In this episode, I talk with Amanda Holmes, CEO of Chet Holmes International, founded by her father, Chet Holmes.

Together we discuss her father's book, The Ultimate Sales Machine, including one of its most popular, and timeless strategies, the Dream 100, and more!

Listen to the full episode now to learn more about the mindset and strategies you can use to increase sales and grow your business!

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Can you imagine what it would be like to double your sales year after year?

You might believe that would be difficult at best, and you might even feel like that would be impossible...

But would you believe me if I told you that it feels difficult or impossible because of your mindset?

If you find yourself struggling with those limiting beliefs, this episode is for you!

In this episode, I interview Amanda Holmes and discuss how she learned to reframe her mind to step into the role of CEO of Chet Holmes International at just 26 years old and how her company has helped countless clients double their sales year after year using their 12 Core Competencies.

In this episode, Amanda and I cover:

What it took for Amanda to step into the role of CEO at just 26 years old
The Dream 100 in practice
Why you shouldn’t rely solely on tactics
What the single biggest mistake in sales is
The importance of offer positioning
What three things you must have to create a solid offer

If you got value from what you heard here, please be sure to subscribe and rate this podcast! Bonus points for you if you write a review! ;)

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— TRANSCRIPT —

Dan Henry (00:00:08):

Hey everybody, Dan Henry here. Welcome to the How To Think podcast, the show where we dissect the inner workings of the human mind and learn how to achieve anything in business or in life. By changing the way we think. We bring on some amazing entrepreneurs, authors, thought leaders, and people that just know how to think and get stuff done. And today we have an amazing guest. Amanda, how you doing? Amanda Holmes.

Amanda Holmes (00:00:39):

I can't wait. It's such a good intro.

Dan Henry (00:00:41):

Thank you so much. So, so real quick, I'll do you know, I'm not much for intros, right? But you know, you are the CEO of Chet Holmes International, and Chet Holmes is your father. Who wrote, of course, the amazing; one of the most amazing sales books ever The Ultimate Sales Machine. The originator of what a lot of people now use quite a bit to grow their company, The Dream 100.

Amanda Holmes (00:01:09):

Yes.

Dan Henry (00:01:09):

And all that jazz, all that cool stuff. You've, and to be fair, you took over the company at 24.

Amanda Holmes (00:01:19):

Yes.

Dan Henry (00:01:19):

You doubled sales year after year. We're going to get into all that. But the first question that I have to ask you is, did you play all the instruments on When Grapes Turn Into Wine?

Amanda Holmes (00:01:34):

No.

Dan Henry (00:01:35):

You didn't. Okay. Well, definitely you definitely sang beautiful. You wrote the song. You played it. So I'm a guitar player. You know, that we talked about that before we went live and I listened to it. I thought it was great. Good production. Did you play, other than vocals? Did you do anything on it?

Amanda Holmes (00:01:53):

No. Well, you

Dan Henry (00:01:54):

Well, you wrote the whole thing. That's pretty darn good.

Amanda Holmes (00:01:57):

So I was a gymnast first, and then in my junior year of high school, I thought, oh, maybe I'll do singing. And then by senior year I already had my first record. And then in college I had four records, but all of the people around me were like amazing musicians. I went to USC Thornton, school of music. So it's like top. You either go to NYU or you go to USC or Berkeley school of music. So they were the best. And I looked around and went, I've only been doing this two years. I think this might be good if you guys play and I'll just sing and write.

Dan Henry (00:02:30):

Well, that's fair. That's like knowing your role, knowing, staying in your lane, you know. That's amazing. That's amazing. So let's go back to cause a lot of people, you know, have read this book, which is again an amazing book. And I also believe a lot of people haven't read it and they've heard of it. You know how many people they say I'm going to read a book and then that book becomes a paperweight, you know? But a lot of people do know what The Dream 100 is, which, you want to play game?

Amanda Holmes (00:03:05):

Absolutely.

Dan Henry (00:03:06):

Let's play a game. Okay. So I'm going to explain to you what I think The Dream 100 is based on, you know, my limited understanding and what probably most people understand it as. Very, very like primal, very simple version. And then you're just going to tell me how stupid I am and how bad, how wrong I had it and that I'm going to get amazing value out of that. Trust me. So let's and by the way, before I get into this, I think a lot of people need to know your company has trained over 240,000 CEOs. And the main, I mean, I know you guys help with a lot, but the main thing is to increase sales.

Amanda Holmes (00:03:46):

Yes. 12 core competencies on doubling sales.

Dan Henry (00:03:48):

12 core competencies on doubling sales. And would you say one of them is The Dream 100, or at least that's one, one of them is Dream 100.

Amanda Holmes (00:03:54):

Yes.

Dan Henry (00:03:54):

Okay. So let me sort of see if I can jump into this and okay. So The Dream 100 is where you find somebody that you want to sell to usually a big fish, right? Yeah. You just like, maybe it's the CEO of a company or whatever, and you research them and you figure out what they're into. You know, maybe they're into fishing, maybe they're into Marvel, I don't know, whatever. And then you send them this really amazing gift. It's either going to be really expensive or really thoughtful or both. And you get their attention because nobody opens a letter, but they always open a package. And they look at the gift, maybe it's a laptop. And then when they open it up, you're like, Hey, whatever. And then they go, well, who the hell sent me this? You know? And then they look at it and it opens up the conversation. And if you're clever enough, you can at least establish contact with somebody that you normally could never get past the gatekeeper. Am I somewhat on the same? Somewhat in the ballpark?

Amanda Holmes (00:04:53):

Yes. Yeah.

Dan Henry (00:04:56):

Okay. So that's essentially, I mean, obviously there's a fine art to it.

Amanda Holmes (00:04:59):

Okay, so it's the fastest least expensive way to double sales because there's always a smaller number of better buyers than there are all buyers. So marketing and selling to them is cheaper than marketing, selling to all buyers. So how do you find that dream; my father called it The Dream 100. It could be The Dream One.

Dan Henry (00:05:14):

Sure.

Amanda Holmes (00:05:15):

I just recently saw a client of ours. They were at 60 million, they had 950 clients that produced that 60 million, but 900, I'm sorry, 969 clients 950 of which produced only 9% of their revenue. So 13 of their clients produce 91% of their revenue. So instead of going after another 900, they only led an intensive effort to one client. And that one client produced them a hundred million dollars.

Dan Henry (00:05:44):

The big fish.

Amanda Holmes (00:05:46):

And they doubled sales with one client.

Dan Henry (00:05:49):

And that, that comes back to using the right bait and being in the right waters.

Amanda Holmes (00:05:52):

Absolutely. Yeah. You did a good job of picking out some of the great things about it. So my father did it with lumpy mail and that's kind of progressed over time. There's also ways to do it on social. There's also ways to write, just being the bright spot in their day, adding value, being something of interest to them. So lumpy mail is one of those ways that we do.

Dan Henry (00:06:12):

So I actually, you know, Russell Brunson, he invited me last year to speak at his conference. FHL and so I got to speak in front of like, I don't know, whatever. It was five to 6,000 people. And of course when people bought my stuff.

Amanda Holmes (00:06:26):

Awesome.

Dan Henry (00:06:26):

We probably did at least $2 million from that. So I was very thankful. So I was thinking to myself, well, for some, I don't know how I stumbled into this, where he asked me to speak, but I was like, I never sent him a gift, a Dream 100 gift. So I was like, let me retroactively do that because I don't think anybody does that. So I got him a Yoda, a life-size Yoda. Cause I know he's super into star wars. His kids are super into star wars. So I, and this was like right after this was Corona.

Dan Henry (00:06:54):

So it was like, it took forever to get this fricking Yoda over to him. And they accidentally shipped it to me first. So they shipped it to me. So then I like put a, so then, you know, I got to like deal with that. And it's like this freight thing at my house. And so I put like a little note in and I bought like, RussellsYoda.com. And I was just like, listen, this is just me saying, retroactively Dream one hundreding you and saying, thank you for letting me speak at your stage because we had a lot of money. So I sent him that and he was very grateful, but I just thought, I was like, oops, I probably should've sent him something first. And I, cause I go back to that book and I'm like, you know what, let me see if I can like, correct this. So

Amanda Holmes (00:07:36):

I love that story. That's so good. But it's also interesting. So my father, when he originally did it, he wanted to spend the least amount of money possible. Like he would get the stupidest little, like one time. I remember the day he found OrientalTrading.com. You can order lots of random, like a Rubik's Cube...

Dan Henry (00:07:53):

I remember that. I remember that magazine be careful though. It's 2021. We may not be able to say that anymore. But, but no, I remember that magazine. Yeah.

Amanda Holmes (00:08:02):

So that year we got 300 presents for Christmas because my dad went on OrientalTrading.com and bought the most ridiculous amount of things.

Dan Henry (00:08:12):

He didn't go cheap on toilet paper, did he?

Amanda Holmes (00:08:13):

Oh, he was, he would not buy anything brand, you know, designer, anything we got knock, I don't know about toilet paper. He wasn't buying our toilet paper. It was our assistant.

Dan Henry (00:08:24):

Okay. Yeah, because there's some things you don't go cheap on. Heart surgery and toilet paper, Just saying, you know.

Amanda Holmes (00:08:32):

So he was always about how do I find the cheapest things? It's just about changing that dynamic. But what it's evolved to now is because we have so much more ability to understand who a person is because they put everything online. Now we can get better about giving them something that would really mean something to them because he created it 30 years ago. Right. He was doing it 15 years ago. He passed nine years ago. And between the last nine years now we share everything on the internet. So you can be much more tactical about that.

Dan Henry (00:09:02):

Let me, let me ask you kind of a, if you don't mind, it's a somewhat personal question.

Amanda Holmes (00:09:08):

Happens all the time, yes, please.

Dan Henry (00:09:10):

Look I remember when I was 24, right? I was, I was driven, you know, I didn't really get really driven till I was like 28. But I was, you know, I was being 24. I was, you know, drinking, going out, smoking weed, going to concerts.

Amanda Holmes (00:09:29):

Were you at the pizza? You were running the pizza place at that time?

Dan Henry (00:09:31):

Yeah. I mean, it was cheap weed, but you know, I mean, I was, you know, I was going to SevenDust concerts and I was hanging out and I was just being, you know, I mean, I was still trying to build my business and I didn't really have business then, but I was still trying to like figure things out. I had a couple of businesses that came and went, you know, but I was, I was being 24. I got started a little late. I wasn't that like 18 year old kid who was like, I'm going to be a millionaire. Like I said that, but it was like, yeah, I'll be a millionaire, but I wasn't really putting the effort in. At 24 to take over, not just a company, but a legendary company; a company that, I mean, it's not Joe, the rags man's fricking lemonade stand, you know, it's Chet Holmes International, legendary. I mean, what, I mean, how did you feel filling those shoes quickly like that and stepping into that role? Or were you already kind of in that, you know, or did you like hop off the party bus and go right into it?

Amanda Holmes (00:10:34):

I was never so good at partying, I was very focused always, but I was a musician at that point. So my father got diagnosed with leukemia and he didn't spend one night in the hospital alone for a year and a half. It was between me, my mother and my brother. And he would have night sweats. So we'd be up all night with him and all of that year and a half, never once did he sit me down and say, these are my companies, these are what they, this is what they do. These are the people that run them. This is what I want for my companies. Right? None of that, we were just spending time together. Yeah. And there was no plan for that whatsoever. Like I'm sure my dad, if he were still here, he'd be like you did what? It would be pretty odd.

Dan Henry (00:11:16):

So he didn't even expect you to do this?

Amanda Holmes (00:11:17):

No, there was no plan for it.

Dan Henry (00:11:19):

Did you just kick the door down and say, listen, Amanda is in charge now.

Amanda Holmes (00:11:25):

Well, it puts things in perspective because for a year and a half, every day was Chet's going to die. This is what's going on. You know, it was life or death every day in the hospital with him and trying to find an alternative for him. So that was my context to then coming into this. Right? Well, well, so a, when things got even as difficult as they were, I'm like at the end of the day, nobody is dying. Like our business, like the worst that could happen is that I lost my father. Like that to me was the worst. So that had already happened. So whatever happens here, we can work it out. Right?

Dan Henry (00:12:03):

Now, hold on a second. That's an amazing way to think about it.

Amanda Holmes (00:12:06):

It's an important thing.

Dan Henry (00:12:07):

I think a lot of people, whether they're entrepreneurs, whether they're authors, whether there's thought leaders, whether they want to be a sports star, whether they want to be a famous, whatever it is, if they want to achieve some sort of success, they, you know, a lot of times it's all about the meaning that we associate with events, how we define events and how we redefine events. So, you know, you being able to, some, another person may completely have a different definition of that. You know what I mean? But you gave it a definition that ended in a positive result. I mean, how important do you think that is?

Amanda Holmes (00:12:41):

Absolutely. So I had looked to hire three different CEOs. I hired CMOs, CTOs, CFOs, just trying to fill the void. That was my father. I mean, he wasn't working in the day to day for years. Obviously it was all the sales team and there was a whole...

Dan Henry (00:12:56):

So he was already out?

Amanda Holmes (00:12:56):

Yeah, yeah. I mean, he was mostly just the direct reports would report to the CEO and the CEO would report to my father. So it wasn't like anything would really change. It was just like, as if a body no longer had a heart, it was just void of that, that founder. Right. So I'm trying to find all these different pieces to fill that, that hole. And I actually climbed Kilimanjaro. I went on the CEO retreat where it was like...

Dan Henry (00:13:22):

The mountain?

Amanda Holmes (00:13:22):

Yeah, yeah.

Dan Henry (00:13:24):

Okay. Wow. I, well now I feel inferior. My, my best story is like, you know, going on a brisk walk

Amanda Holmes (00:13:34):

I'm sure you have great stories.

Dan Henry (00:13:35):

Not on Kilimanjaro.

Amanda Holmes (00:13:37):

So it was one of my staff. We were at an event and it was actually a business mastery and he goes, you know, Amanda, I'm about to climb the largest freestanding mountain in the world. It's in Africa. I think you'd actually have a fun time. You should come. And I went, okay.

Dan Henry (00:13:53):

It's whatever, sure let's do it. Yeah. Let's light ourselves on fire while we're at. It's fine.

Amanda Holmes (00:13:58):

It was very bizarre, my thoughts were not really quite clear at that time. So Friday I get home, Saturday and Sunday, I buy all my equipment. Cause I'd never hiked that, anything before Monday I'm in Africa. And the first two days I am literally dying because it turns out that what's difficult about climbing is that people that smoke cigarettes, they have an easier time because your ability to breathe is restricted.

Dan Henry (00:14:27):

Wow.

Amanda Holmes (00:14:29):

Yeah. So Olympic athletes could have a hard time with altitude sickness because they're not used to not having breath. Whereas you look at me, my background, I was a singer. So I learned breath control like massively, right. I am certified yoga instructor. So I know breath so much.

Dan Henry (00:14:45):

I wonder how many mountain climbers are going to start smoking now they've heard that.

