Pod Insights The Ed Mylett Show From Riches to Rags to Riches w/ Dhar Mann About this episode Are you chasing instant gratification or long-term fulfillment?
Imagine you’ve MADE IT. You have created the life you have always dreamed of. You’re living in a mansion, driving the expensive cars, eating at 5-star restaurants, and enjoying life like never before… Just to wake up and watch it slip right through your fingers.
What would you do? How would you feel? Whom would you blame?
That’s exactly what happened with my next podcast guest, the amazing, Dhar Mann. After losing it all, Dhar took $600 and turned it into an 8 figure business!
If you aren’t already one of his raving fans, Dhar is a social media expert that creates some of the most captivating content I’ve ever seen. Even after taking a break from social media for 4 years, he has grown to over 10 million followers across his platforms and averages a BILLION views a month! Social media makes it looks like success happens overnight… NOT TRUE! This is a REAL success story.
The reason I love Dhar’s story so much is because he struggled with what MANY of us do; chasing short-term, instantaneous pleasure! Instant gratification feels good at the moment, but will eventually turn into a hollow void.
In this interview, Dhar shares how this type of darkness weighed on him even before he lost everything and the million-dollar question that changed the trajectory of his life when he was at his worst. Find out what it takes to go from having it all, to losing everything and rising again from the ashes.
Of course, I wouldn’t bring on a social media EXPERT without getting tactical! Dhar reveals the 7 MAJOR KEYS you need to know in order to GROW on your social media platforms that you won’t hear anywhere else!
Not only is this one of my favorite stories that I KNOW you need to hear, but you’ll also want to get your pen and paper ready for this social media crash course.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Ed Mylett? I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 p.m. And my third day, 6:00 p.m. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time, too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it. Waiting weeks on a big bank for capital? Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason.
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1:01 Speaker 01 Mr. President, my company, for me, of the explosion on our rig.
1:05 Speaker 02 On October 2nd.
1:06 Speaker 01 Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.
1:11 Speaker 02 Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.
1:18 Speaker 01 What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.
1:22 Speaker 02 With great power comes great deniability.
1:25 Speaker 01 I'm not the first nanny.
1:27 Speaker 02 Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.
1:38 Speaker 03 This is the Ed Mylett Show.
1:45 Ed Mylett? Welcome back to Max Out, everybody. I'm Ed Mylett, and today, you're going to get two things. You're going to get one of the most incredible stories you've ever heard about rags. Kind of riches, back to rags, to riches again. And then you're gonna hear about how to create compelling content that can move your social media and your brand as well, from someone that I consider to be a damn expert at this. And so the gentleman to my left is Dar Man. Dar, thank you for being here.
2:12 Speaker 04 Yeah, real pleasure, thank you.
2:13 Ed Mylett? And I have to, it's an honor for me too, because you know that I'm a big fan of your work. Just you guys, this man's been back on social media for about a year. You're talking about someone in one year who's grown to 10 million followers on all the different platforms in one year. 10 million followers. He's got 4 billion total views already on his content, and he's growing at about a billion views a month, with a B. Growing by a billion views a month, and is adding about 2 million followers a month to his social media content. This is incredible. It's unprecedented growth you've had. And what's interesting about it is, I told you off-camera, you used to create content that was, quite frankly, not my favorite content on social media.
2:55 Ed Mylett? And now you're creating content that is some of my favorite social media content that I create. So, let's go to the story first, then we'll get tactical, okay? Because it's just a bananas story.
3:04 Speaker 04 Yeah.
3:05 Ed Mylett? But you used to have a very large following on social media that, I don't know, I'd see you with champagne bottles and jets and, I don't know, you have nine exotic cars or something like that. So, take us back to about that time in your life, what you were doing then.
3:20 Speaker 04 Yeah, definitely. So, I was about 27, 28 years old. I just moved to Los Angeles. I had sold my recent company for not a lot of money.
3:29 Ed Mylett? Yeah.
3:30 Speaker 04 But I was living outside of my means. I was spending money way faster than I was bringing it in. But on social media, I was just making it seem like I was printing money and I had this big baller extravagant lifestyle. And so, you know, every, about four nights a week or so, we were in the club, popping bottles, $5,000 bar tabs, nine exotic cars, house in the Hollywood Hills with four stories. Sort of that whole Hollywood bachelor lifestyle that you could imagine.
3:58 Ed Mylett? And that was, that sells on social, right? So you have the Jet Set Life brand, was the brand at the time. And it was growing. But I remember watching it thinking, I wonder if this is real.
4:07 Speaker 04 Yeah.
4:08 Ed Mylett? You know, I remember thinking that.
4:09 Speaker 04 I was wondering the same thing.
4:12 Ed Mylett? I just, it's a little bit surreal for me to now meet this, I'd consider to be this man who creates the most spiritual and moral content that grabs your heart compared to what I used to watch. It's just such a stunning turnaround. But if we went back to those times, I think a lot of people can relate to this. You all sort of have someone on social media, maybe their following that fits this description.
4:34 Speaker 04 Right.
4:35 Ed Mylett? Or you know someone like that. What was the pressures like for you to be probably, I assume you're spending money you don't have at the time. Were you thinking, man, this is eventually gonna catch up? Or I'm gonna, were you worried you were gonna kind of get, I don't know, exposed or run out of money? What were you thinking?
4:50 Speaker 04 Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, the thing is, is that you have to constantly be upping it to take it to the next level, right? So today, if I'm to buy a Mercedes, then tomorrow, that needs to be a Ferrari. And then it needs to keep leveling up as you go. And so what I started at was just traveling the world, you know, living pretty well. And then I was like, how do I take it to the next level? How do I take it to the next level? And so I constantly felt this pressure to outdo myself. And I almost felt like the followers expected it. I needed to do it for them. And so I created this alter ego that it was just became like an unsustainable lifestyle very, very quickly. But I didn't know where that would end.
