145. How to Buy Back Your Time as an Entrepreneur with Dan Martell
Imagine your day was loaded with work you LOVE. Work that made time fly by and that excited you. Wouldn't that just transform the way you attack the day? - Dan Martell
If there is one thing money can’t buy, it’s time.
Or maybe you can?
Turns out, my husband, Dan Martell, figured out a way to buy back time so that you can do the work that lights you up. Not the mundane crap that keeps you busy but productive tasks that actually makes you money. I am talking about sustainable ways to delegate, including procedures that teach you how to quickly and efficiently onboard contractors or employees, all based on what he calls your ‘buy back rate.’
These rules even apply to family life. In this episode, Dan and I discuss how we hired a night nanny when our kids were young and even outsourced daycare pick-up so that we could both jump on morning team calls without stress. We touch on everything else high performers should be delegating, like house cleaning, cooking, landscaping, pool maintenance, snow removal, and even gift buying. There is nothing you can’t delegate.
But wait. There is more! You will also learn about:
Why Dan wrote his book
How to buy back your time (obviously)
The three S’s of pain in growing a business
How buying time is the first principle approach to scaling yourself
The most common roadblock in growing a business
Creating the perfect week
How to clone yourself!
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Buy Back Your Time Book (leave a 5-star review ☺️)
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Episode Transript
How to Buy Back Your Time as an Entrepreneur with Dan Martell
Dan: [00:00:00] Can I go to Costco? Of course. But I want to force myself not to do that stuff because then it makes me reflect on how did this become a thing that isn't taken care of?
Renee: [00:00:19] Hey, it's Renee. Welcome to the Into the Wild Show, the podcast for women who want to build incredible mental strength to level up their business and lifestyle. I'm Renee Warren. The founder of Wild Women, author, speaker, award winning entrepreneur and your host. Together, we will make you unapologetic about shining your light, growing your business, and turning you into a wildly confident and successful leader. This is for you the visionary, the go getter, the entrepreneur, and for those that need a real kick in the butt to get going and to dream bigger. Each week I bring in leading experts and entrepreneurs to help you take leaps in the right direction. Because I know the best advice comes from someone who has successfully done it before. So are you ready to level up? Welcome to Into the Wild. Hey, you are all the women. My next guest is no other than my husband, Dan Martel. Dan is an entrepreneur, angel investor, thought leader and highly sought after coach in the SAS or software as a service industry. He founded Scaled and successfully exited three technology companies within a ten year period. In 2012, he was named Canada's top angel investor, having invested in more than 50 startups such as Intercom Udemy. And on balance, in 2016 he founded the SAS Academy and grew it to become one of the largest coaching companies in the world. He's also an Ironman athlete, philanthropist, husband to me and father to our two incredible boys. Please welcome the incredible the man, my husband, this good looking dude in a blue Tshirt. Dan Warren I'm kidding. Yeah. Dan Mardell.
Dan: [00:02:09] That's awesome. I actually just saw that email you sent it to. Jacqueline Calls us The Wartells. I was like, Oh, that's funny. I love.
Renee: [00:02:15] It. Yeah. Our beautiful friend Jacqueline, who is probably the biggest cheerleader in this community, sent in a wonderful email congratulating him on his book.
Renee: [00:02:29] So Dan's book just came out. It's called Buy Back Your Time. And it's been a labor of love for gosh, you've been thinking about this for how many years now?
Dan: [00:02:38] I started on the project two and one half years ago. I've been teaching the framework. I mean, as you know, probably over a decade. I didn't start calling it the buyback principal till about eight years ago because I started having to formalize it. But yeah, it was two and a half years of building an incredible team on the book side. Ron, my book CEO and Lucinda, my agent, and I mean everybody from Rich, my designer to Chris, my copywriter to my researcher and writer Paul. I mean, it's just been an awesome team. My editor, Noah at Penguin Random House. I mean, it's funny you don't realize, like behind a book there's literally and then my beautiful wife Renee and boys and the.
Renee: [00:03:22] Support even on the PR team, the marketing side.
Dan: [00:03:25] So many.
Renee: [00:03:26] Portfolio, every PR marketing update, there's probably six or seven people on the calls. It's impressive what goes into it, right? All to take what's in your brain and put it in a beautiful format into a book.
Dan: [00:03:40] It's crazy and it's what's nuts is in a few months it'll be exactly 20 years from the moment I read my first business book ever. So I think I read that book and I thought to myself, it's called Love is a Killer App by Tim Sanders. And, you know, I think I don't know, Renee, because you've written a book, so you probably the same realization at some point as you're reading a book, like you think, like, wouldn't it be crazy to write a book and have it out there in the world and impact people the way I know I personally felt? So it's kind of nuts. That took me a while. But almost to the day, 20 years later, I've read 500 books and I finally get to share some of my own wisdom into this beautiful package that I'm so proud of. 1500 bucks. Yeah.
Renee: [00:04:26] Cool. So I'm going to get straight to the point. Why is it important, especially for entrepreneurs, CEOs, high performing people? Why is it important for them to buy back their time? And what does the concept even mean?
Dan: [00:04:40] Yeah, so the buy back principle states that you don't hire people to grow your business. You hire people to buy back your time. And I call it calendar over capacity. And the reason why is because most entrepreneurs end up building businesses that they grow to hate. So what that means is as they grow, they get to this place I call the pain line. And what I've learned a long time ago is that entrepreneurs will not grow in the pain. Right, Renee? I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but like, if your business could double next month, but your life would go chaotic, most entrepreneurs will sabotage themselves. They don't even realize they're doing it. I mean, they can show up in so many different forms from dragging their feet on replying to an email, not making a key hire. I've seen entrepreneurs self medicate themselves into being hung over and missing an opportunity. I mean, it's crazy the level of sabotage that entrepreneurs can kind of creatively find themselves, or they'll just decide that this is too painful and decide to stall. I don't want to grow anymore. Right. And the problem with stalling, it's called the three S's. So when they hit the pain line, they either sabotage, they either stall challenge with stalling that if you decide you want to grow anymore, your customers still want a better product or service. In a year. The market's going to grow, whether you like it or not. You know, there's GDP growth. And then the third is your team. Your best people won't stay with you if they run out of future.