Amanda Holmes (00:14:50):

I'm sure they know it. I mean, you really have to practice it. So I was terrible from day one. I could barely get up that freaking mountain. And I shared, We were around a campfire the second night and I go, guys, I hate to break it to you. But I've realized that I hate hiking.

Dan Henry (00:15:09):

I love how direct you were, and in such an eloquent way,

Amanda Holmes (00:15:14):

They all looked at me like I was literally crazy. Cause they all had it on their bucket list for years. Right? Their lifetime.

Dan Henry (00:15:20):

You like, you're crazy. The people that are climbing this mountain, but you're crazy. Got it.

Amanda Holmes (00:15:25):

Well, because I hadn't thought it through. And I'm like, I hadn't really thought this through. I realized I hate hiking and I didn't know how I was going to get up that mountain literally. Yeah. I didn't know how I would do it. So then something clicked in me that I realized, oh, maybe I don't have to hike. Maybe I could just dance because I love to dance. And I love music. I've always been a dancer along with my music.

Dan Henry (00:15:47):

What kind?

Amanda Holmes (00:15:49):

I studied salsa, pretty intensively. Hip hop. I grew up on hip hop, like eight years of hip hop. So instead, now I'm sitting there and I'm like, either I changed my mind frame about this or I'm going to have to give up and I will not freaking give up on this. Right. So then I start singing. I have this personal,

Dan Henry (00:16:10):

I'm just imagining you singing and dancing up this mountain. And I just said they were crazy. I retract.

Amanda Holmes (00:16:17):

Well, no, no, no. So, I just recently written the song and it goes, forget the heavy load. So it had a really, really slow beat. So nobody could tell that I was dancing, but my head was going and nobody could hear me because I had all these masks on, right, cause it was really cold, but I'm singing my song and I'm moving my head and this is my mantra and it got me through the thing.

Dan Henry (00:16:42):

I'm so wishing I brought a guitar right now because you have the mic. Wow. That sounded amazing. Did you sound that amazing when you were going up the mountain?

Amanda Holmes (00:16:52):

Absolutely not, no.

Dan Henry (00:16:57):

Oh man. That's incredible.

Amanda Holmes (00:16:59):

But to circle it back, just to finish, the point is that change in my mind frame helped me to come back. And that's when I stepped in as CEO and said, okay, I'm going to do this. That was really a pivotal point because I also couldn't get up alone. I had to have help two African men, one by the name of Donut, that like assisted me when my eyes were rolling to the back of my head. I like literally couldn't walk. There was a guy that had died that day and was like, his body was laying all this.

Dan Henry (00:17:28):

Oh yeah, that's fantastic. This is, what event is this? I'm going to put it on my do not go list.

Amanda Holmes (00:17:32):

Yeah, every time people are like, I'm thinking about it. I'm like, yeah, I would never do that again. But it shifted my belief system around what I could do in my business. So I walked back and said, I didn't walk back. I flew back to the United States, and I said, let's do this. So that was a big point.

Dan Henry (00:17:49):

So you redefined the problem. You found a way I can just hear like Jeff, Goldbloom saying life finds a way. You found a way to get up that mountain by channeling something that you loved. Because I mean, would you agree that if you're in a positive state of mind, if you're in, I mean, how often would you, you know let's say you're on your way to dinner and you're having a fantastic dinner with a friend or a significant other or whatever. And then on the way there, somebody like cuts you off, screams at you, like, you know, scrapes your car door, whatever. And you get into this argument, like you're in a bad frame of mind. Do you think that dinner is going to go as smoothly and nicely as if you were just, it's just butterflies and rainbows as you were driving down, right?

Dan Henry (00:18:38):

No. So, so like you were in this frame of mind, like, Hey, I can't do this. This is nuts. These people are crazy coming up, Kilimanjaro, dead guy on the side of the fricking mountain, you know, but you had to do it. So you re you redefined it as I'm going to sing. I love to sing and dance. So I'm going to singing, dance my ass up this mountain past all the dead people. So I mean, you know what, it really freaked me out. Is you ever seen a weekend at Bernie's?

Amanda Holmes (00:19:07):

No.

Dan Henry (00:19:08):

You've never seen weekend at Bernie's? It's a movie where they had, I forget the exact plot, but this guy dies, his name's Bernie and they needed him to do something like right before he died. So they, like, they take him all around town and they're like holding him up and he's like this and they're like moving his arm. It was ridiculous movie, but I was just seeing you up the side of the mountain and singing and dancing. And then the dead guy on the mountain just starts doing this. I'm sorry. I smoke entirely too much weed. Okay. So, so, so, so here's the question. You went back, you, you took over Chet Holmes international. What's the first thing you did?

Amanda Holmes (00:19:56):

Well, even before that, I would say the first thing I did was listen. So I think a lot of people, especially if you're changing positions or you're coming into a company and you just kind of say, here's what we're going to do, nobody will respect you. So I started by listening and asking lots of questions and the more questions I asked, the more they kept saying, oh, ask more questions. You're onto this. Right? You're understanding what's going on here. So I would say before that that's a predecessor.

Dan Henry (00:20:23):

So you, you weren't that classic, like a Richie Rich, Macaulay Culkin, or whatever that walks in and just takes over and you know, like puts his feet up on the desk, like, all right guys, it's my company now.

Amanda Holmes (00:20:35):

Absolutely not.

Dan Henry (00:20:37):

Got it. That's good to know.

Amanda Holmes (00:20:40):

And then I also think so I study under an Indian Saint. She's actually not too far from here. Her full title is [inaudible]. But I call her Guruji.

Dan Henry (00:20:55):

I'm going to need to write that down.

Amanda Holmes (00:20:57):

Yes, it's a good one. So I study under her and she just kept saying that if you come from service, that's the most important thing you can do. And if you can be a conduit of something positive, then you'll get through all of it. So that was really, it's not about me. It's not about the fact that I'm a 25, I think. So I stepped in as CEO at 26. So for a year and a half, I really looked around, tried to hire different people, and scrambled to find some kind of solution.

Dan Henry (00:21:26):

So what was your role from 24 to 26?

Amanda Holmes (00:21:28):

I was chairwoman.

Dan Henry (00:21:31):

Ah, so kind of like, it was, it was just...

Amanda Holmes (00:21:35):

A complimentary title.

Dan Henry (00:21:35):

Right, right. Gotcha. Was there problems that you needed to solve?

Amanda Holmes (00:21:42):

Absolutely.

Dan Henry (00:21:43):

I mean, there's always problems you need to solve, but there were, was there something fundamentally that you deep down in your core knew that you wanted to change direction or you wanted to fix, or you wanted to, to grow?

Amanda Holmes (00:21:52):

At that time it was just, you know, everything's on fire. We need to solve some serious issues. Like, so I stepped in a CEO. The week that I stepped in our merchant services stopped paying payroll. So like hundreds of people aren't able to pay and they're like, Amanda there's a merchant services have shut down. I'm like, what's a merchant services?

Dan Henry (00:22:18):

No way.

Amanda Holmes (00:22:18):

Same week, same week they come back and they go, so Amanda, we've spent half a million dollars to implement Salesforce. We haven't turned it on yet and we're thinking maybe we shouldn't, what do you think? I'm like, what Salesforce? You know, what is a CRM system? So

Dan Henry (00:22:35):

You had to get acclimated real quick. Huh?

Amanda Holmes (00:22:37):

My CFO used to always say baptism by fire.

Dan Henry (00:22:40):

Okay. I still don't know what Salesforce is to be quite honest with you. I still don't get it.

Amanda Holmes (00:22:45):

Well, 88% of companies hate their CRM systems. So it's okay. Even if you did know, you probably wouldn't like it.

Dan Henry (00:22:51):

I hate that acronym. So just overall, I'm just like, just give me your email. We'll figure it out.

Dan Henry (00:23:05):

I'm clearly joking. I'm clearly joking. This is what I like to say. And then my team is like, no, Dan, we have dah, dah, dah. And I'm like, yeah yeah yeah, I know, but this sounds cooler. It's fine. So,I'm going to do a quick, I'm gonna do a quick pitch. I'm just going to mention that our sponsor is us. So if you're interested to get daily success mentoring go to HowToThink.com and sign up. So that was our message from our sponsor. Yay. So, let me ask you a question. Is the Dream 100, that whole method, is that still the primary thing that drives Chet Holmes International? Or do you guys, do you have something different or have you taken a different direction or is that still the thing that you, is like the core?

Amanda Holmes (00:23:59):

So we have 12 core competencies to double sales. That's just one of them. And it's, it's amazing how much this has been timeless. Right? So when I first decided I'm going to rewrite the book, right? Penguin was like, write the book, we get so many sales, we should just do a new edition. And I kept saying no. And then finally I'm like, okay, I will do it. And then when I went out on social and I asked, what should I update in the book? Everyone said, don't touch it. It's perfect. That was the response.

Dan Henry (00:24:26):

It's like redoing a Pink Floyd song. Like, no, don't, don't, don't do it. Stop pump the brakes. Yeah, I got it.

Amanda Holmes (00:24:33):

Very difficult. But so what I realized is that the framework is the same. It's just the ways the mediums in which have changed that need to be adapted and adopted. Right. So dream 100. Yeah. My father talked about faxing phone calls and lumpy mail. Right? Whereas we all know today...

Dan Henry (00:24:51):

Can we, can we do. Cause some people may not understand what a lumpy mail is. Can we just define that?

Amanda Holmes (00:24:56):

Well, you did as well too, right?

Dan Henry (00:24:58):

You probably do it better. So is it, is it mail that, that, you know, is just let themselves go and just doesn't eat right? Or is it...

Amanda Holmes (00:25:09):

So lumpy mail, meaning you have something in it. So it makes it a lumpy package.

Dan Henry (00:25:14):

Yeah. All right. I just wanted to define the term.

Amanda Holmes (00:25:18):

It's not a, not Humpty or lumpy.

Dan Henry (00:25:21):

It is sat on a wall. Yeah. Got it.

Amanda Holmes (00:25:25):

But today that can look like on social. Right? So I Dream 100'ed Dave Woodward.

Dan Henry (00:25:31):

Ah, fantastic guy. Probably the nicest guy that I've ever met. In fact, sometimes I can't be around him too long because it just makes me feel terrible about myself because he's so nice. I'm like, ah, I need to go work on myself,

Amanda Holmes (00:25:44):

His whole family. I mean, it's a test to who he is as well as you can tell that just his boys are so wonderful and his wife is so incredible as well. Their unit is wonderful. Yeah. They're great. So when I first met Dave, though, he kind of gave me a cold shoulder and I looked at him and went, oh, or are we not? Is my pig headed discipline and determination gonna kick in cause I have to like be friends with you. So I ended up following up with him. We friended each other on Instagram and I for every single day, for three months, every post he made, I commented on. So he would post, he took a hike and he bought some boots and he showed himself buying some boots. I'm like, I climbed Kilimanjaro and new boots. And I can tell you that that's the worst idea on the face of the planet you have to wear in your boots beforehand.

Amanda Holmes (00:26:31):

Cause it will be really painful. Oh, that's nice. I'd get a heart. You know, he made a deal with his son that he couldn't not eat sugar for 24 hours. And I, and he didn't end up breaking eight sugar before 24 hours and he won like $10 or something. And I'm like, ha ha, you should have bet more. That's hysterical. So just little things. So he also posted a picture or a video of him and his wife and his wife is looking at all of these beautiful Christmas lights and she looks so happy. I'm like, Dave, you got to give your wife Christmas lights, like multiple times a year for how happy she is about these Christmas lights. Right? So I am in dialogue with him every single day. Even though he really didn't say much, it was like a heart here. I take screenshots of them, it's hilarious.

Amanda Holmes (00:27:17):

But three months in him and Russell reached out to me and say, Hey, we'd like to buy 650 of these books for the, for our Inner Circle and give them to all of our best clients, which was awesome. I mean, five years later I just showed up to Funnel Hacking Live. That's how we met. Right. And everyone knew Ultimate Sales Machine because of that three months of pigheaded discipline and determination to follow up. So that's, that's an example of Dream 100 in today's world. Being that bright spot in their day where you're in their face, in their place, in their space and they can't avoid you. Right. But we still have these 12 core competencies. So it isn't just Dream 100. We're also known a lot for market data and utilizing market data.

Dan Henry (00:27:59):

Do you get into sports at all? Boxing, anything like that?

Amanda Holmes (00:28:03):

No, I'm sorry.

Dan Henry (00:28:04):

Yeah, I went right past that. I just, I just did not turn down the right road. I just thought I was just playing on my phone. Just kept going. Well, the reason I say that is because, you know, what's funny is there have been times where, cause I'm a big like martial arts MMA.

Amanda Holmes (00:28:19):

Oh, okay. My father was a fourth degree black belt.

Dan Henry (00:28:21):

Oh, okay. Awesome. Awesome. So there was this and this has happened multiple times, but there was you know, I remember seeing Dream Onehundreding in that game. Like there was a, I believe it was Klitschko. I forget the other guy's name. Brandon probably knows it, but it's, it's the guy who's always like what's up champ. What's up champ champ. Do you know the guy I'm talking about Brandon? The boxer.

Brandon (00:28:45):

I'd have to look up the name. I know exactly what you're talking about though. Yeah.

Dan Henry (00:28:48):

Yeah. So what he would do was so Klitschko, I think I got the right one. He was like the champion. He was trying to get the fight. Right? Because you know, if you want to get a fight with the champ, you gotta, you gotta get the Champ's attention. You can't just say, I want to fight you or you have to be the number one contender.

Dan Henry (00:29:03):

Right. But if you're not the number one contender, you got to get the attention. So this dude would literally follow Klitschko everywhere he went. If he was at a restaurant, he would show up with like a megaphone and be like, What's up champ? You gonna take the fight champ? Like right in the restaurant. Or he was, Klitschko was skiing. He came on a speedboat, drove right past him, knocked him off his skis and was like, come on champ, come on. What's up champ. Let's go. You know? And he did this like six or seven times and he finally got the fight and I'm pretty sure he lost, but the point remains, he Dream One hundreded his way into a fight with the champ. Oh

Amanda Holmes (00:29:39):

My God. I never heard that before. That's such a good story.

Dan Henry (00:29:43):

Don't I don't recommend anybody do that. That was an example. But you know, it's not what I'm saying to do.

Amanda Holmes (00:29:51):

But the essence is there. The point is there.

Dan Henry (00:29:52):

And that's the thing. Let me ask you a question in life. Cause you know, it's not just about business. I mean, a lot of it is, but some people don't want to be entrepreneurs, but they want to be authors. They want to be singers. They want to be whatever it is, whatever they define as success. Do you think that sometimes people when they try to, and this is the difference between people who get it and people who don't get it. People who succeed, people who don't succeed as they look at the tactics, they look at the surface level stuff, send a piece of mail here, do this. Comment here on social media. And they don't think of the essence. Like, I mean essentially that's what, what Klitschko got Dream One-hundreded and he gave him the fight. And that's the thing is that same, that same essence can be repurposed into a thousand different iterations and applications.

