a book, right? You put your time into writing a book and then it sells without your time afterwards. It's a passive product. Now if you monetize the back end of the book, if you have additional offers on the back end of the book and those are all products and those are all videos and letters that people can go watch, read, and buy without you having to be there, those are then more

skills that do not require exchanging time for money. So I would call them asset creation skills, where you're engaged in creating an asset. Now when I write a book, it was really challenging. Like a good must-be-be cry. Like it was so much work because now if something is going to exist without my time, what I've noticed is it's going to require all of my energy coming out of my system into this book so now it can live without me. And it requires a different kind of energetic output than just working to exchange time for

money. Now if you start to look and say, okay, this is it. The more successful I become, the more free I want to be. And you don't explain that to your parents. You don't explain that to anybody. You don't explain that to your dog. This is for you, for your life, for your enjoyment, for you and you alone. And without any explanation, without having to justify your decision to anybody, you just live it. Now, at that point, you're now emitting from inside your center of your core, you're now emitting this desire. Now, let's say someone says, hey, you know, Peter, could you make a website for me? You're like, well, that's exchanging time for money. Sorry. No, I can't do that

Then someone says hey Peter. Can you help solve my My parent my parent bites me a lot and it cusses around my kids and it's it's really painful And you say yeah, yeah, I can solve that and so now we'll jump to a context that makes assets easy in business easy, like very easy relative to what business normally is. Here's that context. It's called the, I call it the starter context. And it's people first, problem second, sales third,

outsource product creation to an expert, fourth, get a result with your first customer fit and then scale to others, six. Now if, and we'll go through this a bunch, now if you look at the traditional business context, here it is, expertise first. What am I an expert at? Website second. Product third. Random acts of marketing fourth. To a random set of people. Give up and call business risky fifth.

Then advise everybody else that business is risky sixth. Now business is not risky. when you follow a starter context. Risky is buying equipment, buying an expensive domain, buying a building when really the most significant and valuable act of any business is the customer giving you money. That is where a business begins. But yet we don't focus on that. We focus on expertise, we focus on domain, we focus on, when you don't even need expertise and you don't even need a domain. So let's go to this parat example.

You say, yeah, so tell me the most important issue is okay, it bites you and it cusses. Okay, great. So now Peter, you go and you look up a parat store in Liverpool, UK, or maybe you call into America. And you start asking, hey, do you have parrot trainers on staff? And they say, sure, you find a parrot trainer, you ask if you can speak to them. The parrot trainer says, hello, and you say, hey, I'm Peter, and I've got some clients in mind. Their parrots have behavioral issues. They're cussing around the kids and they're biting. And that's for you,

people. Do you know how to solve these behavioral issues? And the parrot trainer says, yes, absolutely. So now you say, okay, great. Do you know how to solve these behavioral issues? And the parent trainer says, yes, absolutely. So now you say, okay, great, would you like to use your iPhone and record me a little course that I can then give to my clients? And I will give you 20% of the profit of this business. And all you have to do is teach your expertise. And then the parent owner says, or the parent trainer says, absolutely.

So they record the videos on iPhone, they send them to you in Dropbox or Google Drive, and then you share that with your friend who's at the parent problem. Now they watch the videos and they have a question. So they email it to you, you give it to the parent trainer, the parent trainer records another video answering that question, sends the video back, boom, now that person owns that parent, the parent stops cussing and stops biting. Now you've got a result. You're at number five. Because remember, people first, problem second with the parrot. You sold them third. You outsourced to a parrot trainer fourth.

Now fifth, you've got a result with them. Now you've got to testimonial. As far as I just like, before my parrot bitten me, now my parrot didn't. You've got to testimonial. And a sale, you don't even have a website. You don't even have expertise. They sent the money to you on PayPal, right? Because you're like, well, your parents biting you and cussing on your kids, you ask them a simple question. You say, is this problem painful enough that you would pay to solve it?