Dan: [00:06:07] It's very simple. If I if I'm on a. And I don't see how my life will get better staying on this team because you've decided you want to go sideways, then people won't stay and you'll lose your best people, which just compounds the death spiral. And the third SSL, you know, and I get that call probably two or three times a week from friends of mine that are like, Hey, I don't want to do this anymore. This is a little harder than it should be, and I'm not making any more money and all this stuff. And when I asked them if those problems you just stated went away, would you sell the business? And they go, Well, no. And I go, Well, then you just got to restructure the way you grow because literally it's a decision they made to just hire in the wrong sequence. And that's why I wrote this book. It's literally a first principle approach to scaling yourself, and you've seen it firsthand. But like I'm the CEO of two eight figure company SAS Academy and High Speed Ventures, and like, I have an incredible quality of life. I mean, we just got back from Europe. I go snowboarding, I go snow biking, we hang out with the family, we go to Noah's soccer stuff. We have dinner every night. Like, I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but it's absolutely available to people if they're willing to challenge their beliefs and assumptions and change the way they think about finding leverage in their life.
Renee: [00:07:27] Where do you think is the most common roadblock for people that are at that point where they're like, Crap, I either have to go this way to grow my business or not. Like.
Dan: [00:07:38] I think there's I can't afford it. I would say I can't afford. It's the first one. There's like a series of them. And what's fun about the book is I literally before I when I did the outline, I wrote all the objections, right? I've been coaching. I've coached over a couple thousand CEOs in the last five years through SAS Academy on this. So buying back your time is like the core foundation of what I teach because it frees up the time to execute the growth playbooks. You don't have the time, you can't grow the business. And so I made a list of all the objections, the money. One's a funny one because they're like, I can't afford to do it. You can't afford not to do it. You know, million dollar companies were not built off $10 task. So step one is to figure out the value of your time, right? If you know, you build out your time at $50, 75, 100 an hour, then the buy back rate, essentially you divide that number by four and that's what you should be taking anything off of your plate that you currently do that you can pay somebody else to do for a fourth of that dollar amount that should just not exist in your world. Right? So that's the first one. I can't afford it. My answer is you absolutely can afford it. And if not, you've got to figure out how to do it. You've got to raise your prices, you got to get busier or whatever. Then it's probably a Where do you find these people, right? Like, I mean, you know, my team people are like, where did you find this person? It's like it's the process and I cover it.
Dan: [00:09:01] It's in chapter nine. It's the talent pipeline. Like there's a methodology, it's a skill. Like I always tell people, you know, we can talk about the buyback loop, but again, you can buy the book to get the frameworks. I'm just more interested in the stories, but like I get asked all the time, like where do you find these people? Like good friends of ours, they say like, okay, how did you find a bad ear? How did you find an An or How did you find whoever job I have like all these incredible team members and it's a process because it's the skill. And I think most entrepreneurs don't realize recruiting is a skill that should be learned and developed. And you probably are not really good at it right now because you, like, take shortcuts. You know, you post on Facebook, you have two or three people refer their cousins, their brother, their friend from high school, and you hire them like the first person. And then and then you're surprised the person isn't very good. It's like, you know, as you know, because you've talked to wait on my on my people team. I mean, we get 2000 applications every month for two or three roles on our team. Like every roll has hundreds of applicants for every open role that gets whittled down. Where do you find all these people? They say, Well, again, it's a skill like you need to understand how to market, how to recruit, how to advertise, how to do test projects. Right? And I go through them all in the book, like the very nuance things. I mean, again, I'm telling you.
Renee: [00:10:21] You got like a peak in this. And there was a point in your business that you were hiring like crazy and you're like, Renee, just help me vet.
Dan: [00:10:30] I just needed some help sorting through.
Renee: [00:10:31] Yeah, because Dan's like, I know my wife who knows me and knows the type of talent we need. So I got to kind of peek under the hood to help out. And the process is exhausting. It's so thorough. But at the end of it, you come out with people that you not only want on your team, but you're okay to be stuck in an airport bar on layover for 6 hours with because they're just good people. And that's how like for us, we have our Betty and Betty helps us with everything and she's an incredible, incredible human being and works her.
Dan: [00:11:02] But I just I just like to take the luck out of it and just make it a process. And that's. What I think anybody that's fascinated to learn how I've been able to, like, build an exit, my software companies invest in 50 plus companies. I mean, this year I did I think three Iron Man's at least two, maybe three, a ton of races built the company, hung out, traveled the world with you and the boys. Like it's pretty crazy if people are just looking at our lives. But the only way any of that happens is by me. And you like analyzing our calendars. Like I look at my calendar and I do a time and energy audit every four months because of the capacity. Any time I hit the pain line, I do this process called the buyback loop, and I use that to find more time. And I don't separate, as, you know, personal or professional, right. Like it's the same thing. If I notice I'm spending five, 10 hours a week on something that's personal that anybody else could do. Then I try to get it off my plate so that I have the time.
Renee: [00:12:03] If I.
Dan: [00:12:03] Go on date.
Renee: [00:12:04] Night. Well, that's the thing. Clarify personal. So what does that mean?
