5 Lessons Learned While Running Two Marketing Agencies Overseas | 8 Figure Agency Show Episode 54

Speaker A: I'm not stressing and sweating about losing this client.

Speaker B: There's 500 more clients.

Speaker A: Yep.

Speaker B: We're often like, oh, I don't. We.

Speaker A: There's only this much.

Speaker B: There's only this many. Are we going to be able to grow? I'm like, guys, we don't even have 1% of the market of Dennis. Not even 1%. Wow. Uh, yes, we can grow.

Speaker A: Welcome back to a brand new episode of the eight Figures Agency show. We're a successful entrepreneur and a soon to be successful entrepreneur. Help you with the Nate figure agency by documenting our successes and our failures. And Gary, it's been quite a while since we filmed. I'm officially back in the States. I've got a little office set up back here and actually got a standing desk now, which this has been amazing. Productivity's through the roof. Standing up.

Speaker B: Yeah. Wait till you start walking.

Speaker A: Oh, man, I can't level.

Speaker B: I can't even. My, uh, my business partner, his treadmill broke recently and he was just like, I can't even work anymore without walking. And I'm that way too. I walk all day. So, no, I can't wait.

Speaker A: I can't wait. Plus, he burned so many calories. It's really good. It's really, really great.

Speaker B: It's a win, win, win.

Speaker A: Productivity's through the roof. But, hey, really excited about this episode because right now what I want to do is we want to give a quick recap episode of the last kind of six months of what I've been going through. Building two agencies. I now have two marketing agencies. A company called Mirror Media Marketing, which is my first company at a company called Odyssey Media Group, which it's insane for me to even say that, but the last six months have been a wild ride because for those of you who aren't familiar, I've stayed in New Zealand for the past six months, away from my family, not in my home, without my setups.

Speaker B: Different time zones. Um, than all of your clients. Yeah.

Speaker A: Wild, wild. And the exciting part about this, Gary, and for everybody listening is I learned so much and I went through so much hardship and so much failures on the business front, on the personal front. And today what I want to do is chat through it with you, Gary, share some of these lessons I've done. I've got five lessons and one bonus lesson that I think people are going to really resonate with and find valuable here today that I have learned through trial and error, through a ton of failure. And today I want to talk about them.

Speaker B: Let's do it.

Speaker A: Man, absolutely. So today, the five things we're going to cover are not being able to build Roman a day. And I'll explain what that is. The concept of essentialism, the concept that the business is not a reflection of yourself. The concept of an abundance mindset. And the fifth one is the importance of prioritizing yourself in order to make everything else in your life fall into place. And I have one secret bonus, one I'll share later. With that said, let's dive into the first one. Gary, what are your thoughts when I say the statement, you can't build Roman a day?

Speaker B: There's nothing good that you're going to be able to build in a day. Right. So if anything that you could build in one day, then that means other people could build it in one day, and it's going to be super competitive and messy, and no one's going to want to do it. So anything. The way I phrase that, I don't use that term, build Roman a day. I think it's a great term, but I think of it as, um, anything that's valuable is going to be hard. Anything that's valuable is going to be hard. There's nothing that's valuable that's easy.

Speaker A: I love that so much. Uh, because one thing for me, a common trend over the last six months for me and my now business partner is, man, we're so impatient. We're so impatient. We do something and we're like, where is the result? Even though it's been like 24 hours, and it's like, hey, you just have to do that same boring thing for, like, the next six months and then look at the result.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, and so one thing that has been a constant reminder for me is that, like, we just keep saying to ourselves, we can't build Roman a day. And what it really means is patience. The last six months have taught me the concept of patience, how, like, all good things take time. And I went in there often trying to rush things, often having this sense of urgency. And, uh, I think, uh, I'd love your opinion on this. I don't think there's anything wrong with having urgency to accomplish, to do things. In fact, I think urgency motivates us to keep moving forward and make progress faster. But I think where people make the mistake and where I made the mistake is I expected massive results. Millions in, like, 90 days. And it's like, what, like, you can't build Rome in a day.