5:34 Speaker 04 I didn't know how to stop that. And so it became pretty clear that at some point, I wasn't gonna be able to sustain it. And I ended up going dark on social media and creating and deleting all my content for four years.
5:48 Ed Mylett? This is remarkable part of the story coming up, you guys. Before we go to the dark place where you went, you went off for a while. I think a lot of people want that life you were showing, right? And the bottles, the club, all, especially my younger listeners. I'm curious, were you happy then?
6:06 Speaker 04 You know, I was living for the moment. And so anytime you're living for the moment, like you feel happy right then and there, but then you go to sleep at night, not really loving the person that you are. And it's this emptiness that you feel. Like I was chasing short-term instantaneous pleasure. So it feels great for that second, but you can't help but feel this hollowing feeling that's growing inside of you. It's like an addiction, just like anything else, where the, the cause of the addiction and the solution are sort of the same thing, where in order to fill that void that I was feeling, I felt like I needed more of that. I needed another hit. I needed to show another exotic car. I needed to show another, you know, night out at the club popping bottles.
6:51 Speaker 04 And then so I would go do that. I'd feel good for the second, but then that next day, I would just have this really empty feeling and I would start all over again.
6:59 Ed Mylett? Yeah, I'm wondering if, uh, such a good description too. I'm wondering if when you need that short-term pleasure that you're seeking, then you also start to kind of chase short-term quick money.
7:10 Speaker 04 Yeah.
7:11 Ed Mylett? Also, true to fill up that void. Was that happening with you too?
7:13 Speaker 04 Oh yeah. However, you can make the quickest buck possible. It's all part of that short-term thinking mentality that, you know, was the reason that I wasn't able to sort of unlock my full potential.
7:26 Ed Mylett? Yeah.
7:26 Speaker 04 And being able to switch from that short-term thinking to that long-term thinking was really pivotal in helping me find success.
7:33 Ed Mylett? Yeah.
7:34 Speaker 04 And now sort of build something way more sustainable and lasting.
7:37 Ed Mylett? And more impactful too. What about the people around you during those days?
7:41 Speaker 04 It's just like the podcast I was listening to by you just a few minutes ago. I was surrounding myself by people that wanted to be a part of that flashy lifestyle. And so naturally I was attracting people to me that wanted to be there because of what I could offer.
7:57 Ed Mylett? Yeah.
7:58 Speaker 04 Because of the flash, because of the cars, because of the houses, not because I'm a nice guy or I'm a good person. And it's not their fault. I didn't realize that at the time. I was blaming everybody around me as to why I failed and why I went through so much hardship. But then I, I got to a point My life, you know, I was around thirty years old where I realized that it's my fault that I'm attracting all these people into my life because that's what I'm putting out there. That was the magnet that I was putting out into the world. So naturally, I was bringing in all these people that wanted to sort of use me for something or didn't really love me for who I was.
8:36 Ed Mylett? So profound because when you do that, everybody, when you do lead with your stuff.
8:40 Speaker 04 Right.
8:40 Ed Mylett? Or your achievements, you are the one who's put that barrier up between you and other people to get to know the real you. The barrier are those things.
8:48 Speaker 04 Right.
8:48 Ed Mylett? All the, you know, it happens to me often at the different clubs I belong to or the golf courses where I'll meet a really rich dude. You know, and his MO all his life is within the first minute, he's got to tell me what jet he's got and how many Ferraris.
9:00 Speaker 04 And then you tell him what jets you got.
9:02 Ed Mylett? I try to just listen and I often, I catch myself telling guys sometimes later, I'm like, you know, I like you.
9:09 Speaker 04 Yeah.
9:09 Ed Mylett? You didn't need to give me all that, you know, I really like the you. I'm curious about, and by the way, I really appreciate your transparency.
9:16 Speaker 04 Yeah.
9:17 Ed Mylett? And your honesty about it too, because whether you know it or not, what you've already said is helping people go, you know, maybe this is fleeting.
9:24 Speaker 04 Right.
9:24 Ed Mylett? Maybe what I'm leading with is hollow. Not, not that we don't want you to have a jet and a car and a beautiful home and great friends. We want you to have those things. But, but what did happen that I want to touch on next is because most people can relate to this, my first dream ended.
9:37 Speaker 04 Yeah.
9:38 Ed Mylett? We were talking about this off camera, which was baseball.
9:40 Speaker 04 Right.
9:40 Ed Mylett? And that dream ended and I was left with, okay, what am I going to do next? And that has happened to almost everybody listening or watching us, their first dream, their business, their first career, their first dream relationship. It ended and then you're left to pick pieces up.
9:55 Speaker 04 Yeah.
9:56 Ed Mylett? And remake their lives. The reason I admire you so much is you did it.
10:00 Speaker 04 Right.
10:00 Ed Mylett? Most people, when that first dream fails.
10:02 Speaker 04 Yeah.
10:03 Ed Mylett? They get knocked down.
10:04 Speaker 04 Right.
10:04 Ed Mylett? A lot of people stay there.
10:05 Speaker 04 Right.
10:06 Ed Mylett? And really in your case, you were just kind of staggered.
10:08 Speaker 04 Right.
10:08 Ed Mylett? You didn't actually, I will get to the part where you turned it around, but what was it like as things started to unravel? And what did that feel like? What was the process like?
10:17 Speaker 04 Oh my God, it was this massive dark cloud that was just hanging over my head and my biggest fear was just any minute I'm going to get. and people who are gonna find out that I wasn't really this baller guy who could maintain this lifestyle. So I definitely got to the point of just feeling like massive depression. And I was trying to sustain that lifestyle, at least just optically showing that I was still that guy. But I wasn't financially able to do so anymore. And also, the person that I was was evolving. I started feeling a disconnect between my public persona and who I was deep inside. And so, you know, I would say I've I've experienced, you know, different levels of failure throughout my life.