Dan: [00:12:07] The way I look at it is and again, there's where we're at today, which most people I don't want anybody to hear this and dismiss it because it can either inspire you, infuriate you. It's kind of like, you know, me talking about some of my success. Some people are inspired by that and other people get infuriated by it because they're like, for whatever reason, they tell themselves stories about like, Oh, you think you're better than other people. It's like, No, I don't. I 100% just work and show up and do what I do and I get to live a certain life. So on the personal side is like, most people should just start with simple stuff like housecleaning. Like if you are the owner of a business and you are too busy to go to the gym, yet you're busy cleaning your house, you should hire somebody to come in twice a week and clean your house. Like, let's start with that. That'll buy you back five or 6 hours. Take that time. You now go to the gym. And if you can't translate going to the gym and feeling better about your health and the energy into showing up better as a person on your team, that's on you. But all I know is that when I go work out, I have more energy, I have more focus, I am more creative, I feel more resourceful, I am able to communicate clear, and that ROI of that is worth way more than cleaning the floor or running around the house doing stuff.
Dan: [00:13:25] So I mean, that's an easy one. Another area is just like lawn maintenance. I think a lot of people, you know, my dad fit Vic, you know, he's always like, I like mowing on my own lawn. I'm like, If you like mowing it so much, why don't you? Do you the neighbors? He's like, I don't like to do that much. It's like, I know. So you don't like like I don't like doing stuff. If you don't want to do it for free to do for your neighbors. And you shouldn't do it because, like, that's time you could go spend on other things. Like, to me, I want to do one of two things. And Renee, I feel like we talk about this all the time, so I apologize. But like for your audience, I want to either work on things only I can do, right? Only I can be on this podcast, you know, showing off my blue shirt. It matches my cover. I actually went and changed my shirt just for that. And I'm the only person that can go on date nights with my wife, right? Or like, have dinner with my kids. Like, I am their father. I am your husband, I am my buddies friends. Like, I show up for that. Anything that doesn't fit in there, I don't do very clear.
Renee: [00:14:23] Now, the thing that keeps coming up for me is time, time, time. So there's probably people thinking, okay, I do have the resources to be able to outsource all this stuff, but all I can think about is how much time it's going to take to not only find the person as we talked about, but then training them and then managing them and that whatever, like adding new tasks to their plate. How does someone go about that? You talk about this in your book, right? There's this thing called The Five Time Assassins, which probably relates to this question. But tell us about this. The five time assassins.
Dan: [00:14:57] Yeah, most people are their own worst culprit when it comes to, like, eating into their time, you know? And I'm not going to go through all five, but one example is the self medicate, right? And I used to be that. I mean, I talk about it in the book where when I was building my business and something good happened, not even bad. Good things happen to me. I would go out and just like overeat or drink too much and then wake up the next morning feeling hung over and tired and bloated. And then I. Would you get my best work? No. Would I show up and like, good for anybody? No.
Renee: [00:15:36] Like, cranky and angry and dismissive and all of that sort and foggy brain. Yeah.
Dan: [00:15:41] All of it is funny how like, they don't realize, like, that shows up in your work and like, there's these time assassins that people the micromanager, right. You talked about like, well, if I hire this person, how do I manage them, etc.. It's you have to change your beliefs. I mean, at the end of the day, it's skills, beliefs and character traits. That's the success. Ladder So you have like on the left side of the ladder that builds the left side, it's the skills. Do you have the skills to grow? The right side is the beliefs of the world. The. How it works. And then you have your character traits. People that are micro managers will frustrate these people. Like you see me work with my team. I don't tell them how to do their job. I'm just very clear about the outcome I want to achieve. And then we negotiate on what we're going to measure. And then from that measurement that they measure, we negotiate their performance based on the number. So again, that's a skill that you have to develop to be able to work with somebody else know. And I think that's what would really fascinate people is in the exact same scenario, right? How I hire and train people, how I do my one on ones, how I communicate with people. I think like if they were looking at the way I do it versus the way they do it, it's completely different.
Dan: [00:16:53] Most people do what's called transactional management. They tell people what to do. They check that it got done. They tell them what to do next. What I do is I call it transformational leadership. I start with the outcome. So, for example, the lady who's our house manager, she's the CEO of everything that we own personally. You've heard me say that to Betty, right? Yeah. So if she hears that and she's like, Well, I know what a CEO is. I know all the stuff that Dan and Renee manage and own. I'm responsible for that. And then I say to them everything, and they're like, What is that? Let me describe it. Insurance, registration, maintenance, cleanliness, location, storage, whatever. Like you're the CEO of it. It's not mine anymore. I gave it to you to be responsible for. That's the outcome side. Then we measure. We set budgets and timing and schedules and all this stuff, and then they communicate back to me, as in Betty tells me like, Hey, the boats and storage from this state to this state, your car is in storage here and the house needs this. And we paid the insurance and like, I don't tell her what to do. She's telling me what she's doing. And as long as we're clear on the outcomes, then it doesn't require a lot of training. Right. Like, it's so fascinating.
Renee: [00:18:06] Like people great perspective of the how versus the why. Right. A lot of managers are like, this is how you do it. But there's no why. It's like, here's the only.
Dan: [00:18:15] Talk about the.
Renee: [00:18:17] Why. Right? The why is like, I don't have the time to do all this stuff. And quite frankly, it's not the best use of my time.
Dan: [00:18:22] But see, I will say that that is, I'm a particular about language, as you know, that language is actually potentially dangerous to people to say it that way. And I get why you said it and you just said it because it's like. But say what? You just said it again. I don't.
Renee: [00:18:37] Have.
Dan: [00:18:37] Time to do it.
Renee: [00:18:38] It's not the best use of my time.
Dan: [00:18:40] Yeah, I don't say I say I choose not to do that and I rather have support. And instead I'm then going to go invest in these other activities. And the language matters. Because I think when you say like, what stops people from doing this, Renee, guilt is a big one.
Renee: [00:18:55] Oh, my gosh. I was just going to say that as the mother.
Dan: [00:18:58] Yes, guilt is a big one.
Renee: [00:18:59] We indoctrinated to.