Speaker B: Yeah. So there's. So there's a couple of things, couple of frameworks. That, uh, will help you out with this, number one, is that this never goes away. And huh, here's how it manifests itself in the future. So my business partner and I have these talks all the time and we are really bad at celebrating wins because so we'll finally get to our goal a year and a half later, right? So we're like, finally we got to 18 million, you know, and we thought we were gonna hit it last year and we didn't. We hit it this year or whatever it may be. What uh, what that manifests itself in is ungratefulness. It, from a perception standpoint, it looks like you're ungrateful because you're never celebrating your win. So we actually need people to help us celebrate wins constantly. Because by the time when I set a goal, and it's going to take a year or two years to reach it, by the time I reach it, I've already set my new goal and that's old news. I already visually saw that I was going to get there. And so I'm like, when we finally hit it, I'm like, I don't. I literally, like, I just. We made the inc. I'll give you a perfect example. I made the inc 5000 list for the third time in a row. And you want to know what I said? Stupid. I, I didn't hit any of my goals that I wanted to hit. I, I'm, I'm upset. I almost don't even want to accept a reward, right? Like, I almost want to just be like, I'm not taking it now. That comes off as very ungrateful though, doesn't it? It's almost like, Gary, what are you talking about? If as, as other people hear that. So you have to really pause and learn to be thankful for the things that you have and celebrate your wins, even if you have to ask for help in that area. That's number one. Number two is that growth has two elements, the two emotions tied to it. There has to be urgency and there has to be, um, uh, uh, you have to be uncomfortable if it doesn't. If it's not uncomfortable and there's no urgency, then it's not, you're not going to grow. It's just the way that it works. So think about going to the gym. If you bench, you know, uh, 2,25 and you can get 10 reps on it and you want to go, you want to, you want to up your, your, your bench press, you have to add more weight and you have to do it quickly. Like you're not going to set a two year goal to up your bench press. Right. Like you're going to be like, hey, over the next month I want to see some growth in this number. And then you also, you. So you have to have urgency. You have to have a timeline on it. And then it should be uncomfortable, it should hurt you as you start to rep out these, these heavier weights. It should cause pain. And if it doesn't, you're not doing it right. You are, uh, 100% doing it wrong. So I always remind myself that is that urgency and uncomfortableness are part of the game.

Speaker A: That is another lesson. I honestly forgot to, I forgot to write that one down. But it's a big one. I've learned is that growth is uncomfortable. And oftentimes I would go through weeks, sometimes months of complete uncomfort. Like just massive, massive levels of uncomfort. And I would think I have to like something is wrong. I would think I have to like fix something. But that's a big realization. I think it'll help a lot of people. Like when, typically when you're uncomfortable, something's not wrong most of the time. Right. Um, it's good. It means you're growing. I actually really like that when you put it into the framework of like, you know, you can't build Roman a day. Wow, that's great perspective. It's like not only do you need to be patient, but it's going to be hard. It's going to be uncomfortable if you. You know, this is actually interesting. This is a saying we've been propagating towards this a lot. Alex. We heard it from Alexi. This is what hard feels like. I'm not sure if you've heard that from him or not, Gary, but we really like that whenever things are hard or uncomfortable, we always remind ourselves this is what hard feels like and this is what we've signed up for. I find that really valuable.

Speaker B: Yep, yep. This is what I love to do. Like if it's not hard, I won't want to do it. Right. Like if it was super easy and I just handed you whatever your end goal was and I just gave it to you, be like it wouldn't be fulfilling. You would set a new goal immediately. That would be ten times harder. So you have to remind yourself of that when the bad times come.

Speaker A: Yep. No, that's huge. And funnily enough, it kind of transitions really well into our next point here, Gary, which is this. This is the thing. A lot of people think that they can accomplish multiple goals at One time especially, you know me, I have two businesses. Like, it's just this crazy thing, right? And then one really overarching lesson that I've learned is the concept of essentialism. Have you heard the word essentialism before?

Speaker B: Essentialism. I know what essential is. I've never heard it put as essentialism.