11:02 Speaker 04 But that was like the first time in my life that I had experienced massive depression. Like to the point where I literally felt like I was gonna develop diabetes. I thought I was gonna get different health conditions. I'd wake up in the middle of the night like with my sheets soaked in sweat. Because I was going through so much anxiety. Every single morning, all I would do was walk around my block for hours because I couldn't sit still. I had to just keep moving. And, you know, I also lost a lot of my friends at that time, so I didn't have a lot of people that I could talk to. I mean, talk about like the darkest, darkest days of your life. That's what I was going through at that point.
11:42 Ed Mylett? And you actually got down to, so he has these nine exotic cars, the house, you're down, no house. One car's gone, two cars gone, seven cars are gone, nine cars are gone. There's 50 grand in savings, 20 grand in savings, six grand in savings. You get down to like 600 bucks.
11:57 Speaker 04 Six hundred dollars. But in reality, I was way in the red because I owed so many people money. I like I had credit card debt, I had all kinds of debt, but 600 dollars is sort of what I had in my checking's account.
12:10 Ed Mylett? Unbelievable.
12:11 Speaker 04 So I was far, I was deep underwater, but that's how much money I left.
12:14 Ed Mylett? If you saw his contract, guys, to think that this man was owing the world money, right? And and I just think it's one of the greatest stories I could possibly put on my show. For people to see, hey, you can do it one way and you make it, but if you do it the right way the second time, it's long lasting, it makes an impact. And that's what you're doing now. The thing you did, though, that I admire. Is that as you were falling, you were still swinging.
12:39 Speaker 04 Right.
12:39 Ed Mylett? And that's a critical thing as you're falling and the life's knocking you and you're staggered. You still have to punch back to some extent.
12:46 Speaker 04 Absolutely.
12:46 Ed Mylett? So you go to this, there becomes this moment and I get, he's part of a traditional Indian family. You're about to move back in with mom and dad. I'm sure your parents like, what the heck, right?
12:56 Speaker 04 Exactly.
12:56 Ed Mylett? So then there's the family, everyone listening this can relate to pieces of it. The family being disappointed in you, the friends disappearing, the, the stress and the sweating at night and all the anxiety. And you're at this dinner.
13:08 Speaker 04 Yeah.
13:09 Ed Mylett? And what happens at this dinner?
13:11 Speaker 04 So I'm looking for any way to just avoid moving in with my parents. That was like my only goal at that time.
13:17 Ed Mylett? Which is incredible for you.
13:19 Speaker 04 How can I pay rent? That was my only goal in life at that point in time.
13:23 Ed Mylett? And how old were you then?
13:24 Speaker 04 Thirty years old.
13:24 Ed Mylett? Thirty, yeah.
13:25 Speaker 04 And that's the hard part is that, you know, everybody has a vision for their life. And I certainly didn't imagine being thirty years old, on the verge of moving in with my parents with only six hundred dollars in my bank account, right?
13:37 Ed Mylett? And you had debt, legal issues, there's all kinds of stuff going on.
13:40 Speaker 04 All kinds of problems. Yeah, everything you could imagine was going wrong for me. And so that certainly wasn't the vision of my life, you know, celebrating my thirtieth birthday, not even able to afford the drinks I'm buying at the bar. Yeah, it was so embarrassing. And so, you know, at that time, I was just like, I am looking for any opportunity, any sort of lifeline that I could find that could take me out of this situation. And that's the thing is like, you know, for opportunity, it's all about the right mindset, right? Because there's opportunities that are around us all of the time. But if you're not open minded and looking for those opportunities, you could easily miss it. And that day that we're talking about could have easily been a day that that opportunity just breezed right by me.
14:24 Ed Mylett? Yep.
14:25 Speaker 04 So I'm at this dinner and this makeup artist, I know nothing about makeup, right? And this makeup artist is telling me how she's traveling all over the world. She's teaching these makeup seminars. Girls are paying three hundred and four hundred dollars a pop and they're selling out. So she's this international teacher and I just asked a simple question. I said, have you thought about taking that concept online? And she responds and she goes, "Actually, that's a great idea." And I, I literally don't even think I thought about it. The word just came out of my mouth as if it was some external force like pulling it out of me. And I was like, "I can do it." And here I am, a guy that knows nothing about makeup, has never built a website, that knows nothing about online education or anything like that.
15:09 Speaker 04 And she looks at me and she goes, "Okay."
15:11 Ed Mylett? Oh my gosh.
15:12 Speaker 04 And so I'm like, "All right, online classes." Thank God, it's digital content, which doesn't, it's not like I have to go through product development and, you know, spend thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of dollars to develop prototypes and these things. So I'm like, "All right." She obviously had no idea how little money I had and how little expertise I had. I was far over my head, but I was desperate. And desperation is the mother of all invention, right? So I take that $600 and I say, "Okay, I need to get..." What do I need? I went to Best Buy and first thing I got was soft box lights, the cheapest you could buy, with a webcam, $400 gone. I got $200 left to my name. Then I'm like, "I need a website." So I go on Craigslist and I put out an ad that, "Hey, I need to build an online school for 200 bucks."
15:57 Speaker 04 I got, you know, probably 100 emails. 99 of them told me that I'm crazy, go to hell, no one's ever gonna do that. And for some reason, I got this one guy that said, "You know what? That's really, really low. I'll do it for 200 bucks, but if it works out, just kick me a little bit of money, you know, extra afterwards." And I was like, "Thank God." I launched the website. We recorded our first class. She had a big social media following. She blasted out this class to her followers. And then boom, just overnight, you know, we started getting a lot of sales in and...
16:29 Ed Mylett? And to this day, then it turned into the box that you all have too, right? So give us an idea, what's that turned into now?
16:34 Speaker 04 Yeah, so it started with online content. And then I started just working with different makeup artists to teach online classes. And then one of the models for one of the classes I was in turned out to be my now fiancee and baby mama, who also, you know, had an extensive makeup experience. So as we built a relationship, I was telling her I had a greater vision than just doing online classes. Classes and so by adding her to the mix, she helped me come up with how to develop our own line of cosmetics. And so it started as a $600 investment, all the money that I had in the time is now a mid eight-figure revenue company that we reached within a couple of years. We just hired our 100 team member.