Dan Henry (00:30:45):

And in a hundred years it can still be done. In the thousand years it can still be done. We might not have the internet in a thousand years. Maybe we were all just like cyber connected. And I can just be like, give you a compliment by going like whatever. And it's a completely, it's very creepy. But in this extremely creepy future Bing world, you can still Dream 100 people. You can still, sales is still sales. You know, rapport is still rapport. I mean, I'm hoping, unless we're all robots, then that might not be the case. But you see what I'm saying? Like, do you feel that people don't explore that enough? And they just try to rest on the tactics?

Amanda Holmes (00:31:20):

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, that's also why this has been so timeless and continues to be so timeless is because it's talking about the strategy and whether the tactics or the vehicles that you're using in marketing change. The things that my father talks about, like with advertisements, how much more it converts if you have a person next to a product. Right? So I think of that when I'm doing my Instagram stories, I always make sure I have someone dancing next to an image because I know research shows whether it was 20 years ago or not in, in newspaper advertisements with them showing like a book with a hand and it converts better than a book by itself or someone holding a product. I do the same thing on Instagram because it's understanding the concepts.

Dan Henry (00:32:04):

Mm yes. Yes. I think that maybe you'll agree that when you deep dive into that and you don't play gets to me trying to learn tactics or at least relying on tactics, that's your safe zone. You know, oh, if I just learned his tactic and I don't expand my brain any, anywhere past that, I don't push the limits. I don't, I don't push the envelope and watch it bend. That is where you get stuck because you just, you, you build this little box and if the tactic doesn't work or does work or whatever, you stay in that little box and you don't push the box, bend the box, break the box and get out of the box. Would you agree?

Amanda Holmes (00:32:41):

Absolutely. When I think of like, so we define marketing as creating top of mind awareness, like that is the whole purpose of marketing is to create top of mind awareness. So that as soon as they say, oh, I need a product or service like yours, you are the first person that they think of. Right? That's the true ability of marketing. Now, when you think of a business trying to do social media, they're like, I just need to do a Facebook post. I just need to do a Facebook post. Remember that the number one thing of any marketing you do is to create the top of mind awareness. So when you feel like, oh, I've only done this many posts, I don't want to do more. Nope. We're creating top of mind awareness. What do I have to do to make that happen? Right. Just like that. Very basic thing. We get lost in the clutter of all the tactics without forgetting. What is the point of what we're doing here?

Dan Henry (00:33:29):

I agree. I agree. I have a much more you put it more eloquently than I did. I pretty much just say marketing is to make the sales guy's job easier. You know, like the better your marketing is the less, less less, you know, work you have to do when it comes to sales.

Amanda Holmes (00:33:46):

Steve Jobs says it too. Marketing's job is to make sales obsolete. And the number one revenue generating company in the world right now is Apple.

Dan Henry (00:33:55):

Of course. And how do you go when you go to an Apple store, what do they do? Do they pitch you? Do they sell you? They don't have to do anything.

Dan Henry (00:34:02):

You got to wait in line. You gotta wait in line and then somebody like somebody, like you gotta go see the genius or whatever, you know? And it's, it's very different, very different environment. Yeah. And that's the thing is, is, you know, Steve Jobs, he was such a you know, he was such a brilliant guy. He and I remember there, there was a scene in one of the movies cause he had a movie with David Fessenbender Fastenbender. And then you had another movie with Ashton Kutcher and I believe it was the Ashton Kutcher one. And he was arguing with his engineers and they were saying people who buy computers, they like to switch out their CD ROMs. And they like to be able to replace their RAM. And, and basically what you, Steve jobs said was no computer nerds like to do that.

Dan Henry (00:34:46):

People want whatever you tell them to want. And he created, he created that because that's the difference between, and maybe you'll agree. That's the difference between something like Apple and Microsoft, apple does not sell computers. Apple sells creative empowerment, think different. Microsoft sells computers. You go to, you go to, you buy a computer from Microsoft, you're buying a computer. You buy a computer from Apple, you buy into self-expression, you buy into spreading your art. You buy into creativity without the limit of, you know, you know, ease of creativity. You have an identity and you have and that's the difference. And that's why Steve Jobs did such a great job. But on the flip side the man created literally, the highest value tech company ever. And not only that is responsible for changing the way that we live our lives. I mean, think about it.

Dan Henry (00:35:43):

I'm sitting here interviewing you. I got a fricking iPhone and an iPad in front of me, you know? And I mean, you want to talk to your family, you message on Facebook or, you know, you sh I mean, literally how we live our lives completely, really does social media, there'd be no social media without the fricking iPhone. You know, it all comes back to that. So he made such an impact. But do you remember, do you remember the story about what he talked about on his death bed? He said I don't remember the exact words, but he basically said it was all not worth it because he spent so much time making that thing great that he didn't spend enough time with his family and his life and he wasn't present enough. And on his deathbed, he regretted every single second of it. And I, I remember hearing that and every single day when I wake up, I try to think of that. And I just close my eyes and I say, I'm Steve Jobs in my bed about to die. And I just realized that none of this matters. How am I going to live my life? So that doesn't happen?

Amanda Holmes (00:36:40):

That's really interesting that you bring that up because, so I had an experience with my father, right? 55. He has an empire. He is so successful, right? When he got chemo, he decided I'm going to buy a rolls so that I can drive to my chemo in a Rolls Royce. It's like really dad, really? And he was too nauseated to be able to drive it. So it was mostly me and I always felt so uncomfortable that people always wanted to take pictures. So we would wear hats cause he thought it was hilarious that people would want to take more pictures cause they thought he was a celebrity silly things. But anyways, so we had this moment where we were sitting in the hospital room and he had, so if you get a bone marrow transplant for leukemia, you're, you're quarantined into a room in the hospital and you can't leave for two months.

Amanda Holmes (00:37:27):

So imagine my father larger than life. Right? Always dynamic, always out doing things, traveling the world, speaking and now he's confined to this small hospital room. And he was looking out the window and he says to me of all the wealth that I've amassed, it can only buy me the biggest room in this hotel or in this hospital. And I never forgot that because obviously what what's it worth if at the end of the day you can't enjoy it. He died at 55. So a big reason why I did the new edition, my why was because I wanted to give the final encore that my father never got to give. And it was this journey of him understanding himself and having a rich life beyond just what money can buy. So the last nine years, I've really, that's why I study under my guru as well. I there's just so much more to life than just doubling sales.

Dan Henry (00:38:26):

Yeah.

Amanda Holmes (00:38:27):

It's good that they have to get really far into this interview for me to say that, because normally I talk about sales.

Dan Henry (00:38:33):

Well, listen, if they left already, they don't deserve to hear it.

Dan Henry (00:38:38):

So we're going to take some callers here in a little bit. I love taking callers. I D I do ask the audience though that no internet marketing talk, that's barred. High-level strategy, only sales, whatever. So actually this is a funny thing is, you know, and I want to ask you this question. I'm very interested to hear this. I, you know, I woke up on it. I mean, I built my first company, or my first successful company, GetClients.com. This internet marketing company, you know, this company, HowToThink.com has nothing to do with internet marketing. And I, you know, I woke up one day and I said, you know, when I, in 10 years from now when I got a little bit more gray coming in, the last thing I want to be known for is internet marketing. You know?

Dan Henry (00:39:25):

And I started asking myself like, what do I want to be known for? And, what would people talk to me about? And I kept coming back to thinking, you know? Like, I literally kept saying the word how to think, you know, so my question to you is, you know, your father is known for that book. I mean, I mean, which is a great thing to be known for. You write a book like that, you're going to be known for that book. And he's known for the Dream 100 and he's known for Chet Holmes International. My question to you is 10 years from now, what do you want to be known for? What does Amanda want to be known for?

Amanda Holmes (00:39:58):

It's an interesting concept because I've spent a lot of time. So I, in pursuit of fulfillment, I shaved my head for five years. It was bald.

Dan Henry (00:40:16):

Yeah. Thought it was Brittany, but no, Nope. It's Amanda.

Amanda Holmes (00:40:22):

I didn't have a Cray Cray Brittany moment, but I did have a couple hundred staff all looking around going, what are you doing? And I'm like the amount of weight on my shoulders of the expectations of others and what they thought was dictating what I would make as my decisions moving forward. And I didn't want that. And my guru even said, if you want to release yourself of those expectations and be the best version of you and make those decisions based on your own independent logic, then this is a good practice to try. So I shaved. So I finally, for years I like got up the courage and I finally shaved my head and I loved it so much. I kept it shaved for five years and it was really this commitment to myself to be the best version of myself and to find that fulfillment within me without needing that from exterior people. And it's, it's an ongoing process. Like sometimes I'm better than other times, but that has been a serious undertaking to feel that burst of life that comes from me and me alone. So when you ask, what are you want to be known for? I don't want to be known for anything. I want to feel rejuvenated. I want to feel alive. I want to feel that I'm making an impact based on what I resonate with rather than...

Dan Henry (00:41:45):

So basically, you don't need to be known for anything?

Amanda Holmes (00:41:47):

Right.

Dan Henry (00:41:48):

Wow. That's probably the best answer I've ever heard of it when it comes to that question. That's deep. So let me ask you this. What got you into the Indian guru thing?

Amanda Holmes (00:41:59):

My father was diagnosed and we went through a couple of a hundred alternatives for leukemia and we narrowed it down to the top 150 best in everything. Sound therapy, light therapy, oxygenation therapy. I mean, pre speaking in tongues, I studied under monks in Japan and then I met her and it was just a completely different experience. Just being in her presence, felt different. Like something really magical about this woman. And I had Celiacs at the time. So even the smell of wheat, if I went into a pizza store, I would get nauseated because I was that highly allergic. I would have to go to the hospital if I ate any wheat. And she said, every disease is just a disease of your mind. So if you can release those, you can cure yourself of Celiacs. And I'm like, so you think I could...

Dan Henry (00:42:48):

So you can eat gluten now? No way.

Amanda Holmes (00:42:51):

So I, so anytime I was in her presence, I could eat pizza. It was absurd and imagined like

Dan Henry (00:43:00):

What kind of pizza? I need to know. Don't tell me Domino's.

Amanda Holmes (00:43:05):

She liked deep dish. So we would go eat deep dish. When I first met her, we were...

Dan Henry (00:43:12):

They say you got to start small, you know,

Amanda Holmes (00:43:15):

But so then she said, I need a concentrated amount of time to be able to help cure you of this. I have a center in Singapore, so I made my way to Singapore. And three months later, she helped rebuild my stomach lining and I now can eat wheat all I like.

Dan Henry (00:43:34):

And I bet you that a doctor would have probably charged you tens of thousands of dollars to still have that issue.

Amanda Holmes (00:43:42):

No Western doctor said that they could cure Celiacs. If you ask anybody about Celiacs, they say, oh yeah, you, I just don't eat wheat. Like nobody actually has a cure for that.

Dan Henry (00:43:50):

Yeah. I mean, why would you, I mean, why would you cure stuff like that when you could sell drugs to people that have it, or why would you cure cancer when you can sell cancer? I mean, you know, much money we would lose if we, if we actually came up with or released the cure for cancer? All those all those machines, all those technicians that go to schools to learn those machines. You've got to think you've got a school somewhere. That school has staff. It has janitors, it has a cafe workers. It has construction workers that work on it. And that school teaches technicians. And those technicians have to use these machines. And the people that make the what do they call the cancer machines? Like chemo, chemo, chemo machines. Yeah. Somebody's got to do research to create those machines.

Dan Henry (00:44:32):

Somebody has got to do the manufacturing and then somebody's got to do the licensing and all that dah, dah, dah. If you just came out with the cure, all those people would lose their jobs and, and, and you know, my response would be that they can find new jobs. But, you know, I'm just saying like, that's that that'd be a big thing. And I think a lot of people don't stop to realize that. And I'm not saying that there's any one alternative that I, or anybody promote or like, or say is the answer. But I think that you have to ask yourself, well, if this is supposed to be the only answer, going to a Western doctor and doing chemotherapy, you know, it's sort of like if I told you the secret to doing this thing is this thing, I just happened to sell that thing. Right? You know, if I say, well, the secret to lose weight is to, to get into a keto, you know, a state of ketogenics, by the way I sell these ketones just by absolute happenstance. I happened to also sell that thing, you know, it's, you kind of got to ask yourself like, oh, so this is how you cure cancer. And you also happen to sell the thing that does that. It's interesting. You know, we gotta, you know, you gotta think about that kind of stuff.

Amanda Holmes (00:45:40):

That's the scariest thing about online marketing today is the health. Right? So on Google, you're not going to get the solution that you're looking for. You're going to get whoever's best at PPC, right. Or SEO, right? Yeah. That's yeah. That's unfortunate.

Dan Henry (00:45:58):

I wanted to ask you about that. What's with this alkaline diet thing. Tell me about that.

Amanda Holmes (00:46:02):

Did I tell you about that?

Dan Henry (00:46:03):

No, but I do my homework, but I'm asking you.

Amanda Holmes (00:46:08):

So amidst the hundred and 50 different alternatives that we looked at, whether they were from Asia, Africa, Australia, South America, the one thing that they all said common for my father to get him better was become vegetarian. Okay. Like even just to get your body back into alignment, that will help you get there faster and cancer can't breed in an alkaline environment.

Dan Henry (00:46:32):

Really? So that means no meat. Is there any way I can get an alkaline cow? Do they make those?

Amanda Holmes (00:46:40):

I think they're putting them in laboratories now.

Dan Henry (00:46:43):

Really? So you can get an alkaline cow and maybe some alkaline chickens?

Amanda Holmes (00:46:48):

No, they're just making them in a Petri dish. You've heard about that. Right? Making me in a Petri dish.

Dan Henry (00:46:52):

Yeah. What it was like, is this a new vegan thing? Or?

Amanda Holmes (00:46:55):

I don't know. I wouldn't recommend it.

Dan Henry (00:46:58):

Okay.

Amanda Holmes (00:46:59):

Don't eat straight chemicals, find better ways.

Dan Henry (00:47:01):

Yeah. Yeah. I mean the plants, I mean, people, people bitch about the plants, but this sounds...

Amanda Holmes (00:47:06):

Oh my God, even lettuce. Please stop eating lettuce and thinking that that's healthy. It's it's. So if it's hydroponically made there now just water and chemicals that create lettuce. So you are straight eating chemicals. So people like, oh, I'm so healthy I'm eating a salad.

Dan Henry (00:47:23):

With cheese and Ranch dressing on it, but sure, you do you. Okay, well now I gotta ask you, cause now we're going down this health rabbit hole. And, and we, we went from, we went from fricking alkaline diets, not breeding cancer, which I really, I want to explore that all the way to lettuce is bad for you. Now I gotta ask you. I just got to know. Okay. What are your thoughts on cannabis?

Amanda Holmes (00:47:45):

Oh, okay.

Dan Henry (00:47:47):

I have to ask we're already on that rabbit hole. We're already on that side of town. Let's walk around. Okay.