Speaker A: Yeah, so essentialism is, it's this frame of mind, is this, this, this concept, uh, that in life, in order to make massive progress and to actually succeed on a massive scale, you have to practice, um, this concept of focusing on one main rock in your life at one time. So, for example, one, one rock might be work and business.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: I want to hit a million dollars mrr in 18 months. Right. In order to do that, you can't also say, and I want to be under a hundred pounds and I want to spend this much time with the family. Now, let me be really clear when I say this. I'm not saying you can't do all of those things and hit all of those things together at 18 months. But what I am saying is the first four months, you might have to be deep, deep, deep on your fitness. So in the next five months, deep, deep, deep on the family.

Speaker B: So here's a different way of wording that, um, that, that I've heard is. And that, that I. You can do whatever you want. You just can't do everything you want.

Speaker A: I like that. Wow.

Speaker B: You can do whatever you want. Pick whatever. Like, yeah, you pick a goal. It's like, you can do that, man. You could totally do that. But you can't do everything. It's not possible. And the, and the universe has almost endless amount of options. So it's like, if you think about all the options that are out there, you can't. There's not enough time, uh, there's not enough lives to learn it all. So you need to be wise in the one that you're picking of the road that you're choosing to go down.

Speaker A: That's huge. And I want to go deep on this, Gary, because I learned a couple things, big realizations. I think you are going to resonate with this. And I have to give you credit because you helped me talk through this many times on the podcast. Right. For our recurring listeners, uh, you know, returning listeners here, they've probably heard this a million times, but to go deeper on essentialism, your point exactly. You don't have to not do the other things you want, but it's about recognizing that, hey, it's, it's. What season of life are you in And I've heard Alex and Leila Hermosi talk about it, and I love the way they phrase this, right? They talk about how in life you have different seasons. You might be in a season of work, a season of. No, a season of fitness, a season of friends and family. And essentialism is basically the same thing, right? You might be in a season of work, right? Your, uh, your essentialism practice is centered around work, or it's centered around family, or, you know, it's centered around your fitness, your health. And to truly accomplish outstanding, exceptional things in each of those fields, you have to put all of your focus and attention into that one basket.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: And I've had to learn that the hard way. I'll tell you this, right? So running both agencies, what ended up happening is not only being in a different time zone and 8,000 miles away, right. Um, but I was trying to operate both companies. My co founder felt like I was stepping on her toes, even though I thought I wasn't doing enough for either company. Both companies started to slip. One company had massive turnover, and we just have to, like, kind of rebuild, Right. Um, and with that being said, I realized, like, hm, I'm going to lose everything if I try to focus on all of it. So, like, we sat down and I was like, listen, if we want to grow this, I can't do this with my attention. I've got to be this. So I either need one thing you need me for in this company, or we're just not a good fit. We had multiple meetings about this. We were able to come to a solution. Hasn't been better since. Way better. I stepped out of the operator role officially, which is what I wanted originally and what she wanted, we just didn't know how to do it the right way. So learning through failure, again. You can't build Rome in a day. You know, we thought it would be perfect from day one. It took us 180 days to learn these things of hardship, failure, hours of conversations, all this craziness. But we realized that, you know, my attention was split. And because my attention was split, both companies began to, you know, drop. So essentialism. I began to focus on one thing, one main point, delegated out everything else, and it's never been better.

Speaker B: Yeah, right.

Speaker A: I've got my time back, I'm growing. It's so much better.

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, so here's another way that I look through this, uh, from a business application, is that. So this is why it's so important to niche down. If, when, before, when we used to Work with everybody. We didn't just work with dentists. We, we were all over the place and we couldn't grow. We kept bouncing, um, off the roof. And every time we'd hit the roof, we'd shrink back down again and then grow and then shrink back down. Once we niche down, then we blew through that like 20x M right over, over a couple year span. And that was only possible because we niche down and, and we really only focused on one thing. The other thing is, is we have a lot of temptation. You know how many times people have come to me, Derek, and said, hey, I can get you into the vet industry. Hey, I get you into chiropractors. Hey, I could get you into optometry because it's very similar to dentistry and it will be so easy. You guys could just turn the key and turn it on. And I've learned that lesson already. So even though there was money being handed to me on a silver platter, I said, no, I'm not taking that. Why? Because my focus is dental, and I want. I, I'm only about halfway where I think I can get this. We're at, um, we're gonna, we're gonna hit, you know, 18 to 20 million dollars this year, and I'm not going to get distracted until I get to 30 to 35 million. And then once I get that number, then we're gonna pivot to the next thing, but not until we hit that number. So why would I go chase a small fish when I have a much bigger fish right in front of me? That's one of the hardest things to do as an entrepreneur. It's called, ah, shiny object syndrome.