17:15 Ed Mylett? Oh my.
17:15 Speaker 04 And so life is sort of just completely turned around all in the past few years.
17:18 Ed Mylett? Guys, come on, are you listening or watching this right now? It's remarkable. What are the lessons? Let's, let's, let's unpack that just for a second. Number one, in the darkest moments of your life, you are one conversation, one question, one meeting away from turning it around. If you still have that reticular activating system, see his RAS in his brain was programmed still to see opportunity, not to see all these anxieties and worries. You were still looking for some way out when there was almost no light left.
17:45 Speaker 04 Exactly.
17:46 Ed Mylett? Second thing is he was willing to step into a space he was ill-prepared for and figured, I'll figure it out when I get there. Too many people, preparation is important, but too many people are waiting on some threshold of preparation. Like I gotta be completely ready. Champions step into spaces they're not ready for and they figure it out when they get there. And then third, you kept swinging. I, I admire so much. Now during that time, this is where it gets good, guys. Now we're gonna take some note taking. It's one of the, it's one of my favorite stories, bro. Because it's one of my favorite stories because of the man that you became in the process. So everything in our life is happening for us and not to us if we choose to see it that way. Thank God this happened for you.
18:26 Speaker 04 Yes, exactly.
18:28 Ed Mylett? Right?
18:29 Speaker 04 Thank God, but can you imagine telling me that at that time?
18:32 Ed Mylett? No, no.
18:32 Speaker 04 I'm sweating in my sheets and Ed Mylett shows up and say, this is a good thing for you, right? Thank God, this is happening. I'd be like, get out of my house, what are you talking about?
18:41 Ed Mylett? All right.
18:41 Speaker 04 You can't see it in your darkest moments.
18:43 Ed Mylett? Yes.
18:44 Speaker 04 But what's crazy is, and we'll get to this in a second, is now I create motivational content that connects with people. And the thing is, I had to go through all that suffering and pain in order to understand what it feels like to go through so much suffering and pain. So I can connect with my audience and say, I have been there. I have experienced exactly what you've experienced. And I know how to translate that emotion into online content.
19:10 Ed Mylett? It's remarkable, guys. He goes dark for four years or so, so you're losing followers like crazy. Anybody on social media knows what it's like to lose one follower.
19:19 Speaker 04 Oh my gosh, so stressful.
19:20 Ed Mylett? Never mind all that, and that's just like, you're gone. People kind of forgot about you. You know, in social media world, four years is 4,000 years, right? And what I think you did, and this is where we're going to get into content creation. So all of you that have three followers to 30 million followers that listen to my stuff, we're going to start to unpack, how can you begin to grow in some of the ways like you've grown? Which, by the way, you're the fastest growing person on social media right now. I think that's arguably the case. I mean, I don't think anybody in one year is at 4 billion views and adding 2 million followers a month. That's just remarkable. I think you went from making motivational content, playing on people's motives, to creating inspirational content, which is to put people in spirit. That's the distinction.
20:02 Speaker 04 I love that. Can you say that again?
20:05 Ed Mylett? Well, I do. I think it went from motivational to inspirational. That's a subtle shift where you're playing the motives of sort of greed and excess and all that, which some of those things are fine, to inspirational, which is in spirit. So what are some of the damn keys to what you've done, right? Like, in your case, what's worked and why is it working?
20:23 Speaker 04 Yeah, absolutely. So when I started creating content, I was dark on social media for four years. And I just want to make this point really quick. A lot of people feel like, if you're ever staying still, then you'll get run over. You're dead in the water. But I just want to say to those people that feel like they are somewhat stagnant, sometimes it's okay to go dark for a period of time while you're figuring out who you are. Sometimes it takes being dark to see the light. And it took me those four years of stopping, not doing anything, really trying to become the person that I needed to be to succeed in order to get to the point of creating this inspirational content. So what happened was, I started, you know, feeling like, I was running this cosmetics, I'm still running this cosmetics business, it's going extremely well.
21:08 Speaker 04 You know, I run with my fiance, it's going amazing, and I'm like, I still have this deeper calling for something. I want to go back to inspiring people, connecting. with people and so in the beginning I started going in front of the camera and I would just talk and try to motivate them through my words and what I realized is I'm not very good at that for whatever reason I'm okay maybe telling my personal story and so I put out my very first video in 2018 on my birthday in May 29 2018 and it was just me telling a story about how you shouldn't give up and so I posted that video thinking that oh this video is gonna go viral I was super excited about it
21:48 Speaker 04 posted it on my birthday and then I kept refreshing and refreshing and refreshing and it was like 100 views 105 views 110 views I think that video didn't even break 150 views or something like that but I was at that point in my life where I understood that things take time to take off and I was smart enough to know that you know what if my first strategy doesn't work it's okay I need to keep evolving and trying new things to ultimately get to what I needed to get to so then I started telling stories on camera and what I did is I hired an animator you know someone that was like $500 a cartoon or something like that I still wasn't spending too much money on this
22:30 Speaker 04 so now when I was telling a story I'd have cartoons showing up on screen and then as I started that level of content it sort of took my views from going from 100 views to you know 100 to 500 views to now about 500 about 5,000 views or something so I was like I'm on to something here and then as soon as I start to experience some level of success then I start to optimize around that I start to double down and say this is working this is the direction that I need to go how do I double down and go further into this and then I started thinking okay cartoons are great but you know they they're not really relatable for people so what if I actually had actors that showed on screen whatever lesson I'm talking about think about this
23:16 Speaker 04 If I was to tell you, oh, I walked past, you know, a homeless person, or let's say this. Let me tell you about the key to happiness is gratitude. Here's the three different lessons about gratitude that you need to know. Yeah, that's interesting, right? Or if I was to tell you that, hey, I was walking home from the grocery store, and as I was walking home, it started raining on my head. And all I could think about is how miserable is this? I gotta walk home in the rain. And as I'm thinking that, I look over and I see a homeless person who's living in the rain. And that taught me about gratitude, right? Which one are you gonna remember?