Dan: [00:19:02] Talk about that.
Renee: [00:19:02] One. Everything. I still have it today. So Betty does a lot for us. And this is an example. We like to use her because she's just a perfect example for this in that she picks the boys up from school, she helps them with their lunches and does the laundry, does everything around the house. And there are days we start at work, both you and I, fairly early on, like four or 5:00 in the morning is when our days began. And so there's a whole chunk of this day that I'm working, right? I'm doing this stuff for my business, parenting, whatever it is. But then come 3 p.m., I'm a little bit tired and there's no creative juice left at me. And quite frankly, there's no point in me working because it's just I'm not really productive. But this is when she's in her peak of like getting supper ready and all this stuff. And I sit there and I know it's taken years for me to learn this, to not go and offer help. Like, how can I help? Because, well, I don't want to say that it's not my job, but there's so much of me that was inherited that I feel like, Oh my gosh, I should be cooking for my kids. I should be helping with the lunches. The alternative is making puzzles, no out playing board games with Max, playing hockey downstairs, going in.
Dan: [00:20:12] The house or taking a bath and recharging.
Renee: [00:20:15] Yeah, it's like. Like this is.
Dan: [00:20:17] This. Yeah, but this is why words matter and beliefs matter. When those moments happen and happened yesterday, I think I was on my last call at 330 and I wanted to lay on the couch and do nothing. I literally turned the fireplace on and now I'm laying on the couch in front of her because she's in the kitchen. And in my mind, all I think to myself is I'm so grateful to have her here to support me so that I can recharge and then I can be with the kids and that we've created a life and a priority and a belief systems where we are willing to invest and create employment. Right? Because I'm pretty sure she enjoys it. And people that work on our teams enjoy working with us. And those are decisions you see, this is what's interesting is any time somebody decides to do something instead of hiring somebody to do it for them, mow the lawn, clean their house, take care of their stuff. What? However, they're literally not allowing employment to exist. Like, it's kind of selfish. I tell this to my clients all the time and it's like, you are being selfish. There is somebody out there that would love like Sarah who you know, Sarah that cleans our house. Yeah, I really enjoy Sarah, and I'm pretty sure she really appreciates working for us. And if we didn't get over our beliefs, guilt, fear.
Dan: [00:21:31] Am I worth it? Can I afford all these things that people stop themselves from doing? Sarah wouldn't be part of our lives, and I think that would not be great, right? So to me, that's like now I also don't tell people to, like, buy back your time and lay on a couch either. Like just watch Netflix. You buy back your time to trade it into higher value activities that support your work and or your personal life. And it's just a reframe of the belief. But like what's crazy, Renee, is so many people and we know them, they're friends of ours that have the opportunity to upgrade their quality of their life, to reduce the friction, to reduce the fights. Honestly, a lot of times they're fighting me because I thought you were going to do this and you forgot to buy this and this didn't happen. It's like, look, how about we both just get somebody in our world and we ask them to own it and then we can work through that person to do all the stuff that we keep fighting about. And then we can spend more time going on walks in the woods and date nights and hitting the gym or CrossFit. Like, I just think it's fascinating to me, even in our kind of peer group, that there's still big opportunities for friends of ours that see us do this, that are still reluctant.
Renee: [00:22:41] I know.
Dan: [00:22:41] There's people I'm hoping, I'm hoping the book.
Renee: [00:22:43] Out so interested. And the question is how did you find a buddy? And there's a lot of jokes about how we need to create this program and how to find your buddy. And the reality is a lot of these people, they're questioning it, but they don't take action. They're hesitant, like they're intrigued by it and they don't want to do the work to get the outcome.
Dan: [00:23:00] They don't want to give the skill. So there's a skill. It's called recruiting and people just don't like. But here's the funny part, Renee. It's probably the same thing that's stopping them from growing their business.
Renee: [00:23:10] Yeah.
Dan: [00:23:10] Right.
Renee: [00:23:11] But here's the thing too, is what I wanted to say is in all of this too, is you. The recruiting is important. You also have a lot of trust and faith in the people that you're managing or delegating tasks to. And I've seen it.
Dan: [00:23:25] For a belief set. It's a belief.
Renee: [00:23:26] Set. I've seen it where you're just like, Here's the outcome of what I expect. You know, everything you need is over here. Now go do the work. Meanwhile, I'm watching this unfold thinking, Oh gosh, are they going to screw up? They even know where this other thing is. Do they even know how he likes it? Like, where do they go to find this information? Maybe I should go lean in and help them.
Dan: [00:23:46] I say, here's the belief. This is again, there's a whole bunch of reasons why people won't do this. One of my beliefs is 80% done by somebody else is 100% freaking awesome. So I know and I'm honest with myself, if I ask somebody else to do something eight out of ten times, it'll be good. Two out of those ten times will not meet the mark. So there's waste there. I'm okay with that. I'm okay. You've seen it happen so many times where somebody orders the wrong thing or this shows up or it's not what you needed or and I'm just like, cool. Like, I didn't do it. Like, think about people like my executive assistant or our house manager. These people are literally buying back 40 hours each of my time. It's a 1 to 1 ratio. If they weren't doing it, Renee, you or I would have to do it. They're working full time. So all of a sudden now I am just in so much gratitude because I have these people supporting me so that I can focus on doing stuff that I love to do.
Dan: [00:24:44] And what's fun for me, it's like sometimes I'll grab like Betty and I'll be like, Hey, come on this session and say hi to my clients, right? Because I always like wondering if you're like Snuffleupagus. And she gets nervous and she's like, doesn't want it. And she's like, You do that. I don't like doing that. And so, like, that's the cool part for me is I truly know that what I do, I do really well. And what they do, they do incredibly well. Like these people. You know them. Renee My team, the things that I work at, they play at like they're just naturally gifted. It's just their happy place. And I love that. And I think that's where some people have never hired anybody where that was the case. We're like, Remember Sandy Romo? Do you remember Sandy, my bookkeeper? Like she loved managing spreadsheets and reconciling bank accounts. And like, I worked with her for over a decade in like my early days of entrepreneurship. And like when you called her, she was always happy.