Speaker A: Uh, shiny object syndrome. Hey, a framework that I heard. Again, I keep quoting him, but I just love their content. Alex Hormozi. More better. New. So anytime you have a new idea, this is the framework he advises people to go through first. Look at what you're doing now and ask yourself, hey, can I do more of this thing that's already working. If it's like, hey, we're already met. M like, like, literally, if your cold calling is working, instead of going to try TikTok videos, what if you double your cold call team? That's exactly the example he gives. Right, so start with more. The second thing he says is, okay, if you've maxed out your more column, which most people, he says, never even do that right. Move to better. All right, well, we've maxed out our cold call team. Well, how can we increase their, you know, phone call rate? How can we double their calls? How can we have them, uh, follow up faster, right? And he's like, most people don't ever even make it to the better section. But if you've maxed out more and you've maxed out better, then you should look at new. And I love that. Like, when I heard that, it blew my mind because it's so stupid simple, but so powerful and it ties everything you just said, it ties essentialism into all of this shiny object syndrome. Niching down. If you're in business and you have a new idea, we're not saying don't do it, but maybe try running it through more better new, right? Like do more of what's already working. If it's not working, then you probably should switch it, right? If you're doing like, uh, we've been going through this, right? Like to get fully transparent, we might have to do a whole episode on this. And our new agency, you know, what we initially started offering isn't working anymore. Turn. Turn is pretty high. People don't find enough value. So we're working up from the ground up again. And we're super fired up because we're kind of on the road to something possibly way bigger to bi. To, you know, playing the five to 10 year game, which we're fired up about. But more better. New is what we ran through the framework first. We asked ourselves, what can we do that's already working? Well, wait a minute, it's not working so we have to go to new, right? That's one thing I learned as well. It's just another so many lessons, it's crazy.

Speaker B: That's awesome, man. That's awesome. So what's the next one? What's the next, uh, the next item?

Speaker A: Absolutely. This one is really powerful and you're going to really like this because you've said this in the pod many times. Your business is not a reflection of you as a person. And I have had to learn this the hard way. I am very emotional when it comes to business. If there is something wrong in the business, it ruins my personal. I talk like a jerk. I have a rude tonality. It ruins my day. And I'm not going to pretend that I'm perfect at this. I struggle with this every day and I still battle this all the time. The other day I was getting off of my flight from Sydney, um, Sydney to la to get back home to Florida, and I get a message. Hey, our account with 1.1 million followers was just banned for the third time in a row in the last 60 days, I'm sitting there, I'm like, of all things that could happen, I'm jet lagged, I'm exhausted. 15 hours of flying, I'm sitting there in the airport, stressed, In LAX, 100 degrees. My brothers can't get through the checkpoint because something was up with his passport. At the same time, I'm emailing for codes to get logged back in to do an appeal. First thought in my head, man, I love this. This is business. It's all about. But that was like, only like 5%. The 95% was, this is horrible. Why is this happening? And it was just all horrendous. And I put that on myself and I started talking like a jerk to my brother. I started getting all stressed out, sweating. But the overlying lesson that I've been the game has been trying to teach me the last six months is that, uh, the business is not a reflection of me, and that, uh, I need to be able to step away from the business and go spend time with my family without that weighing on me. But, Gary, this is where I really want your advice. That is a lot easier said than done. That sounds like a dreamland. And I honestly don't think I will ever get there. I will only get slightly better at it over time. What's your thoughts on this?