They're like, oh, yes, I would. That's your sale. That's all a sale needs to be. So now you go and scale to other parat trainer six, you have yourself a business and you did people first, problem second, sales third, outsource product creation, expert fourth, get a result fifth, and then six, scale to others. So you tell me, where is the risk? Absolutely. I think the problem would be that people don't necessarily see it like that. A lot of people would not see it like that. That goes way, way back to the schooling and the education

and historically what parents have taught and done are a lot of parents have done. But I think one thing that sticks out amongst others is that you wrote about the inner devil comes up during the implementation stage of a business. And about how we like to sabotage our own selves, you know, analysis paralysis, start stop over welfare and things like that. So if we find something that we want to do or we go out or passionate at and we start it and then this starts to sabotage comes in, how do we stop doing that? Yeah, so there is going to be challenge,

real challenge on any path that we choose to walk down, like real challenge. And a lot of us are kind of looking for a path that's challenged free in some way. We're like, oh, I just wanted to be easy. And then we kind of buy into believing that. So if we're on a path and there's a lot of challenge or maybe we start looking.

So because there's challenge on any path, it becomes very important that you're extremely clear about what you want. And that clarity is, listen, I want to be successful and as it becomes successful, I want to be more free. As an example, other things are, I want to be able to be with my family every day after 2pm. every day after 2 p.m. That's another thing. You're very clear. You begin there. You don't look at careers or businesses first. You can, and that does work. But if you want the real power where your tree rooted at the ground first, we come to this kind of clarity. Because now in self-sabotage comes up Self-sabotage is so sneaky That it will sabotage you and you don't even know what's happening. It's wild like

Part of me wonders because I reached a critical mass of fame in my niche and business around the age of 30 And I had an internal belief That I am very ugly. But I didn't have that consciously. It was unconscious that I believed I was ugly. So what's a 30 year old who gets all this attention who actually believes he's ugly, going to end up doing. It's going to hide. He's going to try to subtly sabotage his way out of a spot like he doesn't like everybody looking at someone that he thinks is ugly So what I did is I went into music because I went into music I could be

Invisible again Because I had no talent really in music to speak of I had a little bit Or I had a lot but it still wasn't enough To get the attention that I had a business at the time so I told myself that going into music Was the right move it was the great idea. This is my life path. This is my destiny move. It was the great idea. This is my life path. This is my destiny. Because the challenge of being seen was so difficult for someone that believed he was ugly, that I wanted to go to a place where I could be hidden. So that's what I

did. Now I also had many other motivations for music, one of which was to prove to myself that I could do it and these other things for myself personally and to try and let hearts know their love through my voice and singing. There's more than one yet. One of the loudest things was get the F out of the spotlight. And so that self-sabotage, I didn't even know that that was going on. And that's what was going on. So self-sabotage is so powerful and so clever that we don't know it's happening. And because I encountered so much challenge in business, I got up to 30 years old and I got to this pinnacle for myself.

And because challenge was so challenging at 30, I was like, there's no way it should be this hard. And so I left. So there is a self-image inside of me that resonates so deeply with feeling ugly, feeling worthless, and it's become an unconscious automatic response. And it's absolutely powerful if I don't notice it. So interestingly enough, I saw, so I got to the pinnacle of business at 30. For myself, my own definition, and I backed off. I started at music, and when I got into music,

I was at the boat bottom of skill. As I raised up in music, and then I remember I released my third album, and I had critics that were like, who is this kid in Iowa? He's going places. Who is this kid in Des Moines? He's going to be a worldwide sensation. I have these critics saying this about one of my songs, for example. And that was after three or four years of very hard work. And when I got it to that point, I realized Okay, this is done. Music is complete. I just did what I never thought I could do. And then a book publisher contacted me and asked me if I'd write a book. And I said yes. But this is a little

bit of the journey. That's big self-sabotage. There's small self-sabotage like getting on a sales call to talk to someone. And right before the sales call, like you got to go the bathroom. And you're going to be late to the call now. Or like, like, because physiologically your body is like unsafe, sales call, unsafe, sales call, danger, sales bad, sales evil, guilty for asking for money, very simple language, which is pounding in your unconscious that you can't hear, but all of a sudden physiologically you're uncomfortable and you got to go to the bathroom, like before you're playing a sport in high school or something, you know, before games you get nervous. This is, this is self-sabotage on smaller scales. Then there's even the more subtle forms of self-sabotage.