Renee: [00:25:35] How do you do it?
Dan: [00:25:37] And it was just like, awesome. But like if I was doing that work, I'd be like, Oh, I don't want to do this. And like, yet again, people don't follow the buyback principle and they build these businesses that they grow to hate because they keep all this weird stuff on their plate, like managing publishing, social media posts and like they'll spend hours doing this stuff that it's like, does that make you money? It's like, no, you need to be the person that produces the content. The thing that makes you money is chatting with people. How about you don't spend 4 hours publishing social media? Instead you spend. For hours, opening up chats with everyone that follows you on Instagram and try to move relationships forward that'll have a ten times ROI on your time than publishing on social that you can pay somebody else to do. Again, people don't value their time, and even if they valued it, they haven't spent the time to learn the skill to figure out how to fill it back up. Right. If you gave them a full day back, they'd be like, What do I do with it? Like, I don't trust myself. Like.
Renee: [00:26:36] That's just boredom is either the challenge.
Dan: [00:26:38] Yeah, I'd rather just process email and stay busy because at least I feel like I'm being productive. But they've never stopped and said like, let me analyze my activities. That's why in the book I talk about the buyback loop and it's the first part is an audit. It's a time and energy audit. It'll show you 100% with clarity. What are the activities you actually do that move the needle and where all the noise is and then it's up to you.
Renee: [00:27:00] I feel like I need to do that because sometimes there's like days where you're like, How was your day? What did you work on today? And I'm like, My gosh, I was so busy, but I actually don't even know what I did today. But here's the thing. So it's like, I know what I did, but embarrassingly don't even want to tell you the tasks that I did because I know they weren't needle moving activities.
Dan: [00:27:20] Yeah, well, the way I do it to keep it simple is I color code my calendar on the type of work I'm doing so I can look on a weekly calendar and know if I did the things that move the needle.
Renee: [00:27:31] Interesting.
Dan: [00:27:32] So that's a little trick that some people again, you need to do it. So some people are like, Whoa, that's so good. It's like, now do it right. Like, it's like, like you got to do a time and energy implement. Yeah, totally. It's like, but I get it. Some people need to be motivated, so I'm going to just keep sharing the message and showing them the lifestyle and showing them how it could work. And hopefully someday many of our friends will someday invest in an executive. I mean, some of them don't even have an executive assistant. They're still managing their own time and calendar and their travel. You know, some of these people, we travel with them and literally they spend six, 7 hours managing travel problems. The da da da da da. And I'm just like this bananas like you run a like these are very successful entrepreneurs, multiple seven figure income earners, and yet they still book their own flights and try to rush in when the thing and trade the points to get the status to do it. And I'm just like I.
Renee: [00:28:25] Only do one of the worst at booking flights. I remember one time years ago I was going to Toronto just for like 24 hours for some meeting when I was running my agency and I sent you the calendar invite when I was leaving and coming back and you came and you knocked on my office door. You're like, Is there something I don't know. Am I missing something? Like, why? And you go see, Why are you in Toronto for a month? I meant to book at 24 hours, but ended up being like 24 days. That was a big mistake. And it's like, because I'm not good at that stuff. The little details. I missed that all the time. But then there's people like Larry, who's our travel guy, who picks up on that stuff, because looking at those numbers and the stuff on screen is just second nature for them.
Dan: [00:29:09] He plays plays. When you want to talk about somebody, I won't even tell you guys his last name because I'm scared you guys will get him so busy. I mean, Larry plays at a level when it comes to managing travel in the travel experience, like he nerds out passionately about this. I mean, I call them ground control because for fun, you know, I've been with Max or Noah or friends of mine and I'm traveling and I'm just like, Larry, tell me about my plane. And he comes back with this paragraph of like, well, it's actually this plane. And it just came into commission two years ago and it's got this cool feature and this thing and, you know, and he's like, you're going to land here. And they actually got this other plane. Be sure to go check out gate this. And I'm just like.
Renee: [00:29:50] Oh, he's like, hold your map. He's like, You're landing at gate 12, and then you have to get to DH 13 and you have 45 minutes and there's a lounge on the way if you want to grab a snack. And it's kind of.
Dan: [00:30:01] Like next level. It's next level.
Renee: [00:30:03] Wow, Right.
Dan: [00:30:04] And it allows us to I mean, even with LAX, remember that time that we had the concierge help us out at LAX and like bring us through security? Yeah. So, like, people don't realize there's ways on very simple levels to start by backing your time.
Renee: [00:30:20] By backing.
Dan: [00:30:21] Increasing the experience, by backing, buying back your time and creating an experience that just makes things enjoyable. Right? And that's why, like I left it for the last chapter of the buyback, lifestyle, lifestyle. Sorry, but I really want I mean, this is the movement I'm trying to create right now. As you know, I just want entrepreneurs to create more. Right? I just knew that like when I was young and building companies, I was a workaholic. I was working 120 hours a week. That's all I knew. I had one gear and it was try to be as productive as I can. I had a lot of people reporting to me. I didn't know any better about leadership. I didn't know how to manage my time. I didn't there was no way I would give myself. I was doing my laundry. I was I was like literally, you know, like doing.
Renee: [00:31:03] 120 hours a week. No, You mean like 80 hours a week? 100 days.
Dan: [00:31:10] It was 16 hours a day. 16 times seven.
Renee: [00:31:12] Is when you 100 the When did you sleep?
Dan: [00:31:15] Well, there's 24 hours.
Renee: [00:31:16] I get that.
Dan: [00:31:17] 6 hours a night.