Amanda Holmes (00:47:54):

Well, so the actual plant has so many medicinal values, right? That is wonderful. I believe in the medicinal values of herbs, all kinds of different herbs. I like if I had to choose between someone doing cannabis versus doing drugs or taking pills, I'd probably choose that than the latter, right?

Dan Henry (00:48:21):

As would I. Yeah.

Amanda Holmes (00:48:23):

And then I also would add some kind of caution that when you use cannabis to get to it's helping you get to an altered state of consciousness, which is actually what meditation is supposed to do. But majority of people just sit in silence and think that that's meditation, which is the polar opposite. Because when you sit in silence, usually your mind gets louder and it just, you know, so cannabis helps get you there faster. You just have to smoke it. Right. The only problem is there's a disconnect between your mind and your body actually experiencing that. That's why it reacts in different ways. Same with alcohol. It's helping you get to this altered state of consciousness. Wouldn't it be cool if you didn't need to smoke or to drink, to be able to get to that place where things just fall off of you where you're honest and truthful. I don't know.

Dan Henry (00:49:16):

I mean, it'd be a lot cheaper.

Amanda Holmes (00:49:19):

But it takes work.

Dan Henry (00:49:21):

Yeah. I don't prefer the ultra stage of consciousness that alcohol gets you. I don't like being there. I like the social aspect of it, but then, you know, at some point you end up in that part of town that you don't want to be in and then you're throwing up and that's not good, but.

Amanda Holmes (00:49:36):

Not to say that everyone wants to be there. And that is the definition of altered state of consciousness. I should probably retract that statement.

Dan Henry (00:49:44):

So, so, but I'm saying like, like, think about this, right? You have all these drugs out, you have. So here's the reason why I started being a daily cannabis user. I have real bad anxiety. Couldn't slow my thoughts down. So of course what's the first thing a doctor recommends, drugs, right They're going to, they recommend what's that drug everybody's on with the bead and you get the beady little eyes you know, and you're like super focused Adderall, Adderall.

Amanda Holmes (00:50:16):

I'm not an expert on drugs.

Dan Henry (00:50:16):

Yeah. So like a buddy of mine, he's like, dude, you got to try Adderall. You just take it. And you'll just sit there and get like a week's worth of work done in like three hours. So just like take it and do it when you nobody's going to bother you. And I'm like, well, if nobody bothered me, I would get three weeks worth of work done in three hours. So I don't need the drug if that's it, you know. But so he gives me two of them, right. So I sit them on my desk for, I don't know, two weeks. And I'm just, every morning I'm staring at them, I'm staring at them, I'm staring at them. And, you know, I realized that I didn't really need that to be focused. Right. And you know, I talked to another buddy of mine and he's like, Hey, you should try medical marijuana.

Dan Henry (00:51:00):

You know? And I'm like, well, you know I don't know. And I was actually not, not for it. He's like, just, just go to the doctor and try you know, he said, how many times have you taken XYZ pills? Right. How many times have you taken all this medicine? You're telling me you're not gonna take the most natural one and at least give it a try. I said, all right. He closed me, and that's a good point. So I go, and I'm literally, I was like, I have anxi.... Here's your prescription. Right? I didn't even get the word out. Right. And so I started using it not during the day, but at night, because my problem was, let's say it's Six O'clock, I'm done working well, I'm done being smart for the day. I want to be dumb. You know, I don't want to think of all the problems with my business.

Dan Henry (00:51:42):

I don't want it because I, then my mind gets tired. And then the next day it's already tired from the night of thinking and now I'm not fresh. So, you know, I tried it and it would slow my mind down. And let me just, I guess, kind of be more present in my thoughts. And enjoying things, food music, you know, and just let me stop thinking so that the next day mentally I could return with the fresh plate. I'm sure I could use some super ninja meditation stuff to do the same thing, but you also have never smoked the weed I've got.

Dan Henry (00:52:22):

But, here's why I say this. So, you know, there are a lot of applications for recreational drug use that are not good, like cocaine and methamphetamines, all that. But then there are people out there that do things like not just cannabis, but they do things like psychedelics, like DMT. And Iowaska. I got to ask you, if you ever did a drug, it would have to be Iowasca all this Indian guru stuff. I mean, it would have to be right? Like that would be right up your alley. I would think. No? What's your thoughts on that?

Amanda Holmes (00:52:52):

I mean, I feel like I've had a lot of psychedelic experiences. I just haven't taken the drugs to have them.

Dan Henry (00:52:58):

That's true. That's true.

Amanda Holmes (00:52:59):

So like, I could talk with the best of them. I have great, great stories of experiences, right. But it's like on a solar eclipse, my guru decided that we were going to chant for three days straight and it was eight hours a day. For three days straight.

Dan Henry (00:53:16):

You accomplished the same thing. Have you been able to accomplish ego death?

Amanda Holmes (00:53:20):

I don't know what the definition of ego death is.

Dan Henry (00:53:22):

It's the thing where, I mean, I, as apparently you can, you can achieve it through meditation or obviously, psychedelics. I guess that's the easier way, quicker, but it's where you lose the sense of self. You lose a sense of who, you no longer become Amanda or Dan. And I guess, and maybe I'm not explaining this best way, but essentially it allows you to mentally feel like what it's like to die and cease to exist and not have an identity. And it's like a whole different trippy type of thing. And I didn't know if you have gone that deep down the rabbit hole or not, I stay up late and watch YouTube videos sometimes. And this is where it goes. You ever watched the Joe Rogan podcast, man, you can get, you can go down some holes, man. You can go down some rabbit holes, but we're bringing up this stuff. I just figured that maybe you'd have an opinion on it. Good, bad, indifferent.

Amanda Holmes (00:54:16):

I mean, I've spent a lot of time. I mean a lot of time, I'm 33, but a lot of time, like the last nine years I've studied intensively under a Saint that if you truly want to be connected to let's say, if you were divided into your ego and your soul you can't even walk up to the door of her location if you don't want to truly know yourself. And, people that are looking for truth and looking for the best version of themselves, regardless of what the world says, regardless of what they say, your ego should be. Like, if you go there for ego pampering, you will get slapped. Like people I've watched people walk in the door and then leave because they can't handle the idea of stripping away the masks that we wear. So ego death,

Dan Henry (00:55:08):

Maybe they call it something different.

Amanda Holmes (00:55:11):

Yeah. Well that sounds like a painful experience, which can be difficult, but I'd rather connect it to a positive thing if we're thinking about the mindset. Like

Dan Henry (00:55:20):

A lot of people that go through it, describe it as scary at first, but then beautiful. Scary then beautiful. I've haven't done it. I haven't gone through it. I just, it, I didn't even really get into it until I started talking to a lot of entrepreneurs and I'd go to these conferences and everybody would be like, Hey, you do Iowaska yet? And I'm like, no. And then somebody else, you do Iowaska yet? I'm like, no, why is everyone asking me that. You do Iawaska yet? I'm like, no, what are you guys all on drugs? Like, what are you, what are you doing? And so then I just got curious and I was like, well, now I gotta look into this because everybody's doing it. Not everybody, but it was just an absurdly high amount of people saying it. And I was like, well, now I gotta see what this is all about. But then I did research that meditation, heavy, heavy, serious meditation, not like, you know, Sunday meditation class at the yoga studio, but like deep, deep, deep, deep stuff achieved very similar results. And it's just, it's a fascinating sort of it's just, it's a fascinating thing to get into because a lot of people don't talk about stuff like that.

Amanda Holmes (00:56:22):

I reframe it still, the ego death sounds painful and agonizing. I would rather say so something that my guru taught me was calling your higher self. Like I, something I say all day, every day as I grant myself permission to connect to my higher self. And so instead of thinking about a death, I'd rather think about a birth and a prosperous, you know, prosperity, abundant feeling. And that abundant feeling is in birth.

Dan Henry (00:56:49):

I love how you reframe things all the time constantly, constantly. Yeah. So should you feel like the ultimate goal of a human being should be to achieve the highest version of themselves?

Amanda Holmes (00:56:59):

Absolutely. Everything starts with you, right and your relationship with yourself. I watched that with my father. He was surrounded by all the people that loved him. Most he had a magnificent business and yet he felt alone.

Dan Henry (00:57:16):

Yeah. I think a lot of entrepreneurs feel that way, even when they're not at the height of success that you and your father had still, I feel like a lot of them and,

Amanda Holmes (00:57:26):

And everyone, it's not just entrepreneurs. It's just everyone. So

Dan Henry (00:57:30):

There's not a lot of stuff out there. Oh. How to get rich, how to become rich, how to increase sales. There's not a lot of stuff out there to deal with that. You know, there should be more of it. Yeah. So do you let me ask you let's change gears here for a second.

Amanda Holmes (00:57:46):

Let's do it. We took some, we went some rabbit holes. I wonder what calls are going to be.

Dan Henry (00:57:52):

No, they're still going to ask about sales, whatever Dan, take your Iowaska. Amanda, how can I increase sales? I guarantee you, I can guarantee you. So let me ask you this. Cause it sounds like growth is super important to you and as well contribution. If you had a hundred million dollars and you could only spend it on bettering the world and there was no red tape, no restrictions what'd you do?

Amanda Holmes (00:58:18):

So for the last five years, I've driven 10,000 miles around the United States looking for a remote area, couple hundred acres that I could create a university of self-realization. My guru came up with this idea and I just love it. This place where people could come, just like what I experienced, just getting disconnected from all of the craziness that's happening in our outside world. And connecting back to who we are, get really simple, learn the power of your mind, right? Learn how we only use a small percentage of it because we're clouded in our angers and our fears and our guilts and find that place of discernment so you can make more positive decisions that help you become the better version of you. And that might even look like spending some time with the earth because God knows we don't spend any time with our earth anymore, which is crazy. Cause that's where we came from.

Dan Henry (00:59:07):

Yeah. We're just chilling in line at the Apple store.

Amanda Holmes (00:59:11):

Yeah. So giving that place, that university of self-realization, that's all under Divine Bliss International, it's a nonprofit that I've spent a lot of time in.

Dan Henry (00:59:20):

So, and you have, these centers exist already?

Amanda Holmes (00:59:23):

So we have two that are smaller. One in Singapore, one in Clearwater.

Dan Henry (00:59:27):

In Clearwater here, Florida?

Amanda Holmes (00:59:30):

I know. That's where I came from. Yeah.

Dan Henry (00:59:31):

Oh, and this is yours?

Amanda Holmes (00:59:33):

No,it's under my guru.

Dan Henry (00:59:34):

Okay. But it's under your, is it under your nonprofit?

Amanda Holmes (00:59:38):

I'm a CMO.

Dan Henry (00:59:40):

Chief Marketing Officer. Shocking that that would be your role. So, let me ask you this. If somebody wanted to explore that world, right. What would be the first step?

Amanda Holmes (00:59:55):

Hmm. First step I would probably say so I've put up a bunch of videos of my guru, which is just awesome. Majority of gurus in India, you know, they like right with like they don't speak and they use a rock to write on floors and stuff to tell you what you need. I don't know. They're very, very archaic. So I'm proud to say that we have some recordings online. Sarvaloca Ma I love her videos online on YouTube. I would recommend watching that. And then I would probably talk more about steps on meditation, like the actual kind of meditation that can create an altered state of consciousness rather than just the thoughts getting louder.

Dan Henry (01:00:44):

Right. And so if somebody went to your Clearwater location, what is that called?

Amanda Holmes (01:00:47):

Divine Bliss International.

Dan Henry (01:00:50):

Okay. So if somebody went there, what would, what could you expect going there? What kind of experience would they be in store for?

Amanda Holmes (01:00:58):

I would say leave all expectations at the door and just be open to connecting to your higher self.

Dan Henry (01:01:05):

Okay. And, what type of results or what type of change or paradigm shift would, would the average person, if they were, if they gave into it, if they were serious, would they expect, could they expect after?

Amanda Holmes (01:01:24):

So we used to do a bunch of photos. I would take people's picture when they first got there and then I'd take their picture when they leave and you'd see the shift happen on their face. It was that monumental.

Dan Henry (01:01:36):

Really?

Amanda Holmes (01:01:37):

Yeah. Like their face would become more balanced. Their eyes would lighten. Their smile, they couldn't stop smiling because you could just see, they were glowing. It's a really cool thing. I have hundreds and hundreds of these before and after photos of people just glowing.

Dan Henry (01:01:55):

Well, it sounds like you've like really, like, I mean, you're obviously amazing at sales, marketing, what you've done, but it sounds like you're really, you really put a lot of effort and time into this.

Amanda Holmes (01:02:04):

I mean, last year we grew sales by 50% and I only worked one day a week. The other six I was in the non-profit.

Dan Henry (01:02:11):

So that's like where your heart lies.How long is the experience for you, a day, a week?

Amanda Holmes (01:02:21):

At the moment it's like a day you would come and experience. You could, you wouldn't be able to stay there. That's why we need the bigger property to be able to have people stay on the property.

Dan Henry (01:02:31):

Oh, I see. So it's a one. So for right now, it's a one day experience, Clearwater or Singapore one day experience. Okay. Mm Hmm. And...

Brandon (01:02:46):

Are we making a trip Dan?

Dan Henry (01:02:46):

I'm just like I have this, this little thing I'm doing recently where I'm like, let me do something, let me try to do a bunch of stuff that I don't, I normally would never do. And then as you're talking, I'm like, yep. That's one of the things that's a very prime candidate, but I want to expand my mind. So...

Amanda Holmes (01:03:08):

That's hilarious.

Dan Henry (01:03:09):

So so I mean, is there a type of person that shouldn't do this?

Amanda Holmes (01:03:16):

If you want to stop growing, if you are happy with where you're at, don't go there. It'll be too uncomfortable because it raises you up so quickly. It's not good if you're stuck in depression and you're like, I want to be stuck in depression, don't go.

Dan Henry (01:03:30):

That sounds like the pitch I make when somebody wants to buy my business. Cause they say, well, why shouldn't I buy? I say, the only reason you shouldn't buy it is if you hate money. Exactly.

Amanda Holmes (01:03:46):

That's so good.

Dan Henry (01:03:47):

Yeah. Well, you just reminded me of it. I was just like, that's like the perfect objection handler. If you want to stay depressed, this is not for you, okay?

Amanda Holmes (01:03:55):

Some people like where they're at and they're very comfortable and other people want to level up.

Dan Henry (01:04:01):

That's amazing. That's, that's I love hearing stuff that is outside of the norm of like, here's a pill, you know, here's a, I mean, even here's weed that that's common now. Now I feel, I used to feel like the new guy on the block. Now it's like, oh yeah, everybody does it. You know, now I got to go to an Indian guru and get to the next level. I honestly, I, you know, every time I try something that I think of that I wouldn't try every time I'd try something that I say I would have never done. I do it. And then I'm like, this was amazing, you know?

Amanda Holmes (01:04:28):

Well, Steve Jobs, right? So the book that he gave at his funeral, do you know what it is?

Dan Henry (01:04:33):

No, not see now you're stumping me on the Steve Jobs trivia. I do not.

