And I realized that
I was acting out of fear, folks that I didn't even know.
You know what?
I don't know if you've ever heard this quote,
but people that mean don't matter
and people that matter don't mind.
What is up, everybody?
I'm Dan Martel, serial entrepreneur,
investor and creator of SaaS Academy.
And in this episode, I want to talk to you
about the fear of your life, the fear of actual success.
Everybody wants to talk about feel failure.
I actually want to talk about the opposite.
You know,
some of you guys may think that, oh, I don't want to do this
because what if it doesn't work out?
What if everybody judges me for failing?
You know, what if I take the leap and lose my life savings
and that might be possible.
But what also might be true, because two things can be true
at the same time, is that you may be afraid of your power.
You may be afraid of your greatness.
You may be afraid of what you could accomplish
because doing that
would require you to continue to live at a higher level.
Some of you are afraid to achieve new levels because in doing so,
you've now told the world that this is the new you,
this is the new high level
watermark, and that can feel scary, right?
I know for me personally, when it comes to coaching,
just the idea of being a coach I rejected for years,
even though I started coaching and advising in my twenties
because I started investing, you know,
by the time I was, you know,
mid thirties I had invested in over 50 companies as an angel
investors, Entercom, Hootsuite to me, right.
And you know, I've advised hundreds of founders
over the years speaking at events and getting phone calls
and making introductions and, you know, trying to support
other people with my life experiences.
Like, it was something that I did.
It was something I felt called to.
And for whatever reason, I just didn't feel.
I just I was scared to put myself out there, even to the point
that instead of becoming a coach, I started a company
called Clarity
because I wanted to build a platform for me,
but I really didn't know it at the time.
And I kind of disguise myself as a tech entrepreneur.
And this platform clarity was was a marketplace
for entrepreneurs, the advice from over other entrepreneurs.
And even though we did 50,000 or we have 50,000 experts
and hundreds
of thousands of calls a year, I still did 1300 calls
in two years.
That just shows you how much I was passionate about
kind of what I wanted to do.
So some people call it the shadow career.
This is this is actually a thing out there.
You can search shadow career.
And I had to go through the personal journey of
not only like building clarity, doing these calls,
and then finally after clarity, just putting it out there.
And there's so many different people that came into my life
that said,
you really need to do this for my buddy
to add to my buddy Alex Icon to, you know, Travis Houston
down in San Diego, like all these incredible
people just said, like, you really need to do this.
I love the way you think. I love the way you share.
And I would love to hear more from you.
But this isn't what you do.
Would you consider
putting your stuff out there and
and indirectly then started coaching individuals?
But I share this because after two years of doing this,
this is how how crazy I kind of
I wasn't willing to step into my power.
Two years of doing this,
I didn't even use the word coach in any of my profiles.
It wasn't until clients of mine I'd worked at that point
almost 50 different
SAS founders helping them scale their business
that they were telling their friends.
Dan is my coach, Dan's my mentor, Dan's my coach, and
eventually they were like tweeting at me,
tagging me, and I was just like,
Okay, team, we probably need to put that.
I'm a coach at that point.
We're starting to build one, the largest
coaching organizations for to SAS founders, and
I still didn't want to own who I was.
And that for me is what I want to share
with you, because once I owned it, my life transformed.
And to this day, not only have I served thousands of
SAS founders that we've coach inside of our program,
our videos have been seen from tens of millions of people
across all our different platforms.
Our content's being consumed
by millions of people and none of that would have happened
if I didn't decide
to not be afraid of my life because I wasn't afraid
of failure at that point.
Like, I'll be honest with you, I like I had built companies
I knew I could build the company.
I was afraid of the judgment.
I was afraid of
of trying to be the best at something that I was new to.
I was I was afraid of going through that learning curve.
I was afraid of putting myself out there and being rejected.
There's one thing to build a product and say, Hey,
do you guys want this product? Here's what the product does.
No, you don't want. Okay, you're rejecting the product.
Hey, here's who I am.
Here's what I believe in. Here's what I think is interesting.
Here's how I look at life.
Do you want this?
And they go, No, they're rejecting you.
It was a completely different psychological mindset.
And going through that, I learn a few things.
I learned some really incredible lessons.
The number one is, you know, this philosophy that, you know,
Marianne Williamson has this great quote,
that our deepest fear is not that we're inadequate,
is that we are powerful beyond measure.
I love that
our deepest fear is not that we're inadequate,
is that we are powerful beyond measure.
And I remember I was in Toronto speaking at an event.
It was called Archangel Summit.
This would have been six years ago.
Maybe my buddy Giovanni asked me to speak on stage.
And, you know, Gary speaking, they're Seth Godin.
These are people I'd met over the years
that I consider the best of the best.
And I wanted to do something different.
I wanted to share my personal story,
my struggles of like dealing with addiction and prison
in my teenage years, to learning how to code
and literally having that transform and saved my life.
But it was it was scary.
I knew I would have to put myself out there
in front of thousands, 2000 people at this event.
And I did.
And I'll be honest with you,
I don't really remember a whole lot.
It's captured on video if you search the power of belief.
Deb Martelli, you can watch the video.
But as it was happening,
I prepped, I did my thing, but I just I gave it to God.
I say God use me as a vehicle
to touch and influence these people's lives.
And I don't really remember a whole lot.
And that night I was at the hotel and it really shook me up
like it.
It made me realize, like, hey, maybe there's more to what I'm
doing than just helping SAS partners grow their SASS
companies, right? Like maybe there's more for me to do.
And I ran into my buddy Phillip McKernan, who is, you know,
I don't even know how to explain
who he is,
but he is one of the most powerful thinkers
when it comes to just
personal alignment and congruence on your life mission
and your vision and your values.