Renee: [00:31:18] 6 hours? Oh, my God. Wow.
Dan: [00:31:20] 42. Yeah. Yeah, I would just it was literally just there was no not working. I mean, talk to Nick, you know, Nick, I went to last.
Renee: [00:31:28] Party to parties.
Dan: [00:31:30] His laptop. Yeah. And I was like. And I thought I was the best friend in the world because I'm so busy. But I'm here at his birthday anyway, and he should thank me. And turns out he thought I was a ding dong and he was right.
Renee: [00:31:39] Probably. So things here at eggnog.
Dan: [00:31:41] I probably everybody loves a little bit of credit back. Yeah he definitely loves me but that's like to me it's I just want entrepreneurs to create more. I want them to, like, not hate the work they do because they've decided to spend their money in different ways. It doesn't matter if you buy a new car instead of hiring an executive assistant or you upgrade your house instead of like, I just see people make these financial decisions. It's like you can buy back 30 hours of your week or you can get a new car. And the crazy part is if you buy back 30 hours a week and you take 15 of those hours and you go work on a higher caliber stuff, you'll make two, three cars in a year, You literally triple your money so that you can buy three of those in 12 months or in four months. And that's the thing. It's a mathematical equation. You can't build a 10 million a year company on $10 task. You just can't. It's like impossible. So then really it's just like, what's the least amount of money I can spend to buy back my time to trade it up, to do that again, to trade it up, to do it again, until you get to the point where your income per hour is really incredible, like there's no other way to do it.
Renee: [00:32:52] So the listeners are mostly female entrepreneurs, mothers. So there's a lot of this is probably pushing a lot of bruises on these women's ego. Also just what they're expected of them in the book. What are some core nuggets you know, that would be super helpful, these women that are kind of facing this, Oh, I want to do this, but so and so might not agree with me or what would my mother think or what my father think.
Dan: [00:33:18] What advice. And I think like you would probably have the best advice for them, because I think and I don't want put words in your mouth, but like you had to personally go through this. I've never had challenges worrying about what my dad thought about me hiring people to help me in my life. Like when we had a chef in Moncton and making our meal prep or like hiring a night nanny to help with our like, I just personally, I had zero guilt, but I know you did. So it's like I just want people to know that it is normal, it will happen. But that is your opportunity. That's the ceiling, right? Like at the end of the day, if you want more, the only question to ask is Who do I need to become expecting? Your mom, your dad, your mother in law, your friend, your neighbor to change their reality and perspective, to adapt to you is a futile proposition. Like you're going to be holding your breath and you're going to not it's never going to work. You need to upgrade your beliefs. And like that's where, as you know, I have coached some incredibly strong and successful women CEOs and this is the work I've had to do with them, which is we write down all the beliefs they have when they consider these strategies.
Dan: [00:34:37] Like we write them down, we put them on paper, and then I work and say, Well, if you are giving somebody else advice to overcome that belief, what would you tell them? So I literally make them coach themselves by putting it out on paper and one at a time. It's like, I don't want my mom to think that I'm too busy. Perfect. What would you tell somebody that was scared to do that and not be willing to have somebody come in and help clean their house? Well, I would tell them there are times when I literally, like they write it down and then we work through it and we just say, look, let's just take a little step. Let's just do one thing. Let's do it for two weeks. And if you don't like it, you don't have to do it anymore. And it very rarely do that. Yeah, just start small.
Renee: [00:35:15] I think that's the best advice is the small things maybe you get. Like when we started with the cleaning lady, we had this woman that she came in once every two weeks and then over the course of months it was like once a week.
Dan: [00:35:27] When you say that out loud, I'm like, That's not enough.
Renee: [00:35:30] I know, right? But we had like a smaller house. And then I remember when my mindset changed, I was like, Dan, we need to get Shannon in twice a week. You're like, Why? I'm like, This is why. This is why you're like, Done deal. And then we all we did was we got more hours and we divided into two.
Dan: [00:35:46] Days and you gave her more stuff to do. I mean, the other thing is people, you know, I remember one of my friends, he was frustrated because like, his wife spent like half a day cleaning their cars every week. I'm like, why don't you just get the cleaning lady to clean your car? They're like, What? You got a cleaning lady? Yep. Pay them to clean your cars.
Renee: [00:36:03] Yeah.
Dan: [00:36:03] Well, dude, this person cleans their own car. This person. Owns a car and they clean their own car and they clean your house. Do you realize how ridiculous you're like? It's funny when people say, How do you find a Betty? I found somebody that was responsible and lived a life and could manage her own life, and I just asked her to manage my stuff. It's the exact same thing.
Renee: [00:36:24] Or it's like, which is the last time you stepped into a grocery store? Do you even know what it looks like on the inside?
Dan: [00:36:30] Build up a car with gas? I don't want to know a Costco. I refuse. I don't want to do it.
Renee: [00:36:36] Yeah, I want.
Dan: [00:36:36] You've seen me refuse. I won't do it out of principle because if I have to do it, then I feel like I've broken my own rule. I can't write a book. I'll buy back your time and then go spend 4 hours running errands. I don't want to do that. I'd rather go hang out with the boys or call my friends and do.
Renee: [00:36:52] Yeah. And it's like going back to the to having the faith and that trust in that person's ability to do the job, too. Because the idea of here's an example is because Betty is the CEO of our stuff. She even gets to drive your McLaren to get it cleaned service store so she drives that's.
Dan: [00:37:13] She doesn't like to I will tell you.
Renee: [00:37:14] Oh, I know, I know. I know this. However, the thought of that, if somebody's having a super car, the only person that I've ever known to ever drive a supercar is people that own it, or maybe a buddy that's really into it. But to let somebody like Betty do it, I'm just like, wow, that's it's impressive. But and I get it right. It's just the car. It's insured and she's it's a belief.