But here is the breakthrough to it all. So for example, if I ask myself out loud and please ask yourself the same thing while you're listening, what do I secretly believe in myself? What do I secretly believe in myself? For me, I hear ugly. Now here's the most powerful thing. I've got tears in my eyes as I say this. That answer is not me.

Now ugly will try to say yes, Dane. Yes, yes, you're ugly. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, every time you look in the mirror, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, all of your love handles, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, every time you look in the mirror. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, all of your love handles. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, all get out of the mirror. No, no, no, don't let women look at you. No, no, you're in the spot. I get out, out, out, out.

That's how real it is, but it's silent. It's not actually happening publicly. So, but now that I've done the work that I need to do, here's the critical distinction. Instead of believing that, I just notice it instead. It's called notice instead of belief. So now the critical difference here, instead of me trying to be handsome or instead of me trying to clear ugly,

what do I do instead? Is I allow and welcome ugly, and I sit with it to surrender to it until it becomes completely okay that is there and when it's completely okay that ugly is there that's when it no longer matters. So it's like we fight. So if you're young and like 20s and going up like you're gonna be motivated by different identities, different internal characters say I must prove myself, I must write the wrongs that were done to me, and

you don't want to be motivated by that. I assure you because you will achieve limited things, even if you can become a millionaire, if it's motivated from a wound, you could actually have 10 or 20 million if you're motivated by love. And love is cool. And love is cool. And the love is powerful. So here's what we do with something like this. What do I secretly believe in myself? And then say ugly comes up. Notice instead of believe and then declare with powerful thought that is not me. And you'll start to notice that you're so much more than this limited thought because you know what ugly is, it's a thought. And the thing that notices that

thought is not ugly. So this is how identity works. Internal thoughts of who we think we are, they are not us. Now, as you get this, you can sidestep years of therapy and healing potentially. You can even do it in a moment, granted some miracle happens, and you're able to break this identification with a thought like that. But I don't think there's any reason why not.

So you ask yourself, what do I secretly believe about myself? And you get hideous piece of that comes up. And you feel it, let it come, notice it in your experience of your body, and then say with so much strength, that is not me. And you'll start to chisel away. You'll start to see it as a thought. That's not you, it's just a thought. Okay, so this is the critical thing, because it's one of the critical things. Now, next with self-sabotage, if we are motivated by internal identities, our motivation will

wax and wane and flip-flop. Now this is probably the most, if not, I don't want to say it was such black and white narrative. This is very important. So instead of being motivated by an identity like let's say you start getting fat by your own definition. You're like you know what I'm kind of fat. So you start to work out because you feel fat. Now as you work out and stop feeling fat, the motivation to work out is going to wane and you will stop working out. Because the motivation is there's change and it's when you're motivated by an identity, that identity is vulnerable. You want the kind of rock solid conviction to live that is not dependent on an identity

because identities don't make us happy. We see that when we look at celebrities who've built golden identities, mass sexual attention, mass sexual validation, beautiful homes, beautiful cars, all this attention. And yet many still become miserable in private. That is because working to improve our identities does not make us happy. And we are transfixed in to believe that improving our identity is what will make us happy. I will tell you right now we are already happy. We are already free. That is who we are in the deepest level. We just forget it because we've been brainwashed and There's a part of you that believes this and there's probably a part of you that does not and says no I need that business I need that sale. I need that girl. I need that guy. I need that money

But I tell you what identity doesn't make you happy being happy makes you happy so now that we look at this, here's the magic, define your daily values. So my daily values are connection, wealth, play, and feeling great in my body. And I can look at these and continue to refine them until I really feel like I'm living and joy. Now, the thing about these values is they're independent of identity. These don't change nearly as often if ever, but identities can change. So what I do is I define these values clearly and then I make the decision to live these every day.