23:58 Ed Mylett? The latter.
23:59 Speaker 04 That story about that homeless person, right? And so I started getting into storytelling, and then I hired actors who would actually create these life lessons that we're talking about. And I would just be a small piece at the end, who would just talk about the lesson, that's the key takeaway, from whatever story that's being seen on screen. And as soon as I started making that shift, that's when I started to see my views really start picking up. But it wasn't just like instantly I started going viral or anything. I still struggled with failure for quite some time with that strategy, until I finally got a video that went viral.
24:35 Ed Mylett? There's a couple of things you said there that are so profound. Number one, you're kinda, the market will tell you whether your content's working.
24:41 Speaker 04 Absolutely.
24:41 Ed Mylett? Right? So if you're constantly posting the same sort of thing and it's not getting a response, it's telling you that people aren't responding to that.
24:47 Speaker 04 Exactly.
24:47 Ed Mylett? Number two is storytelling, which is huge. Now, not everybody out there can afford to hire actors.
24:53 Speaker 04 Right.
24:53 Ed Mylett? But if you begin to create pieces of content once or twice a week, where it's exactly what you just said.
24:58 Speaker 04 Yeah.
24:58 Ed Mylett? It's just you telling a story that's happened from your life. So important you say that because oftentimes people will tell me, "Why would anybody wanna see my content? I'm not successful yet." Because you have stories.
25:09 Speaker 04 Right.
25:09 Ed Mylett? So your story of sitting in the grocery line at the store and something interesting happened can be something that moves people, right? You at the bank, you and also documenting stories that happened for you as well. Telling stories and just documenting things you do are more interesting than you think they are. Look at reality television today, everybody. You know, the Real Housewives of these different shows. We have many friends on those shows that are our dearest friends. Not all of these people, some of them are, but not all these people are mega rich people. It's just the documentation of their existence. Let me ask you a third element of it that I see. Emotion.
25:45 Speaker 04 Oh, sorry, just one last aspect.
25:47 Ed Mylett? Sure.
25:47 Speaker 04 In the beginning, I wasn't spending money either. I was having my fiance's brother be the actor. I was shooting on my iPhone. So you literally can do it bootstrap with no resources.
25:57 Ed Mylett? Really glad, no, super glad that you've interjected that. Like I said, that's huge too. And by the way, some of the funniest stuff online, look at TikTok.
26:05 Speaker 04 Yeah.
26:05 Ed Mylett? TikTok, that platform is everyday people kind of acting and lip syncing and doing stuff like that. So you don't have to have actors all the time. Also though, I've heard you talk about this before. Emotion's important.
26:15 Speaker 04 Absolutely.
26:15 Ed Mylett? How so? What do you mean by that?
26:17 Speaker 04 So the number one comment that I look for is this video made me cry. If you could make somebody feel something, then they'll always remember that story because of the emotion that they felt. So my goal is always to emotionally move people. And I'll know that I'm on to a big idea because as I'm writing the idea, I'll literally start to get teary eyed just reading the idea that I'm writing. Or have you ever posted something on Instagram and something that was very heartfelt?
26:51 Ed Mylett? Yes.
26:52 Speaker 04 And as you're reading your caption, you're almost emotionally moved or it's taking you to a certain place.
26:57 Ed Mylett? Yes.
26:57 Speaker 04 And then that ends up being like your most viral post or your best performing post.
27:01 Ed Mylett? Yes.
27:01 Speaker 04 If you can extract that emotion and put that into your content, then your audience will feel that emotion. And that was one thing I realized is, because I'm not a filmmaker. I didn't go to school for this. I had no background in creating film or anything like that. But when I'm looking at a screen, I'm like, what moves you emotionally? Once you start to see actors get all teary eyed and their eyes get red and tears are flowing, that naturally makes you start to feel emotional as well. And so if you can move people emotionally, then they're more likely to tell people about that video. They're more likely to hit that share button. They're more likely to say, "Hey, did you see this video? Oh my God, I can't stop crying. You have to watch this."
27:43 Ed Mylett? What creates crying? So are there certain elements? Is it our existence on earth, our dreams, our families, our faith? Are there certain, I don't want to call them buttons, but key points that you feel like are more likely to induce emotion in somebody?
27:59 Speaker 04 Relatability. That's what I've come to realize. I get this so often that, "Oh my God, this video reminded me of my dad. And I miss my dad so much. I wish he was here." Or, "This video reminded me of my unappreciative ex-husband. Thank God I don't have that guy in my life and I'm no longer in that state." So if you can get them to relate to a part of their own life that they've experienced, even indirectly, then you can help drive that emotion because they can remember something that they've experienced. And it could even be something that happened during their childhood. It could be something that they saw. It could be something that they heard.
28:42 Speaker 04 But if you can recreate that experience for them, that's what will move them emotionally.
28:47 Ed Mylett? Brother, so good. You have so many videos that I think do that. And I want everybody listening to this, break it down to where you are. You can be telling stories your way.
28:58 Speaker 04 Right.
28:58 Ed Mylett? You can be creating emotional. You could be talking about your dad. You can be talking about your children, your experience. So you need to be thinking in your way. You know, a lot of us just keep posting that meme.
29:08 Speaker 04 Exactly.
29:09 Ed Mylett? Keep writing the caption. Keep, you know, just a picture of us and our kids. Start to think about how you could tell a story in your caption as well or through the video. You have this one video I just saw today that struck me. And this is what I want people to get an angle that you did that was brilliant.
29:23 Speaker 04 Yeah.