Speaker B: Yeah, so what really turned the corner for me? I, I actually, as I started to step away from the day to day of managing accounts and managing the ads and just really being responsible for the results, I. One of the questions that my business partner asked me at the time, he said, gary, you know that when you step away, things aren't gonna work properly, right? And I was like, what do you mean? He said, our churn's gonna go up, it's gonna get harder. And, but we have to go through that, and you have to be okay with that. If not, it's not going to work. You're going to go back in and you're going to micromanage, right? And. And I was like, yep, I'm okay with that. I'm. I'm going to do that. And the thing that helped me do that, Derek, was Elon Musk. And I know this sounds weird, but this is when I, I walked out to my, my car, my $150,000 car. And on it, the panels are not lined up straight. There's bigger gaps on one side than on the other side. On the panels, there's other little things. The steering wheel pills, because they, they put vegan leather on it, which is fake leather. Right. And, and it, uh, pills because of that. And they didn't know. Right. And as I start to look at those kind of things, I said, does Elon Musk not produce cars? Because people are going to say the gap on this one's a, uh, eighth of an inch bigger than the other one or the steering wheel. No, of course not. He just keeps going and then he fixes it and then he keeps going and then he fixes it and then he keeps going. And I was like, man, if he can do that for cars that he's selling for $150,000, then I can do it for dental marketing and I will be okay. And I have to just work through it and I have to keep getting better. That's what helped me really turn that corner.

Speaker A: Hey, that was really good. Can I just say, Gary, that was one of the best one liners I think you've ever given. Like comparing that Elon Musk thing to dental marketing. Because one thing that we always fall into as business owners, and I do this to myself all the time, is I think my world is ending. Like, I'm going to be really transparent. I just got an email right here from a pretty long term client. Nearly six months right now, maybe almost seven. Uh, hey, contract cancellation. Unfortunately, we have some bad news to share. We have some budgeting cuts.

Speaker B: Yikes.

Speaker A: It hurts. It hurts. Especially the company at the size that I'm at, I kind of expected their revenue, but I'm way better at it than I was 12 months ago. Because if you would have sent me 10 months ago, Gary, you would. You remember how I was, I was like, oh, I'm gonna do. I gotta start outreach again right now. I'm like, ah, well, okay, they wasn't a good fit. They probably have something better. Somebody, we didn't do the best job. Hey, what went wrong? What could we have done better to serve them? And what's exciting is I already know the answer to that question. Yeah, I already the answer to that question. And I, this time I'm not crippled by losing the 2,500 in revenue. I'm excited because that $2,500 lesson is going to lead to 2.5 million in revenue because we're going to fix the underlying problem. Yeah, I've learned. This is so crazy.

Speaker B: The framework there that you're, you're describing to people is looking at failures as lessons. Because those lessons that you're learning, Derek, if you went to the best marketer in the world or the best agency person and you said, hey, I'll pay you to mentor me. They wouldn't be able to teach you those lessons for all the money in the world. You have to learn them. You have to learn them this way. And so you're like, okay, Yeah, I lost $2,500 a month, but what is a lesson that I got from that? It's far greater than $2,500 a month in the, the bigger scheme of what you're building.