It becomes a decision. So for connection, I'll speak to a potential customer and ask them how they're doing. I'll ask them their problems. I'll ask them the thoughts that are going on in their head. I'll listen through connection. Through creation, I'll build a product that serves them, whether I outsource it to the parent trainer,

or I know how to build it myself. Particularly, I love building software companies, so I hire software developers and become the business owner. I give a software developer a percentage or pay them just like you do the parrot trainer. So, connection, talk to a customer, creation, create what they need, wealth, sell it in a system. I sell it as and in a system, not dependent on me. For family, I have scheduled time in my calendar for family. Every day at one o'clock, I spend an hour with my daughter. At 8.30, the phone is off. At 6.30, we usually have dinner. You say I say usually because that's not actually in my calendar like the other things

So there's an opportunity for me to improve with the value of family. I tend to be a lot of work and little play now if we go to play But because work is so fun. I'm not like punishing myself at work. Work is so pleasurable So now play that is either playing hockey or video games pleasurable. So now play, that is either playing hockey or video games. So I'll actually schedule, and you know, I haven't done this because I've had so much shame about it, but I'm just now finally getting ready to schedule video game time in my calendar with the intention of living the value of play. So now I'll show up to that game, slaughter people, for fun, you know, and it's a it's a it's a pure present intention, not a place to distract myself. So now then we have looking and feeling great in my body. So looking is there, but it's really more about feeling great in my body. Because I'm the one in it. I can't see it. So what I do is I do a I work workout on a treadmill for about 20, 30 minutes, burn about 200 calories,

first thing in the morning to burn most of the fat stores, then what I'll do is I'll do 17 minutes of yoga because that's about all I can handle. And I'll do it with a metronome at 40 beats per minute, three, four time. So the metronome goes, and I'll breathe in for three and out for three. And that metronome keeps me entranced and focused enough to do the yoga for 17 minutes. So now what I do is I wake up. I do this. I'll read. I'll do journaling.

Then I'll wear my workout. Now I've already got the feeling great in my body. You know what? I should also add the value of contemplation and clarity because that's what happens before the workout. Then I go on and I live the rest of those values every day. If I live those values every day, it's a really darn good day. And now I'm happy now, living my values now, not waiting in the future.

Now when you're working on things, you're consciously working on something. But you are probably emitting something energetically emotionally from your stomach and heart from the center of your being. You're likely emitting something very different than the task that you're working on. Many people as they're working on things, what we do is we emit this is not possible. So while you're working on it, you've got this very strong emission saying it's not possible, it's not possible, it's not possible, it's not possible, it's not possible, it's not possible, but you're not aware of it, it's just happening. So while you're building a business or starting a business, you're like, oh, I've only got one chance to make this work,

I've only got one chance to get a business right. When you know low and behold, you need tens and hundreds of chances sometimes. But it all takes as one. And you can reduce your risk greatly using that starter context that we talked about. You can reduce your risk completely because you're selling a product before you ever build it. So your risk is the emotional rejection asking for a sale, which isn't even that hard to say, is this a problem that's serious enough that you'd pay to solve it? No? Okay, cool. You don't even have to risk that much rejection. Now, you do this. You ask yourself what you secretly believe. You get the answer,

and then you declare internally that it's not me, and you start to break away from it, being identified that as you. Then you start defining your daily values, and you make the decisions to live those every day. And then you live that now. Then you start to see that happiness is available right now by living your, but no for no reason at all, you can choose to be happy. And that's a choice and it's a powerful choice. And if you can do that with your mind, that's what I'm, that's my battle is choosing happiness because I got my mind built on a lot of sadness growing up.

So I've been reconditioning my mind to a happy one. Well, to what it normally is. Now, what are we admitting as we're working? So as we're working out, if you're working out, like I'm a fat person, I'm a fat person, as you're working out, versus my desire is to feel great in my body. My desire is to feel great in my body. That kind of self-talk, that kind of kindness to yourself,

while very challenging for many of us, is a huge ingredient with how long you'll last. Because we're just looking for reasons to beat ourselves up. All this is difficult. I must be a piece of crap. Oh, this is difficult. I must be stupid.

I'm so hard to work out. I must really be lazy. Now if we get all these things right, and this is what I've been really dedicating myself to. And we look at what we're emitting while we're working on something. Like, what are we actually sending out to the world as we're doing it? I'm going to get rejected. This business isn't going to work out.