29:23 Ed Mylett? Because there's all different ways to look at a perspective. But it was the one where, and it seems like a simple one. It was the one where the man's checking out girls on his social media. Do you know the one I'm talking about?
29:34 Speaker 04 I've got a few of those.
29:34 Ed Mylett? Yeah. Okay, well, this particular one that I saw today. And what it was, guys, is just the pain. That it caused for this woman.
29:41 Speaker 04 Right.
29:42 Ed Mylett? What's sitting there while her husband's screening in on looking at the stuff.
29:45 Speaker 04 Right.
29:45 Ed Mylett? The power of it wasn't him looking. For me, the power of it was her face.
29:50 Speaker 04 Exactly.
29:51 Ed Mylett? You showing her face and how much it crushed her.
29:54 Speaker 04 Exactly.
29:55 Ed Mylett? To see her man doing that.
29:57 Speaker 04 Right.
29:57 Ed Mylett? And so it's just a way of what you really did is you changed the wall.
30:01 Speaker 04 Right.
30:02 Ed Mylett? Instead of it just being him, you changed the wall and showed her.
30:04 Speaker 04 Exactly.
30:05 Ed Mylett? So these are little things you guys begin to think about is not every video needs to be shot straight on your face.
30:10 Speaker 04 Right.
30:11 Ed Mylett? Change the wall, change the view, show someone else, show the background, show something, right?
30:15 Speaker 04 Exactly.
30:15 Ed Mylett? Do you do that?
30:16 Speaker 04 Different perspectives. Yeah, I literally can tell, I can tell, I can use the same story or the same dynamic, but tell it from three different perspectives and they're all really unique. So I could show the husband's perspective about a wife who doesn't believe in him, that he's going to succeed in his business and the stress it creates on him. And then I can take that same story and show the wife's perspective about how insecure he makes her feel because he's checking out other girls or he's constantly disengaged in meaningful conversation.
30:45 Ed Mylett? Okay.
30:46 Speaker 04 Um, so I'm constantly switching the perspective.
30:48 Ed Mylett? Yes.
30:48 Speaker 04 I'll tell a story from a maid's perspective, a janitor's perspective, a CEO's perspective, and everybody can relate to some aspect or some character.
30:58 Ed Mylett? Yeah.
30:58 Speaker 04 And the reason, one of the big reasons too that, you know, my storytelling using actors is so powerful is if I'm gonna sit here, look on camera, certain people, as soon as they see my face, are instantly gonna turn out. Tune out. They're gonna just say, I don't like his hair. I don't like, you know, watching this, you know, this guy. I don't like the way he looks. I don't like the way he dresses or whatever. But with my actors, I can show every kind of person, every kind of occupation, every gender, every age, every demographic, something that someone is gonna connect with and say, I have been in that person's shoes and I know what that feels like.
31:34 Ed Mylett? Is there a site you'd recommend? I didn't know I was gonna ask you this for B-roll if someone can't afford actors, but they wanna get content like that? Are there any sites like that that somebody could see?
31:42 Speaker 04 Video blocks.
31:43 Ed Mylett? Video blocks, BLO, CKS, video blocks. Okay, it's just worth having everybody have access to.
31:48 Speaker 04 Started and I still got really good. Action by just using B-roll before we started shooting original content.
31:53 Ed Mylett? Okay, let's talk platforms for a minute. Let's go back, let's pick this big brain of yours too. Cause you're sort of omnipresent.
31:58 Speaker 04 Yeah.
31:58 Ed Mylett? If I'm an average person, I've got kind of a business that I'm promoting and trying to brand and myself as well. Do you recommend I'm on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, all of the above? Or should I pick one and try to dominate it? What's your advice on that?
32:13 Speaker 04 Yeah, definitely. So first, figure out what comes native to you. Like if you're a person that's just not good at video, but you're really good at writing, then Twitter might be the platform for you. But if you're really good at taking awesome photos, but you're not comfortable with video, then Pinterest or Instagram is going to be the platform for you. For me, I knew right away that I wanted to be the number one most viewed content creator in the world. If I was going to create that much of an impact on people's lives. So I decided to start with the biggest social platform in the world, which is Facebook. Facebook is so underrated. I cannot emphasize enough how people underestimate Facebook. There's this perception out there that my grandma's on Facebook, so I'm not going to be on there.
32:55 Speaker 04 There is one key ingredient that Facebook has that makes it such a powerful platform to conquer. The share button.
33:03 Ed Mylett? Yeah.
33:04 Speaker 04 That's what it is. That's what it all comes down to. Because if you can create some piece of content, and you see this all the time where someone didn't even intend for something to go viral.
33:13 Ed Mylett? Yep.
33:13 Speaker 04 They just happen to take a photo of their kid or they showed like a little video of themselves like unboxing a gift or something. And the next thing you know, they're on the Ellen show.
33:22 Ed Mylett? Yeah.
33:22 Speaker 04 That's, that happens on Facebook so often because if enough people are clicking that share button, then Facebook picks it up in the algorithm and then it creates this snowball effect. So I would say if your goal is to get as much traction as possible, I would start with Facebook. That's the way I was growing the fastest because there's not a lot of content creators on Facebook because people don't take it serious. And then also it's got the most amount of people and it's got that secret weapon, which is the share button.
33:51 Ed Mylett? Okay, so profound. So I want to, and by the way, I've underdone Facebook. I'm on it, but I've underdone it because of the share button.
33:58 Speaker 04 Right.
33:59 Ed Mylett? I 3 billion percent agree with you and I want to share a quick story about that today. Cause I know some of your listeners going, okay, yeah, I have 142 followers.
34:06 Speaker 04 Yeah.
34:06 Ed Mylett? This is great, but what about, okay. So just today.
34:09 Speaker 04 Yeah.
34:10 Ed Mylett? I don't share a lot on Facebook because I'm not on it as much as I am. I was on it this morning.
34:14 Speaker 04 Right.