Amanda Holmes (01:04:36):

So he gave out Autobiography of a Yogi as his book to every person that went to his funeral. And it was the only book on his iPhone. And it just talks about this journey of a man going through understanding from gurus and it's. Yeah, it's the whole nine yards.

Dan Henry (01:04:55):

There's one book, one audio book?

Amanda Holmes (01:04:57):

Autobiography of a Yogi by Para Monza Yogananda. And when he, so when Mark Zuckerberg was about to sell Facebook, he went to his mentor, Steve Jobs and said, I'm thinking about selling. I'm not quite sure what I should do. What do you think I should do? And he said, there's this Ashram, this healing center, like what's over in Clearwater, where you can go. I went there and that's what made me decide what Apple would be. You should go there. And just a couple of years ago, he finally admitted that he had gone there. And that's where he got the idea for Facebook. And that one place is actually in the lineage of my gurus. So my guru got handed from another guru who got handed from him, which is Babanim Coralee

Dan Henry (01:05:38):

See we brought this all back to sales. We landed the plane.

Dan Henry (01:05:46):

Yeah. You know, what's funny though, is that the man that created a little device that could hold 10,000 songs, had one audio book.

Amanda Holmes (01:05:55):

Isn't that crazy?

Dan Henry (01:05:55):

Yes. What does that tell you about how much that book meant to him? Yeah, that's nuts. All right. So let's do this. This has been fun. I like going in all different directions. I like just driving the car around the city and just like going right. You know, like there's a lemonade stand, let's drive through it and let's drive over this guy's lawn, just come back around. So, all right. So, so here's what I'd like to do. Brandon are there, so 8 1 3- 4 7 4 -9 1 22. Text that number with your question, and then Brandon will pick, pick one, bring you on audio, and you can ask Amanda a question. Me, whoever, Brandon, if you want, all the above and yeah, whatever, you know 8 1 3 -4 7 4- 9 1 2 2. We'll bring a couple of people on, have a chit chat. But this has been amazing so far. I mean,

Amanda Holmes (01:06:54):

We've gone through the rabbit holes, all of them, multiple of them.

Dan Henry (01:06:58):

Yeah, I dig it. I dig it. I dig it. I I love how tattered, pull that book up, look how tattered that book is.

Amanda Holmes (01:07:05):

You know what I was bringing around a really nice one. I'm like, but this is how they normally look

Dan Henry (01:07:11):

Now did you really. Is that, or did you just like put that in a dryer before you came here?

Amanda Holmes (01:07:15):

I recently..

Dan Henry (01:07:16):

Cuz that's pretty...

Amanda Holmes (01:07:17):

It dropped in a puddle.

Dan Henry (01:07:20):

Okay. All right. You cheated a little bit.

Amanda Holmes (01:07:22):

I did not cheat. I was so upset. Half of my notes are now have watermarks on them, which is such a bummer. It was a real bummer.

Dan Henry (01:07:31):

It's amazing that you still go through that same book.

Amanda Holmes (01:07:34):

Oh my gosh. Are you kidding me? Absolutely.

Dan Henry (01:07:35):

Wow. Talk about going deep. Dedication to going deep on something.

Amanda Holmes (01:07:40):

Well, that's what we teach. Mastery isn't about doing 4,000 different things. It's about doing 12 things, 4,000 times.

Dan Henry (01:07:46):

Oh, I like that. I like that. That is, that is legit. What do you think the well, Brandon, let me know. Just interrupt me. Just cut me off when you have somebody. But what do you think the biggest people, the biggest people, the biggest thing on a high level, not like a technique or tactic, but on a mental level, what do you think is the biggest mistake people make in sales?

Amanda Holmes (01:08:13):

The single, the single biggest thing?

Dan Henry (01:08:15):

Yeah, the top one.

Amanda Holmes (01:08:18):

Okay. Well, I'll give you, can I do two? Can I just break it down to two?

Dan Henry (01:08:22):

You can do whatever you like.

Amanda Holmes (01:08:25):

Okay, thank God. So a statistically right now, 97% of our prospects feel that we're too pushy as salespeople. 97%. That is absurd amount of people, right? Yes.

Dan Henry (01:08:38):

So there's an absurd amount of people that suck at sales. So we've got to factor in.

Amanda Holmes (01:08:41):

Three out of four salespeople are ineffective at their job.

Dan Henry (01:08:44):

There's got to be more, it's got to be more like 3.985 come on now.

Amanda Holmes (01:08:50):

Three out of four, right? We're at 75% of them are ineffective at their job. But if we look at the universities in the United States only 0.08% of them actually have sales as a major or minor. So where are we actually learning how to be great at sales? Right. We don't have that, which is interesting. But then if we look at the follow-up, how many touches does it take to actually close a deal? On average it's about eight touches before we get their attention. And 95% of salespeople don't follow up after the third contact.

Dan Henry (01:09:26):

Yeah. So 95% of salespeople are lazy.

Amanda Holmes (01:09:30):

Fortune's in the follow-up baby.

Dan Henry (01:09:32):

The fortune's in the follow-up. Absolutely. Okay. So from a high level, do you think that the biggest mistake then would be a non-commitment to mastery?

Amanda Holmes (01:09:44):

Absolutely.

Dan Henry (01:09:46):

I got a smile out of you for that one. Yeah. You like that?

Amanda Holmes (01:09:50):

Well, that's our whole thing, huh?

Dan Henry (01:09:52):

Yeah. I caught that.

Amanda Holmes (01:09:53):

You're on the CEO Mastery show that we're, I just launched.

Dan Henry (01:09:57):

I would love to say, because I found out you like alkaline foods, found out you're an amazing songwriter and even your [inaudible], whatever it's called that we could not find here. I was going to bring it in, but there's nowhere in St. Pete that has that food. But I did not know that your show is called CEO Mastery. So that's a fail on my part.

Amanda Holmes (01:10:17):

No, I mean, it just launched yesterday. So I mean you did your research.

Dan Henry (01:10:24):

Ah, Excuse. Cool. Anybody, Brandon?

Brandon (01:10:26):

None at the moment. Let's repeat the number one more time.

Dan Henry (01:10:29):

Oh yeah. I'm so sorry. We were going to get the technology there where we can pop the number up during a stream we're just not there yet. We spent all of our money on lights. So

Amanda Holmes (01:10:43):

We're on the 11th floor and you can't see that it's a magnificent view just saying.

Dan Henry (01:10:48):

Yeah, it's all. I covered it all up. Brandon covered it all up with, you know, black. So it's like you come in here and it's this amazing sort of penthouse, as you said, kind of office feel, but then we're just like, just cover it all up, you know, screw it. So 8 1 3, 8 1 3 -4 7 4 -9 1 2 2. 813 -4 7 4 -9 1 2 2. If you need help with sales, which if you're watching the show, you probably do, because if not, you'd be off on an island somewhere. Just messing. I think Amanda can, could help you out. So if we have anybody it's 8 1 3- 4 7 4-9 1 2 2. So just text that number and then Brandon, will give you a call.

Amanda Holmes (01:11:44):

Oh, they text and then you call. I was going to say, I wonder if more people would get on if they texted,

Dan Henry (01:11:49):

Oh just text. Well, see, here's my thought. Right? So if I just bring any random person on from a call, they could be crazy, man. They could be asking you...

Amanda Holmes (01:11:58):

Usually.

Dan Henry (01:11:58):

They could be asking you about Iowaska and stuff. It was just some irrelevant, irrelevant shit that, you know, and so we tried to get a text first, see what the question is, and then we're like, all right, well, that's not an insane question. Let's, let's bring... That's interesting, that's a good question. Let's bring that person on, you know, so I mean, that's what we're trying so far. We'll probably modify it as we go. I'm just making all this up as I go along.

Amanda Holmes (01:12:24):

Hey, I love it. Yeah. This is only...

Dan Henry (01:12:25):

Second. Your, your number two second episode. Yeah, you're early adopter.

Amanda Holmes (01:12:30):

Awesome.

Dan Henry (01:12:31):

OG who in five years, when this is one of the biggest podcasts in the world, you'll be considered one of those OG guests see. I have to make an NFT for it. So let me ask you a question. Sometimes I ask, this is sometimes I ask people because you know, entrepreneurs, it's hard to sometimes describe what we do. I say like, how would your parents describe what you do for a living? But that would not be a good question to ask you.

Amanda Holmes (01:13:00):

That is funny. How would your parents describe what you do?

Dan Henry (01:13:03):

Oh so my dad would be like, you know, Hey, this is how my dad talks. You know, like, you know, he does some internet shit, but I'm starting to think that, you know, I'm just concerned that maybe I just don't want him to go to jail. Cause he's making all this money. And I just, I don't think it's possible to make that much money on, on the internet. I saw that movie, The Net with Sandra Bullock. And I don't know about that internet, you know, that's I still don't trust it. I don't believe anything I hear on the internet. So I don't know what he's doing, but I just hope he doesn't go to jail for it. It just doesn't seem like it's possible to make that much money, you know, and people just tune in and listen to him talk. And he posted these pictures online and this weird stuff.

Dan Henry (01:13:43):

And, you know, he was singing a song on a boat and you know, it just, I don't know, you know. That's, that'd be how my dad would describe.

Amanda Holmes (01:13:51):

Where's he from?

Dan Henry (01:13:51):

So he's from Chicago and he was a radio, a shock jock in, in the eighties. So you can tell where I get my edgy conversation from. He was a shock jock and he would just do crazy stuff. You know, it was one of his radio names was Wild Bill Blab.

Amanda Holmes (01:14:15):

What was it?

Dan Henry (01:14:15):

Wild Bill Blab. And he would do these crazy shows and he was like, you know, Howard Stern?

Amanda Holmes (01:14:22):

Yeah.

Dan Henry (01:14:22):

So he was kind of like that, but not; Howard Stern's like really sexual. He wasn't sexual, he was just funny. And he would do this thing where he'd pretend to be drunk on the air, be like, this is a Wild Bill, Blab.

Dan Henry (01:14:33):

And I would just do this because, you know, FCC, you can't, you can't drink on the air. So he would just pretend to drink on the air. But I often wonder how much he was actually pretending. But, so he used to do that. And so he has a very like out there personality and but yeah, he's not big into the internet. So I getting him, it took me about five years to convince him, to get Netflix and Amazon Prime instead of paying like a hundred bucks a month for like HBO with his cable company. And, and now he's, you should hear it. He's just goes through. And he's like, I just don't understand this. You know, like, like, oh, you know what he does? He goes on Netflix, right? So he has access to all this. He can, he doesn't understand the cloud.

Dan Henry (01:15:21):

He goes on and he hooks up his TV to where he plays the movie on Netflix. And then he records it to a VHS tape that he has, and he has this huge wall of VHS tapes. And he's like, I just, I don't, you don't have to satellites all, go down. I'll still have this movie on VHS and I can still watch it. And you mark my words one day, the satellites are all going to go down. And so he sits there for hours recording all these Netflix movies on VHS.

Amanda Holmes (01:15:49):

That is awesome. I have an uncle like that.

Dan Henry (01:15:51):

Yeah. They should hang out.

Amanda Holmes (01:15:52):

They should hang out.

Brandon (01:15:55):

All right, guys. We do have a caller in, we have Tad from Denver. Do you guys want to take this call now?

Dan Henry (01:15:59):

Yes, Tad.

Brandon (01:16:03):

All right. You are on.

Dan Henry (01:16:06):

Hello?

Tad (01:16:06):

Hey, can you guys hear me okay?

Dan Henry (01:16:08):

I can. Amanda, can you hear?

Amanda Holmes (01:16:10):

Yes.

Dan Henry (01:16:10):

All right. How you doing, man?

Tad (01:16:13):

Hey, I'm doing good. Thanks. It's a pleasure to be able to talk to you guys. Thanks.

Dan Henry (01:16:17):

Cool. So what's your, what's your question today?

Tad (01:16:21):

Yeah, so I'm wondering, so I, of course was, I've been following you Dan for quite a long time and was interested in the podcast, dealing a bit more with mindset and that sort of thing. And that's really my area of expertise, I guess you could say. I've been a psychotherapist for a long time. And I guess my question is I've been trying to figure out how to take that knowledge, that expertise and get an online business started for the last couple of years, but I've really been struggling to get off the ground. You know, at first I, so I built a, like a mental health course that didn't get any sales. And now I'm looking at trying to start a, maybe a mindset related mental fitness program for entrepreneurs. But again, seemingly struggling to get people interested. And so I guess my question is how to, yeah, how to get off the ground and also how to kind of get past this phase of discouragement when it doesn't seem like anything seems to be moving?

Dan Henry (01:17:23):

So what I'll do is we can both attack that. I'll let Amanda go first. Ladies first.

Amanda Holmes (01:17:29):

No, you go first, this is your expertise.

Dan Henry (01:17:29):

Alright, so, well, thank you. You're very gracious. So here's the thing. Do you want me to be completely a hundred percent straight with you?

Tad (01:17:41):

Yeah.

Dan Henry (01:17:41):

Okay. Nobody's going to buy, nobody's gonna buy that. Nobody wants that. What they want is a goal that will help them achieve, right? So if you say, buy my mental health course, yeah, maybe you get a few sales, but what's really gonna sell is, you know, who wants that, who needs that? Even if they don't realize they need it, what are they trying to accomplish? So for instance, for instance, I have a client of mine. I had dinner with him last night. He sells a confidence course, but he doesn't really position it as a confidence course.

Dan Henry (01:18:17):

It's how to increase sales. But the whole concept is that if you are a salesperson or you're a business owner, you're a commission-based salesperson. You do your own sales for your company, whatever it is, you have sales scripts, you have sales tactics, you have sales techniques, but how come you have the same techniques that this person has, but yet they're doing a lot better job than you? How come this person over here has the same script. They have the same tactics. They have the same techniques, but, and they can close, but you can't, it all comes from your confidence. So if you are more confident then when you get on the phone, when you make those sales, if you can develop that confidence, you will be able to close more because it's not necessarily about the tactics it is, but if you don't have what's behind the tactics, then those tactics won't work.

Dan Henry (01:19:07):

You won't be able to execute them. So the way he frames it, it's the end result is you get more sales, but the way in which you get it is by increasing confidence. So it is a personal development offer, but it is meant to accomplish a goal. People will very rarely pay for therapy. They'll very rarely pay for mindset, but they will pay to accomplish a goal. And if you have good marketing and you can articulate your offer, well, you can show them that the way to achieve that goal is through a mental or mindset or therapy type vehicle. But if you make it all about the vehicle, nobody's going to buy it because imagine you're going to Hawaii and let's say, we're going to go to Hawaii, right? And I'm your travel agent. I'm telling you about this trip to Hawaii. And I'm like, Hey man you know, the plane is amazing.

Dan Henry (01:19:57):

The stewardesses and the flight attendants and whatever, they're so nice, the best nuts you've ever tasted in your life. They have top shelf liquor there. The plane, the seats are amazing. You you'd be like, well, I don't give a shit. Tell me about the resort. Tell me about the place in Hawaii. Right? So when you sell something, you don't sell the plane, you don't sell the trip, you sell the destination. So when you say, I want to sell mental health, I want to sell mindset. Especially if you're charging a decent amount for it, it's going to be a lot harder for people to buy that, than if you sell a result and therapy and mindset is simply the way to get there, right? So that's why it's a lot easier to sell marriage counseling than it is to sell general therapy. Because marriage counseling has an end result, saved my marriage. We're just using therapy to get there. Does that make sense?