Dan: [00:37:35] It's a belief.
Renee: [00:37:36] 100%.
Dan: [00:37:37] Literally people need to learn and here's this beautiful about this Rene is if you can learn to do it in your home, it'll show up in your work and you'll like in the ceiling gets lifted. Right. Like some people, you know, these people like I'm not going to call them out, but I have a friend. Yeah, they are listening and I hope they they know it's them because I literally when I wrote the book, I wrote down like ten people's names. Yeah. Literally, my friends that I love, that I was like, I got to write the book for them.
Renee: [00:38:05] They I'm pretty sure there's examples of me in here too, but I get it. So what were you going to say?
Dan: [00:38:10] Yeah, I'm not confirming or denying that at all.
Renee: [00:38:12] I'll know. I'll know.
Dan: [00:38:14] Like there's a buddy of ours and he got mad at us because we were texting him at five in the morning about this trip we were working on. And he's like, Why are you guys texting me at five in the morning? We're like, Dude, just put your phone on silent. He's like, I can't because then I won't get the notification of the alarm at my shop. And we're like, Why do you get the call if there's an alarm that goes off at your shop? And he's like, Because that's all I need to know. If there's an alarm. And I'm like, I have an alarm on my house. I'm not I don't think my phone rings like the police. It rings the police, you know. And in that moment, I just realized, like, here's a guy successful multimillionaire and has not figured out a way for him not to be the only person that can deal if somebody's.
Renee: [00:38:54] Breaking into the shop. What I know my perspective and some of this is like, yes, that person knows they can outsource it. But also there's a lot of people that wouldn't even think of that as an option. They wouldn't. So what I'm saying.
Dan: [00:39:06] Is they don't even.
Renee: [00:39:07] Know. One example for us, when we got a night nanny, when Noah was a newborn and you and I were both the peak of running our businesses and we needed sleep, there was no like, Oh, well, I don't work, so I'll just take the fall. It was like, we both need our sleep.
Dan: [00:39:21] No. Yeah, it was like a bad health decision.
Renee: [00:39:23] Dan's like, there's this lady that can come in and bottle feed the baby in the middle of the night. That means you can sleep. And all I could think about was cool idea, but that's not for us. Who am I to deserve this? I'm not enough to deserve this. And we finally did it one night and I was like, Best thing ever. When you come back winning life.
Dan: [00:39:43] Yeah.
Renee: [00:39:44] Yeah. And it's like, you just got to do it. So like.
Dan: [00:39:47] Well, this is why it's a forcing function. Like it's, Can I go to Costco? Of course. But I want to force myself not to do that stuff because then it makes me reflect on how did this become a thing that isn't taken care of, right? So like, how did it end up on my to do list? Is this something I could ask? You know, and it's funny because then, like, if I just say, Well, I don't want to do that, then my executive assistant has to order from Costco and they deliver to my house. Problem solved. Why wasn't that the first thing? Why was it why was it even a thing I wrote down on my list?
Renee: [00:40:18] You just do things. They just always get done and they're not curious about how there's other ways of doing stuff.
Dan: [00:40:25] Perfect.
Renee: [00:40:25] That's why I say when it comes to.
Dan: [00:40:27] That'll be your ceiling.
Renee: [00:40:28] Building a house, booking, air travel, whatever it is. Like. There's different ways. There's more productive, efficient ways of doing things, but we never question it because it's always the way it's been done. Like my friend Kira, she's coming over on Christmas Day and she's like, Are you cooking a turkey or two? I've never cooked a turkey in my life. What do you mean? I go, I don't like to cook. That's a waste of time. You can come over and cook a turkey in my kitchen, though. But what we've done is we have this little place down the street called HomeAway or whatever it's called, where we pre-order.
Dan: [00:40:57] You don't know, Renee. You don't know because Betty deals with it. You don't.
Renee: [00:41:01] Know. Betty asked me, What do you want? And then I just tick the box. We pick up the turkey and they do a better job than I would. I never questioned it because in my household it was always like, well, my mom always cook these beautiful meals. So I just assumed that's what I was supposed to do, too. But when I said, I don't like doing this, and I admitted to the hating of the cooking of everything, then it's like, then solve the problem and you find somebody to do it for you. So I never have to cook a turkey. I don't even care to learn how to cook one. No, don't, don't. So any last key takeaways from the book?
Dan: [00:41:34] Stuff that lots of stuff.
Renee: [00:41:35] Literally really love Love about this book.
Dan: [00:41:38] Oh, I think the perfect week design page 141 is like if you don't have a rhythm for that, I have a whole chapter on how to work with an executive assistant, and I even get into like the tools I use, the rhythms for the meetings and most importantly, the folder structure. Look at this. You've never I don't think you've seen all of it, but it's got a whole folder structure for how to work with your executive assistant. I talk about the ten X vision map because I think most people need clarity about like what their life looks like. And then I share how we use the preloaded year, right, Renee? Preloaded year. I'll show it, everybody. I don't know if this is a video podcast, but if you're not watching the video podcast, go to buy back your time dot com. But this is our 20. Let me show 2021. I want to show any personal information.
Renee: [00:42:26] What Dan is showing is a calendar for the entire year. So it's all 12 months in one piece of paper and it's where you use those for us for coaching clients so that he can see where his time is dedicated and where.
Dan: [00:42:40] There's I look at, I literally I mean, Rene and I have we have like the Rene only stuff, the family stuff, the Rene and Dan stuff, the boys trips and my business stuff and it's all there. I mean, we plan in 2023, 2024, and then that way because his color coded, you and I can see like how much family trips are we doing, You know, in this corner it's like you've got your mountain bike trip and a snowboarding trip or a snow biking trip. Like when are we hanging? Oh, we've got marching in Cabo, you know what I mean?