Speaker A: Yep, yep. You can also learn these lessons by tuning into the eight figure show. Everyone. I'm kidding. But in real reality, we share these episodes, these lessons, these failures. The only way you're ever going to learn them is by actually doing it. No matter how long you listen to the show, like, even what I'm sharing with you right now, you can internalize it, you can remember it, you can make connections, but you're going to make the same mistake. I'm telling you, it's inevitable. It will happen. It's inevitable. No matter who you think you are, what you, what you're doing, it'll definitely happen. But, yeah, I mean, that was super, tremendously valuable. I love the fact that I didn't react super emotionally. I just, oh, took it on the chin. Move on, keep going. Still have a team, still have businesses to build, and you got to keep moving. But number four, and this actually ties in really, really well. And then we'll get to number five pretty quickly here. Abundance mindset. I struggle with this tremendously. I struggle with this so much. Uh, if anything, if there's anything I've learned in the last six months is that if you operate from a mindset of scarcity, you will always be afraid. And you will make decisions from a fear position, a position of fear, and that will cause you to fail. I've been there, I've done it, and I've failed. Right. Even when the world feels like it's falling apart, if I feel like I'm operating from scarcity, like, oh, the two clients I have are the only people that want this. Going to make bad decisions that are going to hurt me in the future. Like, I'll be really specific, catering so much to that one client that I don't build a repeatable scale, uh, scalable offer and service, which means when the third and fourth client comes along, I don't serve them as well and they turn anyways because I went so deep. I made that mistake with, or we made that mistake with every new client we got in our new agency. And that's why almost all of them have Turned out. And we have to start from ground zero because we went too narrow, we went too specific. Little things for each person dropped the ball, Service was bad, and now we're rebuilding. Right. Um, but there's so much opportunity. If you operate from scarcity, you're operating from fear. But if you operate from an abundance mindset, all of a sudden, your whole world becomes different. And it's why I'm not overreacting to this contract cancellation. Because guess what? Yesterday I got a random email from somebody who's a perfect fit saying, hey, can we chat? I want to. I want clips. I'm like, absolutely. Abundance mindset. Abundance mindset, absolutely. And that's why I'm not stressed over losing the client. Gary, what are your thoughts on this? What has your experience with this been?

Speaker B: Yeah, so I was just on a call with somebody, and we were. We're hosting an event, and I asked these people to speak on a panel, and they were like, gary, uh, I'm worried I'm going to step on your toes or your. And I'm like, bro, just talk. Like, don't worry about me. Don't worry about my business. Just say the truth and everything will work out. And he said. This is his exact words. He said, gary, I appreciate your abundance mindset, even to the detriment of your own company. At times, I've seen you work with people. From the outside, it looked like I was hurting myself, right? And so I. I don't. I take abundance mind step even a step further is, uh, everybody's a business partner. Everybody's a potential business partner. It's just you have to take time to figure out how to partner with them. So when you think of people. Usually when I think of scarcity mindset, it's not just about the clients. It's about how you interact with everybody around you. And when you're like, no, they. They might steal a client or they might steal this secret thing from me, or they might. Once I got rid of that bro, everything changed. My whole life changed. And so now my mindset is very simple. Everybody's a potential business partner. It's just my job to figure out how to make that work.

Speaker A: You know, one thing that has helped me with this, because I actually went through that recently with some other people. And, um, it's really difficult, especially when you make decisions that might put your business at risk and somebody does take a client or something like that. I will tell you, after, like, going through it, I realized, like, hmm, I can be bitter, I can be angry, and I can burn a bridge or I can keep a relationship, have a ton of fun with this person, help them win, because they will subsequently help me will down the line. Maybe there's an opportunity that they're not a fit for that they'll pass to me, et cetera. That's way better for me than it is for them. But more importantly, the game of business is way more fun when you play it that way, because then people aren't your adversaries, they're your teammates. And it's way more fun to play a game with teammates now that you still need adversaries in the game. You still do. And there will always be people like that. But if you. I really like that mindset. And you've been talking about that since the beginning of this show, Gary, where everybody could be a business partner. And I really love that. What, uh, is the book by Simon Sinek called? Was it the Limitless Game?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Infinite Game. I love that book. I love it because the principle is amazing. When I. One of the biggest things I learned, I'm surprised I didn't even make it one of these five. But this is an extra, extra bonus lesson here in this episode. One of the biggest things I learned the last six months is that if you play with the mentality of what decisions can I make that will keep me playing the game longer versus make me the most money in the short term. It's way more fun that way.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Uh, which is again, another reason why I'm not stressing and sweating about losing this client, especially because I saw it coming.

Speaker B: There's 500 more clients. Yes. We're often like, oh, I don't. We.

Speaker A: There's only this much.

Speaker B: There's only this many. It's like, no, no, no, no. There's actually like, take us, for example. A lot of times our team's like, are we going to be able to grow? I'm like, guys, we don't even have 1% of the market of dentists. Not even 1%.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Uh, yes, we can grow. We. There's so much more we can grow. Can we get to 1%? Can we. Can we work with 1% of all the dentists in the United States? Or can we even work with. We don't even work with 1% of our ideal client inside of dentist. We're not even there yet. Guys. There's so much room to grow. It does it. You can create a, uh, thousand other marketing companies and we would still be able to grow. So that's. I don't. I Don't look at it the same way as other people do. And I. And. And I. To be honest with you, it helps me mentally. It's a much healthier way to live. For sure.

Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. In fact, like, I remember one time, Gary, remember last year we were having a call. I think it was about a year ago, like, exactly. And I was, like, I was sitting on the couch and I had this ad come up for a competitor, and they looked so good. Their website was so much nicer, and they were half the price. And you taught me the same thing. You were like, stop looking at them. Focus on what you're doing now. And if I wouldn't have taken that advice, I probably wouldn't be standing here today, because I went back in. I poured myself into serving my clients better, doing everything I could, being humble, working harder. Um, and. And just.

Speaker B: Yeah. And instead, instead, if you would have focused on their website, you would have been like, oh, we got to lower our prices. We got to change our website like this. We got to. And you wouldn't have got better. You would have just now played their game. And. And it would have been to your detriment overall. And that's not to say now, some people. No, some people might be thinking too, well, am I not supposed to pay attention to my competition? Am I not supposed to get. Of course you are. Of course you're supposed to pay attention. But it's how you pay attention. It's.

Speaker A: It's.

Speaker B: And again, it's. It's about pivoting and changing and being. Being something that nobody else is. That's our. That's the really key to it.

Speaker A: The secret. And this. Well, I can't believe how many lessons I've learned. I didn't even think about these till we had this conversation, Gary. But the secret I learned, and I learned this the hard way, by literally losing, like, 20K in MRR. All right? And this was the lesson I learned from that. It was. And Gary Vee said this to me when I was 14 years old on his podcast, and that was six years ago. So.

Speaker B: Huh.

Speaker A: Finally understood what he meant, because I went through this. You have to put yourself out of business, be your own competition. And what he means by that is, if you focus on your product and constantly try to innovate and make your product better, the version of your product a year from now should be so much better than the version of your product today that the business that you have today wouldn't even be able to compete with the business you have in 12 months. And if you aren't the person to put yourself out of business, then a competitor will do it for you. And I learned that lesson the hard way, and it was a very expensive lesson to learn. And I love it because now I'm so fired up to constantly put myself out of business. That's not me saying, what's that next shiny object? It's not like that. It's what's the more, what's the better? And then what's the new that we can do in our current business where our business will be unrecognizable in 12 months? And to put yourself out of business, all you might have to do is double your cold call team because maybe your competitor has a hundred people calling and you have 10, right? So if you want to beat your competitor, you're going to need 120, right? So you need to 10x your cold call team. It's not always the new new thing. It's more better new. But Gary, the last thing here that, uh, I think is super valuable, and I learned this the hard way again, all these lessons of blood, sweat and tears. In order to see success in any area of your life, you have to prioritize yourself. What happens if you don't take priority on your or you don't prioritize yourself is you end up, uh, I've seen a very great video on this. It's like they have cups of water and then you have your water cup and it's like you give a little bit of water here to someone, you give a little water to your parents, give a little water to your friends, give a little water to your business, give here. And then the empty cup stays is you. And all of a sudden you realize, oh, shoot, I've got no more water to give to myself, right? And when you don't have water to give to yourself, you don't have water to give to anything else. But the secret, and the video shows this. And again, I've had to learn this the hard way, is that if you ignore everything else and you say no to everything, even for a little bit, and you prioritize yourself, what you want to do, your peace, your mental health, your stability, just what you want without even consulting other people, which is something I haven't had, uh, the ability to do in six months because of the situation I've been in, all of a sudden your water cup starts to overflow, and the overflow starts to drip down into all the other cups in your life, which is good for them. And it's Good for you. Keep your sanity. You stay prospering, and it's an amazing way to live life. What's your thoughts on this? Have you ever experienced situation, Gary, where you weren't prioritizing yourself enough, leading to poor results in the business and other parts of your life?

Speaker B: Okay, so I have a different take on this. So I. I get what you're saying.