Tad (01:20:50):

Yeah, definitely. So, so in this case, it would be really, I guess using that money, or excuse me, that end result of increased sales or increased income or those outcomes to kind of get people in.

Amanda Holmes (01:21:05):

What's a good, sorry, let me just insert here. What is like one of your best success stories of somebody that you've worked with? Did you save them time? Did you save them from suicide? Did you save; like, do you have any off the top of your head?

Tad (01:21:21):

Yeah, definitely. And kind of hearing abandoned, talk a lot about the passion for personal development, you know, it's really like, that's where my, my passion has always been as well. And so but yeah, I've saved a lot of people from suicideI've helped people, you know, like again, like you were talking about rescue their relationships and and save time and have greater peace of mind and confidence and all those sorts of things. And I think the struggle for me has been, oh, it's seems like no one sort of, kind of like Dan was alluding to, and no one seems to want to necessarily pay for those things.

Amanda Holmes (01:22:01):

Well, it's, it's the, I'm so sorry. It seems like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It seems like a he's giving you the perfect thing is, is, so let's say that you were to niche. Okay. I know because I run a market marketing research firm that the, it is five to nine times more depression amongst individuals that are from 18 to 35. That is a great way of saying if we're five times more depressed than any other time in history, including World War Two, World War One, and The Great Depression, there is something that we need to understand about our minds. Would you like to know the three things, right? This is a course that will teach you in 10 minutes, right? In 20 minutes, in one hour, the things that you're missing from your mental health. Right? So if we, you could use that market data to really refine what is your message and who do you speak to that you do the best for, right?

Amanda Holmes (01:22:58):

If it's depression, can you niche there and just focus there for a bit, right? If it's with marriages, there's plenty of data out there that talk about how poor marriages are, the divorce rate is through the roof, right? And this one thing is going to help you hone in on that and focus on it so that you can have the healthy marriage so that you can have a wonderful relationship with your children so that your children are living a confident, well-rounded life, because they're not feeling like they're depressed, right. Because suicide is through the roof.

Dan Henry (01:23:28):

Yeah. And, and you, you gotta remember, there's, there's two types of offers. There's and this really goes with any product. There's I help a specific person achieve a specific result. And then there is, I have a vehicle that will allow multiple people to achieve multiple results. The second one is a lot wider. It's a lot harder. I believe you should master the first one before you move on to the second one.

Amanda Holmes (01:23:52):

Yep.

Dan Henry (01:23:52):

Because it's, you know, if you can't, if you can't play good college ball, you're going to get crushed in the NBA. You wouldn't even go there, you know?

Amanda Holmes (01:24:00):

Niche to get rich, huh?

Dan Henry (01:24:02):

Yeah. And you know, now look, I mean, that's not to say you can't widen out later. I mean because that's where that's growth, right. That's where we all want to go. But the point is that if you ask yourself a question, why do you do this? Why is this so important to you? It sounds like you've worked with a lot of different people and you've solved a lot of different problems. But when you wake up in the morning and you say to yourself, well, this is why I'm getting up and still doing this and not why I'm doing something else. What is that reason?

Tad (01:24:31):

I think it's really where my talents meet a need in the world. So I know how many people struggle with their minds and how that's not actually necessary. And that there, there are ways that people can take control of

Dan Henry (01:24:47):

That important to you?

Tad (01:24:51):

Well, it's, I mean, definitely I have my own personal story with that as well. Overcoming that. And so yeah, I think, I think that's part of it.

Dan Henry (01:25:08):

And have you ever shared that story?

Tad (01:25:08):

I have, I have in my videos and groups and things like that.

Dan Henry (01:25:18):

So what, what's your, what's your favorite type of person to work with? What's where do you get the most fulfillment? When is it when you save a marriage, is it when you help a sales person make more sales, is it when you help a an entrepreneur who's depressed get over it so they can actually function at a high level? Where do you get the most fulfillment?

Tad (01:25:39):

Yeah, I would say that the ladder, like you said, somebody who maybe is successful, but they're not happy, like you said, or that type of thing.

Dan Henry (01:25:51):

Is the name of your company Depressed Success?

Tad (01:25:52):

What did you say?

Dan Henry (01:25:56):

Is the name of your company, Depressed Success?

Tad (01:25:57):

No.

Dan Henry (01:26:00):

You might want to go register that. I think that's a good, I mean, that's the first thing I thought of when you said that I'm like Depressed Success, you know? I mean that, that would be a great, or at least use it somehow. I mean, cause that's what you're talking about. Right. You're talking about people who become successful, but then there's this, this depression that comes with it and how do you maintain success? And then how do you like define success? And, you know, cause when, when we become successful, we get all messed up. You know, you think you messed up when you're poor. All you got to worry about when you're poor is paying the bills. That's it? It's actually a pretty simple life when you get rich, that's when you're like, oh, like now I understand what problems are. Okay. Not saying that, not getting kicked out of your home and all that is not a problem. It's a huge problem. But imagine you're responsible for 20 people that could get, get kicked out of their home. It's a different, I'm not saying it's higher or lower. I'm just saying it's different and it can be more complex, you know?

Amanda Holmes (01:26:52):

And you could also assist more people. If you're focusing on someone that has 20 staff, then there's another package there, right? For all of their team to have that as well. So you go after the leader decision maker and then they can train their entire organization on that. But it's a huge problem right now with COVID right. Everybody's walked out of COVID going, what am I doing with my life? 80% of employees are willing to leave their job right now and go to something that is less pay because they're wanting to feel fulfilled. There's a huge, the world stopped. Everyone slowed down and went, wow, I'm actually not happy with who I am.

Dan Henry (01:27:29):

Cause you got time to think about it? Cause everybody sat on their for eight months, not going anywhere. And they finally had time to think of it and then realized they didn't like themselves.

Amanda Holmes (01:27:37):

So that is crucial for you. You have a huge marketplace right now for businesses, for employees, for entrepreneurs, to be able to help them hone that because they know that mental, mental health is such a crucial thing right now. Especially after going through a pandemic, we're still in the middle of a pandemic, you know? Well, I just talked, I just talked to my friend. Well you live in Florida.

Dan Henry (01:28:05):

We try not to participate. You know, we try to sit it out, but I get what you're saying.

Amanda Holmes (01:28:11):

Well in Australia they're still locked up.

Dan Henry (01:28:12):

Huh? I know. I feel, gosh, I felt terrible for them. You have no idea. I have friends in Australia. I like my empathy sensors go. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but the point is, is that I think you should really, all you have to do is think about this one thing. How can I help someone achieve a result through my superpower? That just don't overthink it any and don't be like, be happy, right? It's way too wide. Find somebody a specific thing. I helped save a marriage. I helped, I mean, something really tangible, the more tangible you can go, especially when you're in it and any sort of personal development, unless you're Tony Robbins and you can just, you know, your way to billions you have to be specific.

Dan Henry (01:29:06):

I'm just saying you have, I love Tony by the way. I just, I just love making fun of the clap. But you know, you have to be specific and you have to pick a tangible, quantifiable end result. Something that can be quantified, not saying it's impossible to make money without doing that. I'm saying it's easier. And if you master that, you can move on and maybe you just sit there. But if you can quantify it right, if you can quantify the result through personal development, that is the easiest way to sell personal development. But if you can't, well, then you better have some infomercials that were aired for 30 years or something.

Amanda Holmes (01:29:42):

There's also the concept that maybe it's not you, that has to do it. Maybe you find somebody that's great at marketing, right? You don't have to be everything. It could be somebody else that assists you with that.

Dan Henry (01:29:54):

But you got, you gotta tell the marketer, you gotta tell the marketer what their marketing at the end of the day.

Tad (01:29:59):

Right.

Amanda Holmes (01:30:00):

Well, maybe someone could package you better than what you're doing yourself.

Dan Henry (01:30:02):

That's true. Yeah. That's true. That's true.

Tad (01:30:06):

Yeah, it sounds like you think I'm on the right track with focusing on entrepreneurs based on what we talked about or I feel like, like you said, there's a good market for that.

Dan Henry (01:30:15):

I mean, you just said entrepreneurs that super wide. I mean, w what are you helping entrepreneurs do?

Tad (01:30:23):

Yeah, I guess specifically with the online entrepreneurs

Dan Henry (01:30:27):

That's still an audience. What, what is the, what is the tangible result?

Tad (01:30:33):

It would be, I think it would be increased income and impact. I guess I'm not sure how to put a dollar amount to it.

Dan Henry (01:30:46):

No, no. Okay. Let, let, let's make a rule. We don't use the word impact. Okay. Because impact just means bullshit. It just means, right? So, so that is, that's see, that's called copy. Right? When you say, I want to help them make more impact and income, that's called copy. We're not talking about copyright. Now this is not marketing. This is not, we're talking about fundamentally what the blueprint for your business, for your company, for your message is copywriting comes later. Copywriting's how you from a fancy way, articulate what that blueprint is. Most people, when they try to come up with the idea for a product, they get stuck in copy. They immediately go to copywriting and they start thinking, well, it's got to sound really fancy and good for it to be good at it know, it can sound horrible and boring and stupid and mundane, as long as it makes sense, then the copywriting makes it sound not boring, not mundane. But at the end of the, The Four Hour Workweek, that the book is about outsourcing, it's an outsourcing book done.

Dan Henry (01:31:44):

We're done here. It's an outsourcing book. That's the, what the book is. It's a book on fricking outsourcing, that's it. But they called it the Four-Hour Workweek to make it appealing. We're not there yet. We're trying to find out what you're going to sell, what you're going to create, what offer you're going to make. So take copywriting out of it. I'm going to help, you know, increase, impact and income, blah, blah, blah, that's copywriting. What specifically, what tangible result are you going to get for what type of person? Okay. Online entrepreneurs right. Now, did you just pick that because it's, that's what everybody's doing or do you fundamentally have a place in your heart for online entrepreneurs?

Tad (01:32:23):

I think honestly, if I'm being honest, I'm thinking that I'm just trying to get started and I thought, oh, all right. I've gotten sort of advice from people that, oh, that could, you know, with your expertise in mindset would be a good place to go.

Dan Henry (01:32:40):

Okay, then don't do it. That's the worst thing you can do. If you just do something because you think it'll work or because it'll make money or because you think it's a good idea. When the first bump in the road happens, you're not going to be willing to get over it. You have to have just complete, un... Just the level of passion you have to have to see something through and to make it work. It has to be at a 10. It has to be a 10 out of 10, because if you don't have that passion, you won't work. This is why I don't worry about competitors because competitors that try to copy me, or, or how many times have you asked yourself, well, what about competitors? Right? How many times have you thought, well, what if somebody copies me? Well, here's why you don't worry about it.

Dan Henry (01:33:20):

Because if you're passionate about what you do, 99% of the people that copy you, they will not share your passion. So when they hit the very first bump in the road, they're not willing to go through it. You need to be willing to go through the pain, the muck, you need to be willing to do the hard thing and master the hard thing while everyone else is looking for the easy thing. And while they were doing that, and they were off in this fairy tale, bullshit land, where they were searching for this magical fairy dust that doesn't exist, you are busy getting good at the hard way. You are busy learning to love the pain. You were busy taking things that you didn't want to do, but you learn to love them anyway. As Mike Tyson says, a champion is somebody who learns love things that they hate.

Dan Henry (01:33:59):

That's what makes a champion, but you can't do that unless you have a passion for it. And you have a true passion. So when you say, I want to help online entrepreneurs, I better, there better be something traumatic that happened in your life that had to do with online entrepreneurs, where you just have this amazing soft spot for them. It shouldn't just be some coach, some bullshit online coach said you, one day, this is a good offer. You should do. You should, you know, don't do that, man. I mean, I'm telling you this because I've been there, been down that road. It's dark road. There's no street lights. There's nobody on the side of the corner besides some guy that probably is going to sell you meth. And that's it. It's a lonely dark road and it's not the road. You want to go down the road that's lit up that it's full of life. That's full of brightness that you feel good when you go down. And that's the road of passions, big street sign that says Passion Street. Okay, that's the road you want to go down. So, what I'm asking you is who do you fundamentally, deep down in your core love working with? When you get up in the, when you're old, you say to your children, I helped X, who is X? Who's the person that you absolutely at your core money aside, you feel so fulfilled to help. Who is that person?

Tad (01:35:13):

Yeah, I think it's I really thing like young adults, especially you know, like I mentioned with, with their mental health and finding confidence and finding direction.

Dan Henry (01:35:30):

Do you work with their parents?

Tad (01:35:31):

Those are the people that I love.

Dan Henry (01:35:32):

Do you ever work with their parents?

Tad (01:35:36):

Sometimes, I guess when I say young adults, you know, 18 to twenties.

Dan Henry (01:35:41):

Okay. So not like 13. Got it. I was going to say, cause to put the business side of it, to play devil's advocate to myself, 13 year olds don't have credit cards. So that's why I made it. It was idea work with their parents, but okay. 18 to 25. That's fine. And what do you, and so you do so, okay. So your audience might be 18 to 25, but they're trying to do something and what's holding them back is their mindset. You find the thing they're trying to do. You solve that, but you just solve it through mindset or mental health, right? That's, that's how you approach that. Because if you do it any other way, you're going to be back on the show in two years asking me the same freaking question, being honest with you being real,

Tad (01:36:21):

Right.

Amanda Holmes (01:36:22):

Well, so you, you had a practice for years. What, what did you do before this?

Tad (01:36:29):

Yeah, so I'm actually a therapist in private practice right now. And yeah, and before that, you know, I've worked in a lot of different settings. I worked in like hospitals and I've worked in.

Amanda Holmes (01:36:45):

Yeah. So I would, so online is everything that you're already doing offline. Right? So what gets the attention of people when you talk to them? When you look at their eyes, right? Somebody that's building copy online would love to have what you have, which is people coming to you on a daily basis, you can test with them. Okay. I would like he saying, who do you love to serve? I would go back and really think through who have been the best experiences I've ever had in my practice of the decades that I've worked in my practice, right? Who are the top five and what made them so wonderful, what made that difference and really reverse engineer to help you decide who you're going to target online. And then once you figured out who that is, then as they're coming into your office, right? Cause you have live demonstrations, look at their facial expressions, look at their body.

Amanda Holmes (01:37:38):

When you say, Hey, depression is up more than ever before. And I know that that's difficult for you. In school there's 500 guidance or 500 students per one guidance counselor. So students are not getting that support to know how to handle all of the things that are on your shoulders right now. Right? So seeing how do they react when you tell them that, does that land for them? Do they kind of just go, yeah, whatever. What grabs their attention since they're right in front of you test it. That is your testing ground to then bring it online. Right. You have the best option, which is people right in front of you.

