Cut Through the Crap, Become Who You Need to Be, and Achieve Your Goals With Dan Martell

Dan Martell is a Canadian Entrepreneur and most recently, the founder of Clarity.fm. He’s an experienced Angel Investor who has invested in over 23 tech start-ups. Prior to Clarity, Dan was the co-founder of Flowtown (Acquired 11′), founder of Spheric Technologies (Acquired 08′). He has also been a mentor at 500Startups, GrowLabs & theC100.org.

Favorite Success Quote

“Become the person who can deal” ~Dan Martell

Key Points

1. If You Want to Be a Millionaire You Have to Handle Million Dollar Problems

Everyone wants to be a millionaire…

But the problem is that most people aren’t able to handle million dollar problems.

They want the outcome without the action. They want the reward without responsibility. 

And this approach never works.

Just take lottery winners for example.

They immediately come into a windfall of cash with millions, sometimes tens of millions of dollars, but they never did a damn thing to earn that money.

And five years after their success, studies have shown that they are often worse off than before they won.

Why?

Because their character didn’t backup their success.

You have to earn what you want. If you want to become a millionaire, then you must become the kind of person who can provide millions of dollars of value and handle millions of dollars worth of problems.

And quite frankly… Most of you reading this can’t.

Yet…

So go and focus on developing yourself and becoming the type of person who can handle the challenges and can provide the requisite value to achieve your goals.

Because when you go after your goals with this mindset, success becomes all but inevitable.

2. Own It!

I’m going to let you in on a little secret here… Shit happens.

Life can be chaotic, things will not work out, businesses will fail, lovers will leave you, friends will turn on you… Shit just happens.

And I’ll let you in on another little secret… It’s ok!

Failure and frustration are an integral part of life, it’s not a question of if it will happen to you but how you will respond when it does.

If you are like most people, you will try to pin the blame on someone else, you will deny the reality of your problems, and you will avoid addressing the situation until the last possible minute.

But since you are listening to this podcast, you aren’t like most people.

And therefore, you must own your problems.

When shit happens… OWN IT.

When a business fails, a girlfriend walks out, a friend gets angry, own the problem, own your part in the problem, and figure out what you can do moving forward to ensure that it never happens again.

3. Be Grateful for All You Have 

150 years ago, if you wanted to go to Canada, you would have been forced to travel for months on end and risk death or serious injury.

Today, you can fly there in a matter of hours.

100 years ago, if you wanted the information that we give away for free on this podcast, you would have had to track down each guest individually, convince them to speak with you, and then pick their brain for an hour or more (or at the very least found one of their books).

Today… It’s only a mouse click away.

You have a lot to be grateful for.

We live in an age of unprecedented opportunity, ease, and access and 99% of the things that you take for granted on a daily basis would have dropped our ancestor’s jaws to the floor.

We don’t have to hunt… We go to the grocery store.

Most of us no longer work hard physical labor, we work at a cushy desk.

And if we want to get somewhere, we can tap a button on our phone and have our own personal chafeur show up to our home in under 10 minutes!

You have a lot to be grateful for.

So starting today, be fucking grateful!

Write down three things that you are grateful for each and every day and never lose sight of who you are and just how lucky you are to be alive in this day and age.

4. Be Yourself and Put it Out There 

If you look at the most successful entrepreneurs in 2017, from the Tim Ferriss’s to the Grant Cardone’s to the Gary Vaynerchucks, you will notice one consistent factor.

They are all completely and unapologetically themselves.

They don’t care what other people think they don’t care who they offend, they show up in the world authentically and they put it out there for others to see.

And if you want to create lasting success, you must do the same.

Be who you are.

Don’t apologize for it, and don’t ask permission for it.

Be who you are and share it with the world.

Some will love you, some will hate you, some won’t care and that’s ok.

As long as you are living authentically and sharing your gifts and talents with the world, at the end of the day you can call yourself a success.

5.Think About The Long Game 

In a society built upon instant gratification, you must be a man focused on the long game.

Don’t look at the 1-5 year impact of your decisions, instead ask yourself, “What are the ramifications of this decision 20 years from now?”

Because here’s a simple fact, 20 years from now you will arrive… The question is “Where”.

Will you arrive in style because you were patient, played the long game, learned, grew, and invested?

Or will you arrive chasing yet another shiny object because you lacked the discipline and the long term focus to make things work?

The choice is yours.