And just so I ended up going to Peru
and because Phillip said to me,
I went to Peru to work with Phillip,
but at that night he goes, How did you feel on stage?
And I said, I honestly don't remember. And he goes,
That was one of the most powerful talks I've ever seen.
And I'm not just blowing smoke up your ass because I
and he's funny.
He's like and I also gave a talk that really hurt my feelings.
But the truth is, it just was and he goes,
But I'm not even excited for you.
He said, I'm excited.
And he and he pointed past me
and he said, I'm excited for all the people that I know.
You're going to touch with your story.
And I just broke down
because I knew he was right and I knew how scary it was.
I'd never shared any of that on stage in a public format
before. And
I just I knew my life was going to change forever after that.
And that belief that,
you know, you're way more powerful
than you give yourself credit for is such a big one.
But to me, it's like if you are scared of your light,
the first thing is know
that you're way more powerful than your deepest fears.
But even more important
is is the other people like I had Phillip McKernan,
somebody that believed in me and other people come up to me
and I realized that I was
acting out of fear of folks, that I didn't even know.
You know what?
I don't know if you've ever heard this quote,
but people that mean don't matter
and people that matter don't mind.
Like, that's the philosophy that I continue to like,
go back to the folks that know me best.
What do they say about me?
What do they think about me?
You know,
and the people that don't know me, that see me on social media
and see me share these messages and
and think whatever they want to think, like,
why do we put so much value on those words
when it cost them nothing?
We don't know what's going on in their lives.
I want to I want to encourage you.
That's a second part of the mindset is people
that matter, people
that don't matter and people that matter don't mind.
And to me, that's just I think it's Bernard Shaw.
That said, it is just such a powerful frame
for dealing with external criticism.
And then the last thing I want to share with you about
just owning your power and shining your light
as bright as fricking possible is make a ten year commitment.
And this one's a tough one for a lot of people to decide on.
But some of you guys are dabbling.
Some of you guys are playing around.
Some of you guys are, you know, trying,
hoping, seeing if this will work out.
You haven't committed, you know, you haven't gone pro.
Okay.
Turning pro is a great book. Read it
and I think part of Turning Pro is making a commitment.
And for me, I remember the moment
I made the commitment, I said, I'm going to do
my YouTube channel for ten years, ten fricking years.
It means I've posted every Monday
nonstop without missing a monday.
No delays, no excuses for for I think seven years now.
Nope. Like literally nonstop up.
And I will.
And I made the commitment why I wanted to put in the time
I wanted to practice, I wanted to impact. Right.
I knew that if I wanted to lean into that light
and impact and support other people's lives,
it was going to require me to get better at a skill.
Go back, go, go back to the beginning
and look at early videos.
I know what you're going to find.
You're going to find a guy that is just fire hose in it.
He's just screaming at you because I was so insecure.
I didn't know if anything I was saying was resonating,
that I just felt like if I overwhelmed them,
they can only walk away going.
I don't know what he said, but at least I feel energized.
But over the years I've learned I literally have hired coaches.
I've worked to the best and to me, like, it's so inspiring.
When I go back to look at the Gary Vee
first videos, you know why Library TV?
If you haven't watched that,
go check out the early videos or a memory for Leo
or a Tim Ferriss.
Like Go back ten years,
watch the content to see what
the production value was when they were doing this,
and then look at
the video quality and just be like inspired that.
Like if they started there, then you can start anywhere.
Some of you guys think, Well,
I got to get a studio, I got to do all the stuff.
Literally grab your phone.
I got my phone on my butt, grab your phone,
stick it in front of your face and talk to the phone.
Go live on Facebook, go live on Instagram.
You got 24 hours.
It gets deleted. Did it go?
I started with Periscope.
Do something to take action, to shine your light,
to put your message out there.
Even if two people watch
and both of them are family members,
I want to encourage you
to do that, because here's what I believe.
Okay.
This is a Jack Canfield quote that really resonated with me.
And I want to leave you guys with this,
that everything you want is on the other side of fear,
everything that you desire, every dream, every goal,
every outcome
that you want to achieve for your life is only going to live
on the other side of you being anxious and fearful
that you've got to do this.
But I want you to know that I'm I'm going to be your biggest fan.
I will support you.
I will push you.
I will be your biggest cheerleader.
I want to encourage you to take the leap, make the jump,
get over that hurdle.
Just do something today.
That is the call to action, something today
to move this forward. I don't care how small it is.
I don't care if you think it's insignificant.
If you pile up those insignificant moments
back to back to back to back, day over, day, day over
day, day over day.
I'm telling you, they're going to pile up
and they're going to turn into a significant moment.
So just
watch this. Whenever you're feeling like
I don't feel like shine in my life.
I don't feel like I've got confidence or
or what if I succeed? What if you succeed?
What have you become?
The bestselling author and now you've got to go on national TV?
What if what if you become the best speaker in the world
and now you've got to go travel the world and be successful?
What if you decide to build that business empire
and have thousands of employees that you're responsible for?
What if that pressure and noise gets crazy?
I want that for you because here's what I know.
It's not going to happen overnight.
And if you're willing to do the work, you will become better.
And over the years, you'll become the person
who can deal with all of that.
And when it shows up in your life,
you will laugh at how you used to think about it,
because you will be so equipped
and ready to push on it and to do even more.
And that'll be the baseline of you're like, No, I'm here.
Okay.
So when I encourage you, shine your light as bright as possible.
That's what I have for you today.
And as usual, I won't leave you with this.
I want to challenge you.
Live a bigger life over here.
This live it bigger and build a bigger business.
Build the resources, build the infrastructure,
build the people so that you can create a bigger world.