Dan Henry (01:38:14):

Yeah. And keep in mind, you're on the spot right now on this live show. You don't got to decide this right now. Right. You're like, oh, what do I say? Like, you know what I mean? I get it, you know, this, you got to think through this, you gotta sit down and you gotta, you gotta think through it. And you gotta really ask yourself this, the first question that you come up with while you're on, you know, on, on a show, I mean, sit down and really think through it. I mean, if you just want to make money, that's a completely different conversation. But I generally, I don't know, I don't like to, to base my advice on just making money, you know? It's cause you'll make the most money when you have the passion behind it, you know? But does that, does that make sense, man? Does that help?

Tad (01:38:51):

Yeah, definitely. I'm trying. I want to find that place where we're both meet, you know, we're both are possible. That's not an either or

Dan Henry (01:38:58):

Yeah. Well, we'll make a list then. Make a list and pick through it, you know? I mean, I always say so actually, Amanda, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. So here's my little, little how to find your audiences in a nutshell. Right? Okay. So you find a problem that you can solve and then you find people that have that problem that don't annoy you. I'm serious. Like imagine you go to poker night, right? Right. So you have poker night. I don't know if you play poker, but say you have have poker night. Right? And let's say you're really into reading books. Okay. And everybody that you invite to poker night is, is like a, like a book nerd, you guys do a book readings, you're talking about books, right? So then your friend invites somebody. Who's like a, I don't know fricking crazy extreme sports person who like doesn't, you know, read books and she like grabs her snowboard and sticks it in the corner and sits down.

Dan Henry (01:39:56):

And like, maybe you guys are all like, I don't know. You're, you're all one side of the political spectrum. So you invite a friend that's on the complete other side. You're probably not going to have a nice time. Right? They're not going to have a nice time. You're not going to have a nice time. That's why you invite people to poker night. Cause poker night is supposed to be that time when you finally get to relax, you don't have to deal with the real world. You can just chill with your buddies. Or maybe this is maybe a guy thing. I don't know. But, but you know it, but you don't, the last thing you want to do at poker night is hang out with people that annoy you. Yeah. Right. So that's why I say like find people that have a problem that you can solve that don't annoy you, you know?

Amanda Holmes (01:40:32):

That's a great idea. I would just, cause I have the NLP in me is like, it's funny, it's more comical to say people that don't annoy you, but I would say people that fill you up. Right. So just change it. But you're hilarious.

Dan Henry (01:40:46):

Yeah. I can't say that, I'll let you say that. I gotta be the different one. So does that, does that make sense, brother?

Tad (01:40:56):

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Thank you guy, both. I really appreciate it. It's pretty, pretty nervous to come on, but definitely wanted to you know cause I'm just, you know it's been, yeah. It's been a bit of a struggle lately, you know? Not, not wanting to give up your, so I appreciate your time and expertise.

Dan Henry (01:41:13):

You're not failing. You know what did Thomas Edison say, I didn't fail 10,000 times. I just found 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb. You know, that's it, man. I mean, you, you know, failure is simply the data required for success. So right now you're already succeeding. You're just in the data gathering mode. And if you frame it that way and you redefine it that way, you're going to accomplish it, but it's all about the meaning that you give to it. So I think you're going to do great. You're qualified. You just got to find, you just got to find your thing that you're happy with. And you know, I used to give people advice. Advice based directly on what I think the market would respond to. And then I grew up a little bit and I realized that this is not helpful.

Dan Henry (01:41:55):

Like I got to tell them something that's really gonna resonate with them because they're just going to give up if they pick something that they don't have passion for. So I really hope this was helpful. And I totally understand about being nervous. I was on Clubhouse one time and Grant Cardone pulled me up to speak and I was nervous. I'm like, ah, crap. I hope I say something smart. And then I was talking and then he like cut me off. And like, you know, I was like, all right, well, you know, but I totally get it. I totally get it brother. So good luck to you man. And I'm sure you're absolutely gonna crush it. I mean, you know how many people go as far to even do what you've done and get the credential you've done and go that far and that deep in your industry and become a therapist? I mean, that's, you're, you're in the top 1% already. So you just got to push it a couple more decimal points.

Tad (01:42:44):

Sounds good. Thank you guys so much. I really appreciate it.

Dan Henry (01:42:45):

Awesome. Awesome. You want to take one more?

Amanda Holmes (01:42:50):

Always.

Dan Henry (01:42:51):

Okay. You don't get a pee yet, do you?

Amanda Holmes (01:42:52):

No, do you?

Dan Henry (01:42:53):

This is pee chicken. We play pee chicken on this show. So, last show, Eric who was on, in the middle of the show; it was hilarious. He's like, dude, can I go take a piss? And I was like, this is like a two hour show. That would make a lot of sense. By the way, strategically, it wasn't my manners, that's why there's no water out right now. That's why Brandon intentionally didn't put water out right now because he wanted to avoid that. But yeah, I call it pee chicken, who will have to go first, you know, so. But I'm currently the reigning champion, so we'll see, we'll see how this goes. But okay, so, oh, hold on. Where's my number here? 8 1 3-4 7 4-9 1 2 2. Do we have anybody in waiting Brandon or, or was that a?

Brandon (01:43:49):

No, nobody in waiting, but we had a couple of people ask for the number again, and there is a delay on the stream. So we just got to learn how to time that out and we'll be good.

Dan Henry (01:43:55):

Okay. Ah, that's what I was starting to think. No one was watching. Okay. 8 1 3-4 7 4-9 1 2 2. We'll take one more call in, as you can see, we're willing to go deep.

Brandon (01:44:13):

And please text that number guys. Don't try calling the number text in your question and then I'll go ahead and call.

Dan Henry (01:44:18):

Yes. Please text in your questions. So one more time. Let's take a; I just want to thank our sponsors, which is ourself. So if you'd like to get some, if you'd like, if you like this show and you want to have daily success mentoring five minute audio, every single day delivered right to your phone on the How To Think app, you can go to HowToThink.Com and sign up for our daily success mentoring. And we also have a business plan where you can get weekly business mentoring as well. And so I really would like to thank my sponsor. You're welcome. You're very welcome. You're, you're a scholar and gentlemen, sir. Thank you. So, all right. So I can't do the boring thing. I just can't.

Amanda Holmes (01:45:14):

That's what makes it entertaining, right? You know, when my father used to cold call, he would do it in different accents.

Dan Henry (01:45:23):

Really?

Amanda Holmes (01:45:25):

He would straight up. He would start doing like a Scottish accent or do it like John Wayne he'd like answer calls as John Wayne.

Dan Henry (01:45:32):

John Wayne? Can you do any of these?

Amanda Holmes (01:45:34):

Absolutely not.

Dan Henry (01:45:34):

Oh I; that is such a lie! You have, you have tried. I'm not saying that you did it as great as your dad. Look, I'm not as good of a radio voice as my father. My father has literally like a angelic yet, peanut butter thickness of a voice and I can't, I cannot match it. So, but I still, I still, I still do my best. You can't do any of your dad's impressions or your, your, your accents?

Amanda Holmes (01:46:02):

No, but I do know that to build rapport with people that are in other countries or that speak different languages, I usually learn something really funny in their language. And then I, and then I share it with them and it instantly builds a rapport. So that's kind of my difference.

Dan Henry (01:46:17):

So how do you, how do you as a Canadian, how do you build rapport with Americans? You're talking about the Kardashians or?

Amanda Holmes (01:46:23):

It doesn't work cause they also speak English, but thank you.

Dan Henry (01:46:26):

I just meant more contextually.

Amanda Holmes (01:46:28):

Okay. So like when I was in Africa, right. Climbing and the Africans looks so depressed as they were climbing up, they had these big bags on cause they were carrying all the weight. So I learned [inaudible]. Which means what's up brother, like a banana in the fridge.

Dan Henry (01:46:42):

What?!

Amanda Holmes (01:46:42):

Anytime I meet anybody that speaks Swahili, they laugh so freaking hard.

Dan Henry (01:46:52):

Yeah. The fact that you would even know that.

Amanda Holmes (01:46:54):

Yeah. You learn it in every language. So everyplace I go.

Dan Henry (01:46:57):

I would be too scared to say that.

Amanda Holmes (01:46:58):

Well, so in Spanish, I know sacapuntas, cacahuetes and Estados Unidos, which is like pencil sharpener, cashews and United States. Right? It just builds rapport instantaneously. So I don't do

Dan Henry (01:47:17):

You intentionally say something that's nonsense?

Amanda Holmes (01:47:19):

Totally random, really hilarious. And they laugh. And instantly you feel like you're friends. This is how I've gotten traveled around the world and made friends with people in every different corner.

Dan Henry (01:47:29):

I'm going to steal that hack and I will give you full credit. I'll just, I'll be like, this is why I sound like an idiot. Amanda Holmes told me to do this.

Amanda Holmes (01:47:38):

Okay.

Brandon (01:47:40):

All right, guys, we do have an Alex from Michigan on the line. Do you guys want to take this call?

Dan Henry (01:47:44):

Yeah. Yes, please. Yeah. We'll take Alex, Alex from Michigan.

Brandon (01:47:48):

All right, Alex, you are on.

Alex (01:47:51):

What's up guys. I had I had a question because I would really, really love to start a business, but I felt that there were certain success blocks that were holding me back. And so I had purchased the course so that maybe I could get over those success blocks before I could begin a business. How important do you feel that that is to like get rid of your, your success blocks before you jump in and start trying to, you know, help other people with their problems? Cause, cause I would love to help people in the future that have that same issue, get over it and, and have that success. It's just, I don't know, my blocks are something I need to handle 1000% first before, you know, helping others.

Dan Henry (01:48:38):

So let me just, let me just clarify the question. You're saying that you, you want to start a business, but you have some blocks, you have some success blocks. And so you're working through that. Your whatever it is, buying a course tending you, getting a coach, tending, whatever it is, you're working on that. And you're saying that eventually you want to create a product that does that thing. And you're asking yourself, should you create it now? Or when's the right time to create it because you're obviously still working on it with yourself. Is that, is that the question?

Alex (01:49:09):

Right? Exactly. Like, like I've learned some things like that already. Like I know some things that could help people, but like, do you feel it's super important that I 1000% make sure that I'm like over all that before I begin the course?

Dan Henry (01:49:30):

I mean, I know my answer to this. Do you do, do you have a...

Amanda Holmes (01:49:33):

This just isn't normally my world, which is interesting and I have kind of strong feelings about it, which is interesting.

Dan Henry (01:49:39):

So do I. Let's trade perspective, Brandon, give me a sales question.

Amanda Holmes (01:49:44):

But I'm happy to like

Dan Henry (01:49:47):

You go ahead and share and then, and then I'll, I'll share.

Amanda Holmes (01:49:51):

So there's just a lot online today that says here, let me train you on something that I've never done. Right. And that's difficult. So you want to make sure it's things that you've done. Right. And if you haven't done them, then go and do them. Right. Or even modeling a master. So many people ask me, oh, how do you run a coaching company? Or how do I be a coach? Well, my response is go work for a company like mine. We have 300 certified coaches in that have been trained in the Ultimate Sales Machine Methodology. Right. Learn from somebody that's already knocking it out of the park, do the due diligence and then do it. So if you're still wondering, do I have something, am I expertise enough, become the expert where you're confident about it. And then you can share that. Right. And it's okay if you're not starting your business right off. It that's, that's my own personal opinion coming from a coaching company, right? Where all of our coaches have been business owners for decades and you know.

Dan Henry (01:50:56):

So, so I think that's an amazing perspective and you're absolutely right. There's too many coaches out there that don't know what they're doing. I totally agree. However, I don't necessarily think, I think it's the real issue here if I may, because it sounds like you really want to serve, you really want to help people and your heart is close to this because you are experiencing it. Am I correct so far?

Alex (01:51:21):

Right. I have that feeling of like, I can do so much and I have so much potential, but like I feel stunted. And you know, I realized that because, because I had bought like a course about, you know, making money, but I, but I was like, I have something that's like holding me back and, and I need to get over all, all of that so that I can have that success that I know, you know, I deserve, you know? And, I would love to get people out of that as well. It's just, you know, I don't know. I don't want to have that feeling of, I'm not experienced enough in this to, you know give people advice because, cause I do feel like I can help people.

Dan Henry (01:52:02):

Okay. So here's the thing, what it sounds like is you, the question basically what it boils down to is do I have the confidence to do this and should I have the confidence to do this? Because at the end, like, first of all, understand that, you know, you should never say to yourself, well, because I'm not the ultimate master at this I can not serve. I'm not saying you should say yourself, I learned this 10 seconds ago, I should be able to serve. What I'm saying is that, you know, personal development or anything, it's sort of like a stock. It goes up a bit and then it goes down, it goes up a bit more and then it goes down, it goes up a bit more and then it goes down. So let's, let's say you're dealing with an anger problem. And as life goes by, you get a little bit better at it.

Dan Henry (01:52:48):

But then a challenging event happens and you crash just like a stock price crash is when a challenging event happens. If you get down on yourself about that, well, your stock will crash harder. But if you say, you know what, this is just a dip. Just like it is in a stock and you don't sell, you go up. And over time, yeah, you might go up and down and up and down. But the overall trend is an upward direction. That's true Self-Improvement because nobody is going to constantly get better and only better. They're going to go up and they're going to go down. They're going to have spikes and they're going to have crashes. It's how you deal with the crashes and the dips that dictates the overall trend in which you go. So I'm not saying that if you're in a dip, that means you shouldn't do what you're doing.

Dan Henry (01:53:36):

That's not what I say. However, and this is my personal view on confidence. I don't believe you can build confidence. Anybody that tells you that you can build confidence, in my opinion is full of shit. You can only build competence because confidence comes from competence. So if you want to build confidence, you build competence and as a complete by-product, that's where you get your confidence. If you get into a boxing ring and you've never boxed a day in your life and the other man at the end of that ring is professional boxer. Or even, even an amateur boxer. And you're like, oh my gosh, I don't have confidence. That's that? That doesn't mean you have a confidence problem. It means you're not an idiot because you're going to get knocked out because you don't know how to box. But if you trained every day and you learn how to box and then you got in there and you had confidence, it's because you build competence. And if you've trained everyday and you were good at boxing and you got in there and you still felt like you, you would lose well, the, now you have a confidence issue. And now it's not about building more confidence about understanding the competence that you have. And so if you say to yourself, when's the right time for me to teach this? When's the right time for me to help people with this? It's simple. It's when you build enough competence to create the confidence you need to where you no longer have to ask the question.

Alex (01:54:58):

Right.

Dan Henry (01:54:59):

That makes sense?

Alex (01:55:01):

I love that. Yeah, it does. As far as what Amanda was saying, how do you feel until I'm ready to start something of my own? What would you recommend to find opportunities that can help serve under somebody else until that competence is built? Just so you can kind of get immersed in and everything and it still be helpful, but you know, not not jumping into?

Amanda Holmes (01:55:26):

Well, the masters absolutely modeling the masters. So find somebody that's doing something that you're really amazed by and find a way to work for them. Heck worked for them for free at the beginning, if you, whatever it takes to get in the door, find those people that have already mastered it so that you can there faster.