My family doesn't deserve wealth and either do I. And we're emitting that as we're working, like I like to tell people, and I'm telling people more and more'm telling people more and more now, is listening, many of us fail before we even start. Because one, we're motivated by an identity, two, or not clear in our daily values, three, we don't have a clear, impotent schedule that we put together, we made the schedule ourselves, we decide what we do in win. No one else is telling us how to live our schedule. We make it ourselves. You can create the most badass schedule in the world

that makes you happy every day you live it. You say, what would be a schedule I'd be thrilled to live every day? And you actually schedule it out. And then your mind is turned off because decision fatigue is a very real thing. If you're trying to decide what to do every day, that's decision power that your brain only has so much up before it goes to sleep again. You want to give your greatest gifts to the world. You want to love others. You want to serve from such a deep place.

You want to protect your mind. So your resources are given the most that it can give, which means you don't want to fatigue it with what decisions you're going to live that day. So what I do for my scheduling is I set a timer for 10 minutes and I use my phone because man when I schedule my brain freaked out, it's like what are you doing? Don't trap yourself. Don't do this.

They're going to be fine. I set a timer for 10 minutes on my phone and I answer three or four questions. What's the most important activity I should do this week? What's the most difficult thing I should do this week? What's the most difficult thing I should do this week? What activity can I do this week that will still matter one year from now? And I answer those three questions. Usually it takes like four to five minutes. They, when I'm done with that, I open up my Google calendar and I look at those answers and I plug those answers into a calendar that includes when I'm waking up, when I'm eating,

when I'm, you know, it's, be honest, I really only have the critical things in there. Because I remember what I need to eat and stuff. But some people really like to have that scheduled in there. But then I put those three, the most difficult thing, the most important thing, and the thing that will still matter a year from now. So now you talk about living a profitable life. That'll come from how you feel right now in this moment. That fulfillment isn't felt in the future. For film is felt right now.

For film is a present moment experience. So that's how I would answer self-savotage. Sure. I mean, that's so, so comprehensive, so many things in there and some massive value. Thank you so much for answering that in, in, in so much detail. One thing that, that you've said is that, that many people, including yourself, fall prey to putting their worth on the line. For example, I, I know you were left with about $123 after being scammed by buying a website for, I think, it's $12,000. But you also say that it's the best $12,000 you've ever spent because it was the launch pad for your first six-figure product.

So for a lot of people listening, this will sound like a step too far, quite a steep learning curve. How do you suggest people don't allow this to happen? Yet you allow yourself to make the mistakes you need to learn and succeed. You so, I'll say something very, very clearly. You are not your mistakes. Breathe that in. Many of us had parents that would punish us if we didn't get things right

the first time. School certainly punished us by giving us one chance to get something right on a test. So it makes no surprise that we would be afraid to make a mistake and think that we are our mistakes. When we're actually wired to learn best through mistake, through failure, when we go to work out, we push our muscles to failure, to grow them. We must fail. So you're not your mistakes. Now in terms of what I'm talking about, if you listen to what I just shared and you're like, oh my God, it's way too much for me, how the heck I'm ever going to do any of that.

See if you can turn on an aspect of your mind that says, what's just one thing that I could implement that Dana said? What's just one thing? Maybe you schedule only one hour a day on your calendar at first. Just one hour and you pick it on the difficult thing. The thing you need the most help with is your thing you get scheduled. One thing, one hour per day on your calendar. You do that for a couple of weeks and then you up into two, then three, etc. You sit down with a 10 minute timer and ask yourself, what do I secretly believe about myself?

And no one gets to know this, no one needs to know this but you. You write out an answer and you look at all that and you contemplate how not even that is you. And you be gentle. Be gentle because when you're like, wait, I'm not these things. And the personality was built on some of this stuff. It can be pretty overwhelming to realize how beautiful we are. But inside of you is something so loving, But inside of you is something so loving, so caring that wants to look people in the eye and say, I care about you.

Possibly I love you. And even possibly I would do anything to help you. And if you can find those places in you where you're waking up to serve from that place, and you talk to people that have parrot problems and you realize you can outsource those things to experts, there's no limit to who you can help. And I've struggled to believe in myself through this whole journey. So the interesting thing with not believing in oneself, like let's say like I don't believe in myself. Like I could say that, I don't believe in myself. And I'd be like, you know, the

interesting thing about that is that too is just a thought. And you can actually hold that thought with love. I don't believe in myself. You just hold it without trying to change it with love. And you're like, dang, what does belief even mean? I kind of just want to do stuff. Yeah, I completely agree with that. It's slightly different context and slightly dominant down a little, but I'm a firm believer of that if it's physically possible