34:15 Ed Mylett? And I, I don't know how many downloads this young man's going to get, but this is what it was, guys. This was a young man who's in the sales business. I don't know what his product was. And he had just been rejected. And it was about 9:30 at night and he was in his car and he just shot a video about, he goes, "This is my seventh rejection this week."
34:31 Speaker 04 Okay.
34:32 Ed Mylett? It's 9:30.
34:33 Speaker 04 Yeah.
34:33 Ed Mylett? "I don't know how I'm gonna eat this weekend."
34:35 Speaker 04 Wow.
34:35 Ed Mylett? "And I'm still after it. I still wanna be somebody. I'm still trying." And guys, he's just a normal person with his normal struggle, but he told the story and documented it and I went, "Wow." And I made a comment myself.
34:46 Speaker 04 Yeah.
34:47 Ed Mylett? And I shared it with people.
34:48 Speaker 04 Okay.
34:49 Ed Mylett? And so, that content had a chance to go viral.
34:53 Speaker 04 Absolutely.
34:53 Ed Mylett? From an average, ordinary, everyday person.
34:56 Speaker 04 Exactly.
34:56 Ed Mylett? Who just simply told a story about their day in their life. That moved me.
35:00 Speaker 04 Right.
35:00 Ed Mylett? More than something The Rock posted that, you know, he's in his gym again. No offense to Dwayne, I love Dwayne, but I got it dude, you're working out and it's like, we need to hustle.
35:09 Speaker 04 Yeah.
35:09 Ed Mylett? Right? Like, this was different to me.
35:11 Speaker 04 Exactly.
35:11 Ed Mylett? It stood out because it wasn't someone like that.
35:13 Speaker 04 And, because you probably have experienced that some point in your life. Here's a younger Ed Milat who just got injured from playing baseball and you're figuring out, "What is my next step gonna be in my life?" And you know what that feeling is like, feeling rejection after rejection, feeling like all your dreams are not gonna work out. And then spilling your heart, putting your heart into that caption, which is what makes it relatable.
35:38 Ed Mylett? Gosh, I love that term of the relatability. All right, couple more things. By the way, thank you, thank you for being willing to share so openly your strategies because it's not the norm that people always wanna share their recipe. And when you have someone in front of you guys who's the number one fastest growing person in the world in social media like this, and for him to share is wonderful. So, so thank you. You're making a difference. And, and your content affects me. Is there a strategy on Instagram that you have in terms of, like, when you got here today?
36:04 Speaker 04 Yeah.
36:04 Ed Mylett? You're like, "Hey, is it okay if I post a story?"
36:06 Speaker 04 Absolutely.
36:07 Ed Mylett? Is there, uh, any tips you'd give people here about, uh, ratios of posting? Should I post every day on Instagram? Should I post on my main feed, my story? Is there an amount of stories you recommend? Any ratios like that?
36:19 Speaker 04 Yeah, so what I would say is, I'm very big on analytics. And now, if you're on Instagram today, there is so much data that you're given versus if you, when I was on Instagram. Instagram popular five years ago, there was no information at all. So in terms of posting frequency, what I do is I'll test something for two weeks at a time and I'll see how it does. I'll say, I'm gonna post every day for two weeks, see what happens. I'm gonna measure how many followers I gained. I'm gonna measure how many average likes I get and then the next two weeks, I'm gonna only post once a week or something like that and see what happens. A lot of people think you have to post every single day. I didn't post for years, but I don't post nearly as often as a lot of the big content creators.
37:02 Speaker 04 So you don't have to post every single day or, you know, every few hours. And then also, I would say, you gotta create a story with your Instagram. I will say, my fiance is pregnant, right? And ever since she's been pregnant, thank you so much. Yeah, we're having a baby girl. Her name's Ella Rose. We're so excited about this. But what we've noticed is our engagement has really taken off ever since we shared the pregnancy. And I was thinking about it, what is it about pregnancy, right? I mean, yeah, the relatability, you move people emotionally, but you're telling a story about an unborn baby that's forming and now people are on this journey with you for the next six months. There's the moment we found out we're pregnant and we're so excited.
37:48 Speaker 04 To the moment we found out it's a baby girl, to the moment that that baby bump is now developing, to the baby shower, to the actual delivery. If you can create that kind of story and bring people on the journey. Guys, I just had my seventh job interview and I just got rejected and I'm feeling so devastated. Guys, guess what? I just got an email back from my eighth person. And now the audience is rooting for you. They're like, yeah, yeah, that's gonna be it, right? You create this story, you bring people on this journey with you and that's what makes them engaged with you.
38:22 Ed Mylett? Bro, all time on the show, all time. That is one of my favorite strategies anyone's ever shared is the journey story. And I have, I know, I'm not gonna name them all. I know so many people who are now significant on social media. Who started with a simple journey.
38:39 Speaker 04 Yeah.
38:39 Ed Mylett? My dear friend Teddy Mellencamp, who's now on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and has a very successful podcast that was just on and her dad is John Mellencamp. And guess what? She didn't get big on social media from any of that. She got big on social media because she was overweight.
38:55 Speaker 04 Yeah.
38:55 Ed Mylett? And she was a mom. And she started to finally document that she wanted to get fit again and wanted to go into a journey of getting well again. And she took people on this journey with her.
39:05 Speaker 04 Right.
39:05 Ed Mylett? Brilliant damn tip right there. Thank you so much for that. Okay, a couple more things.
39:10 Speaker 04 Yeah.
39:11 Ed Mylett? As it relates to social. And by the way, I love the advice about not needing to post all the time. I agree with that. So journey, relatability, emotion. One key for me, everyone on emotion is two movers always with people, since you mentioned pregnancy.
39:25 Speaker 04 Yeah.
39:26 Ed Mylett? Is their childhood and birth and death.
39:29 Speaker 04 Yeah.
39:29 Ed Mylett? Birth and death are two movers of people all the time. And most of my talks, if you come hear me, I'll reference my childhood or people's childhood or their children and our mortality.