Alex (01:55:43):

Okay, awesome. Thanks guys.

Dan Henry (01:55:43):

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So that was fun.

Amanda Holmes (01:55:57):

Oh my gosh. The longest podcast I've ever done!

Dan Henry (01:56:00):

I know, I'm like that I'm like that. Listen, you know, I think here's the, here's the thing. I think that a lot of times, you know, whether it's a podcast or whatever, you know, you delve into just one topic, one thing, and you know, you, just explore that one thing. And I always say, you know, you got to explore what really makes a person tick and the different things that make them tick, you know? And the different things that make up who they are, what they care about, what their, their core values are, because that shapes how we view things, you know? And I don't ever try to judge anybody, right? Like, I don't care what you do. I don't care if you do, what you're into, you can be in anything, right.

Dan Henry (01:56:52):

As, as long as, you know, you're constantly, whatever that thing is, if you're using that as a way to achieve the highest version of yourself, I mean, that's all that matters, you know? For some people it's this for some people it's that, but at the end of the day, if you're always trying to grow and you're always trying to figure out better ways of thinking, because look, you know I just got, you know, I got a text from somebody that says, oh, you, you know, when you started talking about marijuana and drugs, you lost a bunch of people. I don't give a. Okay? And here's why I was at the, I was at a, I was at a conference, well we at the same conference.

Amanda Holmes (01:57:33):

Yeah.

Dan Henry (01:57:34):

And you know, somebody comes up to me and they say, ah, Dan, you know, you, you know, I've been at this conference, this is my third year.

Dan Henry (01:57:43):

And I still haven't launched my company. I still haven't launched my website, but I'm almost there. What was your secret? Right? Like what, what did you do? What is your, you know, routine and that dah, dah, dah. And I was like, dude, I was like, first of all, I was like, I was stoned the whole time I built my stuff. Like, what's your problem? You know what I mean? Like, but I said it jokingly, like to basically say like, don't overthink it. Right? You know, like, don't, don't overthink it. You know, like it's, and I wasn't, I was drinking coffee. But I was just messing with him, but I was like, you know, I was like, so, so when you really want to drive yourself to do something and you have a goal and you're asking yourself like, okay, how do I get motivated?

Dan Henry (01:58:27):

Cause, cause to me, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. To me, there's three key metrics to being successful, right? It's motivation, confidence, and focus. Think of that time in your life where achieved something great. All three things were present. You were motivated, you were confident and you were focused. If you lack one of the, one of those things, those three things, aren't there at a high level in unison. You're not gonna be able to do it. Now. You could say, well, what about growth? And all that, well, that all falls within that. You know, if you're focused on something you're going to grow, if you're motivated, do it, you're going to grow. If you're confident in what you're doing, you're going to grow. You know what I mean? So it really is, is, you know, if a car, if its engine is all gunked up and it's not going to move, you know, it's gotta be optimal to be clean.

Dan Henry (01:59:21):

And when a human being, when the human mind is motivated, it's confident and it is focused. It can, whatever the goal is, it can achieve it. So to me, the goal should always be to maintain a high level of confidence, a high level motivation and a high level of focus. And then whatever the goal is, however you define success, you know, whatever success looks like to you, regardless if it's family, money, recognition, whatever, if you have those three things and they're present, and they're at a high level, you will be able to achieve that a lot easier than if they weren't. I would love to hear your, your take on that.

Amanda Holmes (01:59:54):

So we practice the same thing. My father called it, pigheaded discipline, and determination. You know what he wanted the title of this book to be? The Pigheaded Executive Wins Everytime. And Penguin, went nobody will buy that book. And he's like, it's all through the book. How could it not be The Pigheaded Executive Wins Everytime? They're like, it's going to be the Ultimate Sales Machine. And he's like, how could you dare call my book, a sales machine? I talk about marketing. I talk about time management. I talk about effective meetings. I talk about, you know, presentations and follow up. How could you just say, it's a sales machine? And they're like, now this'll sell your pigheaded won't.

Dan Henry (02:00:34):

This sound, the sounds, it sounds like it would get along very famously with your father. And then someone would probably, in my career, I've been given the same type of advice. Dan, you can't call it the Stoner's Guide to Success. You can't do that. Nobody's going to buy that. A bunch of realtors who are watching are going to get offended, and they're going to leave the live like that. You know, like, no, like, I, yeah, I can I definitely see that.

Amanda Holmes (02:00:59):

When people read this, there's so many amazing pieces page by page. But the biggest takeaway that I hear most often is that one thing, pigheaded discipline and determination. So I would say that that's similar to your three things.

Dan Henry (02:01:14):

And it's, it's it's I love it though. Pig-Headed determination. I mean, it's, it's, it's true because some people just will not let things fail. They just it's like, no, I'm not going to do it. It's not going to fail. I'm just not going to let it fail. You know? And the second that you let, let that get in your mind that it could that's when you've failed, you know? You have to maintain that unwavering belief in commitment that it's not going to fail. And if it does, it's not even defined as failure. You're just found another way not to succeed, you know? There was a, there's a quote that is by very, very, a man I respect a lot. And I think that, you know, it also ties into this. It, the quote is believe it was maturity is when you see

Amanda Holmes (02:02:10):

Maturity is all, when all your windows

Dan Henry (02:02:13):

And mirrors

Amanda Holmes (02:02:15):

Turned into windows.

Dan Henry (02:02:15):

Yes, yes. When all your, when all your mirrors turn into windows. Yeah. Now I believe your father said that.

Amanda Holmes (02:02:23):

Well, he's quoting Henry Thoreau, but it's one of his favorite quotes.

Dan Henry (02:02:28):

Well he said it so much that he owned it.

Amanda Holmes (02:02:29):

So much as a child. I heard it so many times.

Dan Henry (02:02:33):

Well, then, then I need to ask you what it means to you, because if you it's been ingrained in your brain a thousand times, what does it mean? Like, what does that mean to you?

Amanda Holmes (02:02:42):

I mean, I think of like, when he would take me to business meetings and we'd all be sitting around the table and the, the, it was almost as if it was a game of how many questions can we ask the person at the table? How can we better know the person? How do we understand how they tick and what makes them excited and what makes them passionate? So it wasn't about us talking about, you know, this is what I do. It's about really understanding the person sitting in front of you. So yeah, when you take me back to my father saying that, I think of, of those times we almost made it a game, you know, until it became habitual, where you just want to understand the people around you and help them.

Dan Henry (02:03:23):

So, so we're coming up on your right, the longest podcast ever. Let me ask you something. And we'll, we'll end here. With Chet Holmes International, with what you guys do, where, where are you going? You know, it's an amazing company. I know that you work with a lot of people, you offer coaching you help increase sales you help teach those 12, the 12 pillars, or as you called it the 12...

Amanda Holmes (02:03:54):

Core Competencies.

Dan Henry (02:03:55):

And so who would benefit from that? And is that, you know, where are we going to see, because you've already, I mean, you've already doubled your company over and over again. I mean, this is a two part question. Number one, what inside your brain, your mind drove you fundamentally to be able to double that? Somebody who came in who didn't even know what a fricking merchant account was, as you said before. I mean, how do you go from not knowing what a merchant account is to doubling sales year after year? Not on a tactical level, but on a high strategic level and as well, what is the next thing? You know, because I mean, if a company wants to increase their sales, right, what kind of company would work with you?

Amanda Holmes (02:04:48):

Okay. You've asked so many questions here.

Dan Henry (02:04:51):

I'm trying to get it in because we're ending. So I just wanna, you know, I just wanna, I just wanna make sure that I truly understand what makes you tick.

Amanda Holmes (02:04:58):

Yeah, I, so at the very beginning, knowing my father's principles, I learned them like everyone else, I picked up this book, I read it a million times over. I watched his videos over and over and over and over again, because mastery isn't about doing 4,000 different things, right? If you just refine those few skill sets, then you'll get better and better and better. Right? We have clients that have done the dream 100 and grown 40% year over year for a decade. They went from six figures to eight figures because they just refined how they get their dream clients, right? Time management. Time management, secrets of billionaires, majority of people do not manage their time appropriately. It's absurd. The billionaires have the same 24 hours in a day. It's just, they're working smarter at their time rather than harder. Right. So I had this framework of what to focus on, but then there was also the piece of what I've learned from my guru, which is who am I? What makes me tick? How do I differentiate myself from my father and really come from that place of what do I want for my company? So the framework of how to build a company, and then the framework of me as an individual and what makes me tick. I think those combination helped me.

Dan Henry (02:06:09):

So once you knew you, then you could do you.

Amanda Holmes (02:06:14):

Yeah. It's still a process. Knowing you is many layers, but I've done a lot to better understand that.

Dan Henry (02:06:20):

So, so, so if anybody listening, who, you know, has read the book or thought about working with you guys, I would say this, if I, if I could sum up what you're saying, is that right now in business, especially in like online business, every time a company has a problem, they do the same thing. They look for another option. They look for another method, a new way. Not because that's, what's going to solve the problem because it makes them feel good because when you start fresh on something, well, now it's okay to fail initially because you know, it's new and I'll just go to the new thing. It's just easy. And I just see the new thing that feels good, but to double down on the thing that isn't working, just because you haven't mastered it, that's a, that's a harder pill to swallow. And the fact that you said that, you know, you've helped your clients go from six figures to high six figures, to seven figures, to eight figures.

Dan Henry (02:07:10):

And it wasn't about learning new tactics necessarily. It was about going deep on the mastery of the core fundamental tactics that you, that you do know. I mean, the Dream 100, the, which is one of your 12. I mean, that is something that if done well, I mean, I know companies that make that their primary method of acquisition and while everybody else is like, well, I sent a piece of mail to somebody and I didn't get a response. So I'm going to go over here and try to grow my Instagram and know, buy some shout out followers. You know, it's like, dude, you know, like you, you sent out one or two pieces of mail. And so I believe the right person, if correct me, if I'm wrong, the right person to work with you guys is somebody who understands that if they work with the best, then they can achieve a level of mastery in something that has worked will always work.

Dan Henry (02:07:59):

It will continue to work and they don't need to play in the shiny object room. And just, you know, one day they wake up and they're in a nursing home and they're still trying to figure out how to grow their company. And it's not a good nursing home. It's one of those nursing homes where the orderlies beat you, you know? And cause you couldn't afford the nicer one, you know, with the, with the, like the golf carts. And it's a, it's a real thing, you know, but that's the reality of things is, is when you don't hit your goals, I mean, you look,

Amanda Holmes (02:08:27):

I can give some market data.

Dan Henry (02:08:29):

What's what kind of market data.

Amanda Holmes (02:08:31):

95% of businesses never make above a million in annual sales. Of that 1.5% make it to five mil. And of that 0.004% ever make it to a hundred million and beyond.

Dan Henry (02:08:43):

So give me that last stat again,

Amanda Holmes (02:08:45):

.004% ever make it to a hundred million and beyond.

Dan Henry (02:08:50):

And do you think that 0.004% did that by constantly looking for a new way to market or by doubling down?

Amanda Holmes (02:08:58):

The point to get from a million to five, from five to 10, from 10 to a hundred takes a different skillset every step of the way. What brought you, so a lot of people, maybe they can strong arm them their way to a million, but to get from 1 million to 5 million takes a different skill set. Right? But it's all within what we've proven of the 12 core competencies, right?

Dan Henry (02:09:22):

Do you need to master all 12?

Amanda Holmes (02:09:23):

Usually it's just one that will help you double your sales, but it's finding which of the 12 it is and then diving deep on it.

Dan Henry (02:09:31):

Awesome. Awesome. So where can people go to, to learn more about these 12 core competencies besides the book, which if you don't have the book, my God get the book, let me see the book. It's red.

Amanda Holmes (02:09:43):

UltimateSalesMachine.Com. You can actually get chapter four for free.

Dan Henry (02:09:47):

You can't miss it. It's you know how like you go to a stop sign that, you know why they make them red? So that you don't miss it. The books red, you can't miss it. Go get the book.

Amanda Holmes (02:09:57):

I could also, I would recommend ChetHolmes.Com. ChetHolmes.Com has, we have three videos that help you double your sales in one hour a week. So,

Dan Henry (02:10:06):

Wow. Well now I want to go watch the videos. So Amanda, thank you for coming on here and putting up with me.

Amanda Holmes (02:10:16):

We had a great time. We went through a rabbit hole, I'm looking forward to seeing what comments came from this.

Dan Henry (02:10:21):

Oh yeah. I await to see the comments after and see how, how many people like freaked out or, or no longer follow me or but I, I like to have fun with this, you know, I don't like to do this as I like to Zig when they zag. So but it sounds like you can appreciate that. So this was so much fun and I hope it was a little bit more entertaining for you than your normal podcast.

Amanda Holmes (02:10:48):

Oh it was great. I saw, I was doing market data recently. Again, I'm research firm, right? 80% of people that listen to podcasts listen to majority of them. And the average podcast is 43 minutes long. So you have the brilliant strategy here of like, yes, I can keep people for two hours. I bet I can. And I know that you can, and knowing that you'll keep them majority of the way is speaking to your brilliance. So good job.

Dan Henry (02:11:11):

Well, I, hopefully I can live up to that. I'll have to check the stats. I hope she was right. We'll see.

Amanda Holmes (02:11:20):

Time will tell.

Dan Henry (02:11:21):

Yeah. Well, I mean, and look, if I, you know, if I go down a bunch of roads and I look at the stats and the retention that goes down, I just won't turn down those roads anymore. I'll just go down this. I'll go this way. You know, thank you so much for coming on. ChetHolmes.Com and get the fricking book. Get the book. If you haven't read the book, get the book, get the book, you know, and then go to ChetHolmes.Com or do both. Go to ChetHolmes.Com while you're waiting for the book. Thank you again so much for coming on. I appreciate it.

Amanda Holmes (02:11:49):

I don't think I can reach you. It's like E.T.

Dan Henry (02:11:51):

I know I gotta, I need to get a shorter table. I learned this very quickly. So we'll figure it out. Thank you so much for coming on. We need to do it again.

Amanda Holmes (02:12:02):

I love it.

Dan Henry (02:12:03):

All right. Maybe I'll stop by your place in Clearwater. I don't know. We'll see. I'm not committing. I'm not committing. I'm not committing, but.

Brandon (02:12:11):

What if I go with you, Dan?

Dan Henry (02:12:12):

Oh, see. Now, see peer pressure. Now you're just giving me peer pressure. Oh boy. Ah, maybe we'll see. We'll see if we do then I definitely have to have you back on. I might be sitting here in a robe praying, and I'm just messing No, I could see where it would be an incredibly life-changing experience. And I also, where can they go to learn more about that? I think that's important too.

Amanda Holmes (02:12:38):

DivineBlissInternational.Org and divine spelt with an I. D I V I N E.

Dan Henry (02:12:43):

All right, Amanda. Thank you so much.

Amanda Holmes (02:12:45):

Thank you.

The Woman I'm No Longer Pretending to Be