or all that it is is stopping you as that mental block, even down to the point of view of if if you wake up your alarm clock goes off and you think way too tired to get up, you're probably not, because it's physically possible, unless you're absolutely exhausted, but it's just that psychological mindset that you need to break through,

which is basically what you're saying there. Well, the difference is not that we're gonna use these thoughts and break through them and use willpower or muscle. What we're actually going to do is hold them with compassion and still do it. So it's really interesting. We teach people this. It's so powerful. Someone will actually hold their procrastination while going to the gym. Does that make sense? Yeah, oh, absolutely. So imagine the thing that you wanna do the least. And actually then hold that you don't wanna do it

while doing it, but hold it the same time. It's mind blowing. And I suppose a lot of people just put that to the back of their mind or block out rather than hold it. They fight themselves and then end up getting exhausted and only last two months in entrepreneurship because they've been fighting their side here the whole time. Instead of just making friends with their mind exactly as it is.

I want to put some physical context to this. So in America, I don't think this will be massively inflated now, but around about 74% live paycheck to paycheck, and I'll be surprised if that's not higher at this moment in time. Many people will have these limiting beliefs like we spoke about, and they probably don't have the money, especially now, to start a business or feel the need money to start a business, which leads nicely onto your book Start From Zero. Can you tell us why you wrote the book and what we should expect from reading it? Yeah, I wrote the book to show people that it's

possible to start a business without anything. That's what I was like, listen, you guys, you don't need anything to start a business. They're like what do you mean that seems crazy? So I document it just tons of examples and methods so people can see dude. I don't actually need anything Why have I been an employee this whole time? If they if they if they've like if people have chosen employee because that's what they just thought was possible Then there's people that's totally happy being employees, and it's amazing. But that's why I wrote it. To reach the heart of people that think they need something to start a business, that's

why it's called start from zero. I think in the book you've got, is it 15 examples of students, or at least some examples of students? Can you provide some of those examples for us without giving the game away because people should read the book just to elaborate on the success that you've had with teaching people? Yeah, well, so, okay, there's so many examples. So I'll paint this on a way where it just lands really well. So we've got 15 millionaires that are graduates from the program, but I didn't list all the 15 millionaires of the books. I wanted, you know, we've got stay at home moms that make 50 grand a year that are examples. So every income stream that we have is broken down into a customer, a pain, a solution to that pain in an offer. We call that CPSO, customer pain solution offer.

In fact, that's how you can rapidly break down an income stream. Customer pain solution offer. So we get one of our students, Maxi. She joins the Starfirm Zero when she's 22. She builds her skills up over a period of a year or two, and when she has the skills in place, things really start clicking. She starts talking to the customer, as member CPSL, the customer of community acupuncturists. She asks them what their greatest pains are, and they talk about how the charting software is ridiculously painful. It becomes, take the spin more time doing charting that you actually treat in patients.

Okay, that's a really serious pain. So she creates an automated charting app called happycharting.com. You can go to happycharting.com, check it out. And she built that product, she hired a developer, and she built the first version for I think under 5 grand, if not under 10 grand at the most, but she had already had money coming in. Then she released it to people and she's made like well over 50 grand cents, selling a charting software that works,

and how do you make a software? Well, you listen to the acupuncturist and they tell you exactly what they want it to do. And you just get a developer to do that. Because you don't know how to build the product. And you don't want to. Most developers build products that they think that the customer would use. Instead, here, you just ask the customer exactly what they want. So that's an example customer pain solution offer.

And then she sold it for either $1,000 a year, or $1,000 for a lifetime membership to the first few people. But she's amazing because she, you know, she actually just got the award for best female actress in a movie. And she was able to do that because she had a little software business on the side. Now that's Maxi, but that that required her having money. So it, but not much, but let's let's talk about one that didn't require any money So now we had another student named Carl and Carl did the customer pain solution offer framework and physical therapists Like you know, I did the example with you in that paradigm, right? So here's physical therapists and he asks them a very interesting question. He says what are you using Microsoft Excel for?