39:40 Speaker 04 Right.
39:41 Ed Mylett? That we're not here forever. These are things people contemplate that grabs their heart. Overall, social media, you've been down this road a bunch of times. And I want you to, I want you to give some counsel about this. The health of it. Meaning.
39:53 Speaker 04 Yeah.
39:55 Ed Mylett? The insidious negative side of wanting to get followers, wanting to get likes, the time on there. Is there any caution you'd give having been someone who was so prevalent on there?
40:06 Speaker 04 Yeah.
40:06 Ed Mylett? Now is back again. Are you doing anything else to protect yourself from the negatives that come with just being potentially addicted to it?
40:16 Speaker 04 Right.
40:16 Ed Mylett? What about that?
40:18 Speaker 04 Guys, so this is something that I do struggle with as well.
40:21 Ed Mylett? Yeah.
40:22 Speaker 04 Thankfully, I've got my girl Laura, who's always telling me like, you know. Yeah, it is addicting. You know what's hard is like guys like us have got to be the best at everything that we do. We're not going to get into something unless we're going to be the very best. But here's what I would say. Remember my story that I was dark on social media for four years. Can you imagine how much of a struggle that was? And if it's really your goal. You know, to be big on social media, even if it's not working out right away, even if you're dark for four years because you feel like you haven't figured out a content strategy, that doesn't mean that you can't reemerge and be the fastest growing person on social media right after that. So, don't take it like too heavy, don't get too obsessed with it.
41:06 Speaker 04 I know it's easier said than done, but if you're that type of person that just likes to be the best at everything you do, then yeah, you're gonna struggle with it.
41:14 Ed Mylett? Great answer, by the way, because I struggle with it too, and I'm a grown man with a family and 23 businesses, and still, it's something that for your own mental wellbeing, you need to be intentional about. Two quick questions for content creators. Do you believe in collaborations and is that a way to grow? Meaning like what we're doing right now?
41:32 Speaker 04 Yes, 100%.
41:34 Ed Mylett? So at any stage, you think someone should be DMing somebody, can I get on your show? Can you repost my stuff? Or what do you feel?
41:39 Speaker 04 I wouldn't say at any stage. I would say first establish yourself. Like, I reached out to you pretty recently, but I didn't want to rush it where you would look at me and question, is this guy serious? Is he worthwhile or not? I would say find your lane, build some traction, and then start to do collaborations. You should try to be in a position where you can almost bring more value to the other person somehow.
42:03 Ed Mylett? Okay, wonderful advice. And then secondly, what about incentives? Incentives to comment, incentives to engage with my content. So, someone out there is listening, they've got a gym and they've got 2,000 followers and they want to grow their brand. Do you believe in them doing giveaways, incentives? I do something I'm very proud of because it creates engagement for me, my two-minute drill every single day. How do you feel about, at my stage of social, it's a beautiful thing because it connects me with my large following already, but if I had a smaller following, how do you feel about people creating incentives for comments, or engagement, or follows, or things like that?
42:38 Speaker 04 I love it. Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest growth strategies. Yes for Instagram, no for Facebook. Facebook will actually ding you and they've got algorithms that look for those kinds of messages in captions, and they will purposely bury your content if you try to create incentives or giveaways. Instagram, 100%. It depends what your goal is. If your goal is more so about likes and comments, then yes, you can definitely grow a following that way. I wouldn't say do it every single post. If you do it organically and in the right way, then yes, you can really grow a following and grow your engagement. But if you're looking for sales, to generate sales, then those people might like the stuff, they might comment, but they're probably not going to buy because they're just looking to win something for free.
43:23 Ed Mylett? Wonderful. You're a treasure, bro. Today, I want to tell you, I really knew this was going to be good. Because your story's bananas and you're incredible, but the depth of knowledge you have about these topics, I know the feedback we're going to get on this podcast and on this YouTube video is going to be tremendous because everyone listening at least took two pages of notes. Plus, they're moved and it's probably never going to forget your story. It's just remarkable. Now, I want them seeing your content though because I really believe it'll enrich their life. So how do they find you?
43:53 Speaker 04 Yeah, fortunately, there's not a lot of D A R's in the world.
43:55 Ed Mylett? Yeah, that's true.
43:56 Speaker 04 So if you just Google D A R, it's D A T A R. M A N N is my last name. I'm pretty easy to find.
44:01 Ed Mylett? Guys, he's wonderful, brother. I enjoyed today.
44:04 Speaker 04 Yeah, likewise.
44:05 Ed Mylett? Thoroughly, bro. Like, I got value. There's a couple tweaks I'm going to make. Thank you so much.
44:10 Speaker 04 Thank you.
44:10 Ed Mylett? Congratulations on baby Ella coming.
44:12 Speaker 04 Thank you so much.
44:13 Ed Mylett? I'm so excited for both of you. Everybody, by the way, hey, you know what I do every day? I want to connect with you more deeply. I bring you the best people in the world in their field. Today was evidence of that. I want to engage with you. So every day on Instagram, I run the max out two-minute drill. You should participate in this because here's what you can win. You can win a ride on my jet, autograph copy of my book, coaching call with me or my guests, tickets to see me speak, max out gear. That's all the stuff we give away. We give it away every single day. All you have to do to qualify to win is make a comment within the first two minutes when I make a post. If you miss the first two minutes, just make a comment every day. I post every day, five days a week, 7:30 Pacific time, 10:30 Eastern, same time every day. Just make a comment every day at any time you want, and we pick winners from there.
44:58 Ed Mylett? And if you make comments on other people's comments, that gives you a greater chance to win as well. Because I want to know what's going on with you. You all know, I reply to more comments than any human being on earth because I want to know what's going on in your life so I can bring guests that you want to create content that serves you. So engage with me on Instagram. God bless you, everybody. Max out.
45:21 Speaker 03 This is The Ed Miliband Show.
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