Renee: [00:43:11] Like, well, what I love about it, it's just like a game of Plinko. I love using that example. But we look at the year and we're like, What are the activities? So the activities are like your events or like Tony Robbins with the stuff or these places that were invited. We're like, Yes, those are like absolute put in pen, and then we plunk those things on to the calendar and now we're like, okay, there's space, right? So then if like Todd was like, Hey, Dan, I want to go speak at this event, will you come with me? Then you'd be like, Yeah, one second. Yeah, cool. I have time. There's travel time. Absolutely. Let's lock it in. And it's right there.
Dan: [00:43:44] There's no And I also know if he's like, you and Rene should come and I look and I go, No, because Rene and I just got back from this place and I know she doesn't like traveling that much. So it's like even understanding. That's why I call it energy management, not time management. I use that one page template to create a sense of energy flows throughout the year. I like that. And then yeah, I mean, that's just like literally we're talking about 10% of the stuff I cover in the book because it's full of research.
Renee: [00:44:12] Like that's a big thing. What I love about this like preloaded year two is like you look at it and it's like you put the fast stuff and the other stuff. Then you look at your goals for the year and you're like, Oh crap, I have one goal that's like, I want to compete at a CrossFit competition and I haven't signed up for anything. Where is there something at these dates and these weekends? Right? So you can make it happen. Otherwise it just you would never.
Dan: [00:44:35] If that's the only way I did three Ironman, there's like no way. I literally had to look at this and go like, okay, I have an event here. I got this there, I got to travel with my bike, I got to do a training camp here. Like you can literally squeeze so much more into your year. And I know some people listen to Rene and they're like, That sounds crazy. Like Garrett who roasted me, or our buddy Garrett Gunderson. He's like, Buy back your time. Why would I buy back my time to do Iron Man? Screw that. And, you know, like, had this whole bit he did on me. He's a comedian. But the truth is, is I'm able to again run two companies, do the Iron Man stuff, you know, hopefully be a great husband for my wife, show up for my kids.
Renee: [00:45:15] Be part of our community. I'm sure you're crushing it on the husband.
Dan: [00:45:19] Hey, I've got one direction to go when it's up. And that's all I do.
Renee: [00:45:23] You know what I love about this, too, is that in just from, like, a partnership marriage perspective, is that you and I make it a really we're intentional being on the same page about us, about stuff that's run in the house, about the kids, about our businesses, too.
Dan: [00:45:38] But it's by design 100%.
Renee: [00:45:41] And it's like, I don't have to conquer the same mountain that you're conquering because I have no interest in doing an Iron Man. There's not like none at all.
Dan: [00:45:48] But you said that once about 75 hard, though, and you ended up doing it.
Renee: [00:45:52] Yeah, but I will.
Dan: [00:45:54] Never and I think you said that once about CrossFit competitions and then you did it again.
Renee: [00:45:58] Okay, But I'm being very serious. I don't.
Dan: [00:46:00] Like this.
Renee: [00:46:01] Time and I don't like fighting.
Dan: [00:46:03] This time. You're not doing.
Renee: [00:46:05] It. Dan, Do I like being wet?
Dan: [00:46:07] I get it. But you. Also grown every year or so.
Renee: [00:46:11] So I am doing a Spartan race this summer.
Dan: [00:46:14] There you go.
Renee: [00:46:15] So anyway, the.
Dan: [00:46:16] Trojan.
Renee: [00:46:16] Horse is I know when you get this capacity in your calendar, you can actually do more things that really push you outside your comfort zone because it allows you to set that intention to create the space to train, whatever it is, to go and do the stuff, whether it's something physical or drumming or whatever. And you get that capacity back to focus on these things. And it's like cross fits meditation for me. And I know parts of training for an Iron Man was the same for you. So yes, that was crazy. Crazy that you did that. Oh my gosh. But it's incredible. And now you have a story to share. So you have some really cool stuff coming up, this book. But tell us about where people can go to buy it online.
Dan: [00:46:54] Well, first off, I just want to acknowledge you babes so they can everybody can go get the book at Amazon. My biggest ask is please leave a review if I've ever done anything for you, ever. And you love the book, please leave a review that's going to help with the movement. I'm trying to create more than anything, but I do have a dedication to my beautiful wife in the book. To Renee is literally right there. First pages to Max and Noah. You are my everything. I mean, that like this is you know like the amount of support leaving to go work with my writers and editors and copywriters. And when we were in Utah, waking up for 2 hours reviewing every chapter, we're in Cabo on the beach, like just the amount of effort that I had to put into the book to produce the kind of thing I could be so proud of. And then having your help with the PR and just absolutely crushing it. I just want to thank you for that and just know like, this is just the beginning. I think that as I get more success stories from people that read the book and they teach you more stuff, like I'm just going to put it all back out there on my social media channels and just turn this into a groundswell of language in the entrepreneurial community. Like, I really want buying back your time to be as synonymous as like a growth engine or anything else. It's like, I think that it'll be just how people build companies in the future. And I would just love to be the spark at the beginning to just like help it get there.
Renee: [00:48:16] So people can go to buy back your time dotcom or see you online @danmartell
Dan: [00:48:24] danmartell.com
Renee: [00:48:25]Well babe thank you so much for joining us today.
Dan: [00:48:30] Appreciate you so much And thanks everybody for listening. It's a privilege. It's an honor. And I hope to meet you guys all in person soon.
Renee: [00:48:40] So there you have it. Thank you for tuning into another episode of Into the Wild to make this girl happy and to help reach other women who are dreaming of starting their business. Please leave us a five star review on iTunes and everywhere you listen in. Also, if you want to find me in the wild, check me out on Instagram at Renee Underscore Warren. That's r e n e underscore w a r. E. N. And leaving you with one of my favorite tips of all time. The best advice you could ever receive is from someone who has successfully done it before you. Until next time, ladies, Peace out.