Because Microsoft Excel for? Because Microsoft Excel is a hotbed for product ideas because people hack it together in creative ways. So he asks them, what do you use Microsoft Excel for? And they say, well, we're using it to track all of our metrics because quick books, our financial thing, doesn't work for physical therapy practices very well. He says, you know, what are the problems associated with this? And they're like, well, you know, spreadsheets get sent around via email and people don't have permissions to edit certain things and so all these issues arise. So he asked him if they would, if this is a problem severe enough that they pay to solve it

and they said, absolutely. So then he was actually working at Tesla at the time. He now owns his own multi-multimillion dollar business, but he started very small with this product. And he told one of his friends, who is a developer, and a developer said, dude, let me build that for you for free. Just give me 10% of the future revenue. So Carl ended up getting this product built for free. He kept working at Tesla, while his product was getting built on the side. He worked on his business for an hour or two first thing in the morning and then went to work at Tesla all day and didn't think about his business.

He stayed fully focused on Tesla. His other friend, the employee, he worked on building that product. And then a year later, that product was anywhere between five to fifteen grand every month in revenue. It's very stable, very consistent, very reliable income. Now Carl was actually the user interface designer for the checkout process at Tesla. So he knew UI really well. So he built the UI himself and then the developer developed behind it.

But how did he not know the UI? For example, like I don't know UI, he could have just hired a UI guy and gave him another 10% of the revenue. And you're able to recruit software developers and user experience people for future revenue when you've got a customer with a pain that's already said they want to buy. Business owners, the developers are like, great. Right now I'm building two software projects, and I don't know how to do UI. I can go all piece of paper,

so I've just hired the UI guys. Now that I have money, I just pay them so I can keep more of the money later. But my first few projects, like my first software project, I had my first customer paid for all the development, it was like a $3,000 product to get developed. And then he paid for it and I gave him free,

the product free for life and to solve it to other people. That's cool. So you guys, I can give you tangible, I can give you lots of examples. But these examples are only possible for me to give you, because I made a deep declaration within myself. And that deep declaration is what has attracted these amazing methodologies to build remarkable

businesses into my life. I didn't get these by having a flim flam desire that like, oh, I'm a conditional entrepreneur. I'm going to be an entrepreneur if the circumstances are just right. I'm a conditional entrepreneur. I'm gonna do it if I can get an idea first and get money second versus like, no dude, the more successful I become, the more free I wanna be. What's one of the only places that can happen in entrepreneurship?

You know, you could build a YouTube channel, right? In your recording videos and those work without you. That's fine. There are other ways to build assets, but I just want you to know that these tactics I share with you while really exciting are only possible for the reasons I've said. I'm conscious of time, but there's, there's one question before we start wrapping up that I really wanted to ask you and you once stated that you need to learn how to use your intuition as a yardstick to uncover

genius by solid fundamentals. So why is intuition so important and do you think that can be caught or caught taught or is it something that we're just born with? taught or is it something that we're just born with? So, I'm a friend of mine, really fascinating about it. So she interviewed people about intuition, she found there was like three forms of intuition that inner interviews, and there's probably more. But there was a guy who was like a Navy SEAL sniper, and he would trust the senses in his body

for what to do in combat. So like if his body would freeze, you would pause, if his body would lean in a direction, you'd go that way. And you would, like, and you gotta be real in tune to your body to do that. People, like, there's this is the concept of like, you know, oh, you know, life is hard. Life is hard, and making decisions is hard.

It's not. Life is not hard as a blanket statement. It's not true. Sometimes it is, and as it is not. Life is not hard as a blanket statement. It's not true. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. And if you're really in tune with your body and you join and work at a job and the first day on the job, you crawl out of your skin,

that's the day you should leave. But instead, you stay and stay and stay and stay and stay for years. And then when you finally leave, it's really difficult. It's really difficult because you didn't listen to your body right away. So if you listen, so first is listening to your body. Now that means you're probably going to need to do yoga or meditation or go on walks, like, you know, stay on the ground barefoot, put your hand on a tree and take in the energy

of nature. And then like you get tree, and take in the energy of nature. And then you get in there and place all the attention. One thing I've recently started doing is I take off my shirt and I lay chest first on the grass and I consciously feel my beating heart beat against the earth. And tell you what, you get in tune to that level of nature. That's one fast way to start tapping into your intuitive centers. That's really interesting.