Speaker A: Ooh, okay.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, I get what you're saying. So I do that every morning. I have stuff that I start my day with, and it's. It's centered around me getting my mind right. I pray, I read, I. I do all those things right? Before anybody. I work out, I have to do those things. Otherwise, I know I'm no bueno to everybody. That's just a daily thing that I do every single day that I have to do, that I've learned about myself from there. It's. I make everything about giving to everybody else. How do I set everybody else up for success? So, um, I. I have found that if I prioritize myself and everything that I want to do, um, and it usually ends in misery. And I have found when I say yes, when I. When I. It's, um, Putting yourself at the center of the universe, um, leads to just agony and pain and suffering, in my opinion. Um, I. I put God is. Is number one. My family, my friends, and then I'm the last on. On that list. Um. Um, with that said, I need an hour or two every single day to get my stuff, right? To be able to show up for them. So this is. That's where I agree with you. So it's not that I totally disagree with what you're saying. It's just I'm. I don't put myself at the center of it. I put myself last. And, uh, it's a little bit of a different mindset, uh, or a way of breaking it down, but similar to what you're saying.

Speaker A: Yeah, I actually think I fully agree with what you're saying. I don't even think we're disagreeing at all that.

Speaker B: That.

Speaker A: I totally agree with that. I don't think that. And, uh, I think that's two completely different ideas. I don't think it's right for anybody to put themselves in the center of their universe. Right. Or of the universe. Right. But for me, what I've Learned the last 6 months is I did. I ignored my needs and kept trying to fulfill the needs of others. And then one day I woke up, I was like, I can't fulfill your needs anymore.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Ah, yeah, that hurt a lot. That really hurt. And I was like, well, why did this happen? And looking back, I realized, oh, it's because I didn't take the hour in the morning to do that.

Speaker B: Yeah, right. That's huge.

Speaker A: I didn't do that.

Speaker B: Well, here's a perfect, here's a perfect example. So for me, if I don't work out in the morning, so I have this like active mind, right? And I also have a lot of energy. And if I don't, I, uh, can use my mind all day at work. But if I don't physically use my body to burn out with my mind, I am, um, all bad. My energy is bad, my attitude is bad, my everything's bad. And if I do it for a long, long enough time, it just doesn't end well. Like I, I get anxious and all these kind of things and it just doesn't. People don't like me, right? And I don't like myself. And so I have to work out. I have to, I have to burn. That's why I walk on a treadmill. I have to walk on a treadmill because I have to burn that energy. And if I don't, it doesn't, it doesn't end well. So I agree with you from that, uh, like from that point of view,

Speaker A: it was a big lesson that I had to learn. It was huge. Look, I have a lot of other lessons. We might have to do a whole nother episode on this because of how hugely valuable this is. But ladies and gentlemen, those are five with a couple bonus. I think you have seven total lessons there. And more from Gary. Five lessons that I learned the last six months. Building two marketing agencies overseas in a 17 hour time zone difference. Crazy, crazy, crazy. Quick recap. You can't build Roman a day. Be patient. Essentialism. Don't focus on the shiny objects. Focus on one rock in your life at a time. To really grow your business is not a reflection of you. When something goes wrong in your business, you can't take it personally. You have to separate those two things in order to succeed long term. It's a very difficult thing to swallow. And it's always a work in progress. The next thing is abundance. Mindset. There's so much opportunity out there, you just need to go get it. If you're operating from mindset of scarcity, you will always be afraid and you will never take any risk. And the fifth one, and Gary, I think this is a really powerful one as well, is you have to take care of yourself and the needs that you have in order to then take care of the needs of others. Because if your needs aren't met, how can you meet the needs of other people? Those are five lessons I learned over the last six months. And uh, ladies and gentlemen, if you've enjoyed and you found this episode valuable, consider leaving a like subscribing to the YouTube channel or leaving us a review on Spotify or Apple podcasts. We are going to be killing the clips soon. Super excited. A lot of clips coming out soon. And, uh, we're super pumped up about all the growth of the show. And guys, call this episode was valuable. So with that said, guys, thanks so much for watching, listening, and till next time,