I think that's one thing that I can certainly learn from is getting more into being more mindful and that mindset and taking the time out to really get in tune with what is going on. Then take your most difficult question, Peter. Yeah. Write it down, then go lay on the grass with your chest and your heart beating against the earth and just breathe. I think the problem there, Dan, is I'm in the UK, so I only get about two days to do that. The rest of the time, it's freezing cold. So you can get earthing mats? You can look up and

Google earthing mats that are ground mats that you can actually lay on. I'm actually standing on one right now. Cool. I think you know what you mean on I'm actually standing on one right now. Cool. I think you know what you mean on that one. Yeah, sure, yeah, excellent. There's always a way. Yeah, absolutely. I'm with you on that one. So, today, I just wanna wrap up by asking you,

where can listen to find out more about you or the amazing work that you do? You are worthy of your greatest dreams. You're worthy of that thing that you want to do. I hope that the passion that I spoke with broke some stuff loose in you and woke you up to that life that you want to do more with. If you resonated with my voice, please pick up

a free book excerpt. If you like the book excerpt, then pick up the book. But you don't need to buy the book until you know you like it. And you can find out by reading a short five page excerpt. The five page excerpt actually is a, as a process where you'll see me use a five question framework for finding your first business idea. And you'll see how I did it on my pregnant girlfriend and the problem she was encountering and how I was going to outsource the solution to an acupuncturist or a naturopathic doctor. You'll actually see that all in the five-page excerpt.

You can get that at startfromzero.com-4-5-F-I-V-E. Startfromzero.com-4-5. I don't want the best selling book. I want the most red book. So a lot of people buy books that I never do anything with. So you can find out if this will be one of those books by reading the excerpt first. Start from zero.com forward slash five. And then if you want to listen to the podcast where you watch me mentoring people, just rip and write into them and give them

excellent strategies and tips like the real meat tactics that a lot people are hungry for, you'll find that over and over and over again at our podcast, which is already over 100 plus five star reviews. The podcast is a work of art. It's pretty cool, pretty cool production. Cool, excellent. So final question, Dave. We ask our all our guests this, what is your secret to profiting in life? If you can just take three deep breaths with me, right now. There's one. There's two.

There's two. There's three. Take your hand on your heart. With your hand on your heart, say, hello, heart that I love. What do you want to do today? Love it. If you can start to do that, that's a pretty cool thing. Brilliant. I was actually doing the three breaths as well. I'll be doing that straight after as well and then writing down my problems and secrets

and really thinking about them deeply. Thank you so, so much for joining us today. It's been absolute pleasure. My pleasure. Thanks for listening to Young and Profiting Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or comments on YouTube, SoundCloud, or your favorite platform. Reviews make all the hard work worth it.

They're the ultimate thank you to me and the YAP team. The other way to support us is by word of mouth. Share this podcast with a friend or family member who may find it valuable. Follow YAHP on Instagram at YoungandProfiting and check us out at YoungandProfiting.com. You can find me on Instagram at YAHP with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name, Hala Ta. Until next time, this is Hala, signing off. Are you looking for ways to be happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative? I'm Gretchen Ruben, the number one best-selling author of the Happiness Project.

And every week, we share ideas and practical solutions on the Happier with Gretchen Ruben podcast. My co-host and Happiness Guinea Pig is my sister Elizabeth Kraft. That's me, Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer in Hollywood. Join us as we explore fresh insights from cutting-edge science, ancient wisdom, pop culture, and our own experiences about cultivating happiness and good habits. Every week we offer a try this at home tip you can use to boost your happiness without spending a lot of time, energy, or money. Suggestions such as follow the one-minute rule.

Choose a one-word theme for the year or design your summer. We also feature segments like know yourself better where we discuss questions like are you an over buyer or an under buyer? Morning person or night person, abundance lever or simplicity lever. And every episode includes a happiness hack, a quick easy shortcut to more happy. Listen and follow the podcast happier with Gretchen Ruben. You're getting a diploma. You can't eat a diploma, but you can eat wings and Charlies. Get 23% off any order of 30 or 50 piece wings when you use promo code 23grad at charlie's.com. That's promo code 23grad at charlie's.com.

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