The SECRET To Winning Negotiations, Making More Money & Believing in Yourself w/Dan Lok EP 1096

“Action takers are money makers.”Today's guest is the King of Closing himself, Dan Lok. Dan’s content has been viewed over 1 billion times for his expertise on achieving financial confidence. He’s both a celebrity influencer and venture capitalist currently serving as the chairman of DRAGON 100 - the world’s most exclusive advisory board for entrepreneurs who want to create generational wealth in the age of disruption. In this episode Lewis and Dan discuss the key differences between those who make money and those who don’t, why you need to start developing your skill set, how to develop self-belief and overcome self-doubt, and so much more! For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1096Check out The Smart Challenge: www.thesmartchallenge.comCheck out his website: www.danlok.comDaymond John on How to Close any Deal and Achieve Any Outcome: https://link.chtbl.com/928-podSara Blakely on Writing Your Billion Dollar Story: https://link.chtbl.com/893-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 1,096 with Dan Locke. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:27Lewis Howes?

  Dave Ramsey said, "You must gain control over your money, or the lack of it will forever control you." And Dale Carnegie said, "Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success." My guest today is the king of closing himself, Dan Locke. And Dan's content has been viewed over 1 billion times for his expertise on achieving financial confidence. He's both a celebrity influencer, personal brand, and venture capitalist currently serving as the chairman of Dragon 100, the world's most exclusive advisory board for entrepreneurs who want to create generational wealth in the age of disruption. In this episode, we discuss the key differences between those who make money and those who don't,

• 1:12Lewis Howes?

  why you need to start developing your skill set today, how to develop self-belief and overcome self-doubt, how martial arts has taught Dan the keys to business success, how to close any negotiation in business and life, the most important factors of thriving in business, and your relationships, and so much more. I love to ask people questions that they normally don't get and share things they normally don't share. And that is definitely something we did here today with Dan. He opens up on a lot of things that he normally doesn't talk about on his channel or his site anywhere. If you're inspired and you get value from this, make sure to share this episode with someone that you think would be inspired as well. You can copy and paste the link wherever you're listening to this right now, or you can use lewishouse.com/1096

• 1:57Lewis Howes?

  and text that to a few friends or post it on your social media. And if this is your first time here, then welcome to the School of Greatness. Click that subscribe button right now on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. Leave us a rating and review and share with us the part of this episode that you found the most valuable from Dan. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only, Dan Locke.

• 2:19Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness Podcast. Very excited about my guest, Mr. Dan Locke is in the house, the king of closing. My man, good to see you.

• 2:27Dan Lok?

  My man, good to be here and I'm excited. Let's unleash some greatness.

• 2:30Lewis Howes?

  Let's do it baby. I'm curious because you had a, you had a number of failures as an entrepreneur, many failed business attempts, which your failures were probably, you know, other people's successes. So I want to caveat that for a minute that you probably succeeded even though it was a failure to you. I didn't know how to make money until I turned 25. I never thought I'd be an entrepreneur. I thought I'd be finding somewhere to be a part of a team and helping like build a mission with someone else. And I was really a team player as an athlete. I wasn't the quarterback. I wasn't the rah rah leader. I was more like, throw me the ball, let me make a play with the skills that I have.

• 3:08Dan Lok?

  Do my thing, yeah.

• 3:09Lewis Howes?

  Let me do my thing. I don't want the pressure of being a leader and all that stuff in sports. But out of necessity, I needed to learn how to make money because of a number of instances in my life that occurred. I'm curious for people that have never thought of themselves as an entrepreneur, excuse me, who've never thought they were an entrepreneur, but they really want to be. Like myself, I didn't think I'd be, but I wanted to make some money. What advice would you give to starting out? If they have no skills as an entrepreneur, if they've never made money before, they're not sure if they can even do it, what advice would you give? Should they even try? Or maybe are they not the right fit for that?

• 3:46Dan Lok?

  This, this may not be a, a popular answer. I used to believe that entrepreneurs are may not born. But now I think as I'm a little bit older, a little bit more gray hair, a little bit more mature. I think for some of us, we are actually born to be entrepreneurs, that we want to do our own thing. It just until some incidents happen, it didn't ignite that within us, right? I don't think entrepreneurs, you can acquire certain entrepreneurial skills, but I think it's in our DNA. There are certain people, they just want to create, they want to innovate, they want to build something like it's in our personalities and our DNA, it's in our, in our blood. So. I don't think that someone, if they just work harder, that they would become an entrepreneur. If you look at the, kind of the, the small businesses, you know,

• 4:32Dan Lok?

  that, you know, some say ninety, some say ninety-five percent of small businesses fail in the first five years. You look at in, in this, take you as example, right? Thirty million businesses, only four percent effort exceed one million dollars a year in revenue. So ninety-six percent of the businesses never get past that four percent, right? Never get past the one million revenue. So if you're one million in revenue, you're listening to this, you're watching this, you're already the top four percent of entrepreneurs. If you're doing ten million a year, you're point four percent of the entrepreneurs, point four percent. So that's a tiny, tiny percentage, just like, you know, brother, think about in athletic world, right? How many athletes could get to a certain level?

• 5:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's like there's millions in the high school level, and then to get to college, it's three percent, and then it's three percent of three percent to get to professional level, yeah.

• 5:21Dan Lok?

  So i- is it talent, maybe? Is it just hard work, maybe? But there's so many other factors, but I think it's, they, they either have it or they don't. The difference is just the skill.

• 5:32Lewis Howes?

  And for me, I, I think, again, I didn't have it until a number of instances in my life forged me to become one out of necessity, where I was like, I'm broke, uh, you know, I have no money, I gotta figure this out. And it was almost like it, it made me be entrepreneurial out of necessity. Otherwise, I'd have been just as happy, like, hey, someone else has got all the pressure and all the financial headache and the stress of losing it all. Let me just catch the ball and score touchdowns.

• 6:01Dan Lok?

  Yes.

• 6:02Lewis Howes?

  You know, that's, that's a fun job. You don't have to, you just score, make plays, you know?

• 6:06Dan Lok?

  And then when, I think entrepreneurship, it, it teaches us something about ourselves, right? Through this journey, we learn about our own weaknesses, we learn about who we are, we have to deal with a lot of, like, the inner demons, the inner conflicts, and, and a lot of issues, right? Even now, all of us, people look at us and say, oh, you know, Lewis has no problem, Dan has no problems. Believe me, we have problems.

• 6:29Lewis Howes?

  I did a five hour therapy session this last weekend.

• 6:32Dan Lok?

  There you go.

• 6:32Lewis Howes?

  Going into some dark stuff that I thought I'd already recovered and healed, but realized, oh, it's still coming up for me in a different area of my personal life.

• 6:40Dan Lok?

  In benefits, right?

• 6:41Lewis Howes?

  And it's, it's important for me to always have coaches. I know you're always investing in training and coaches and mentorship and leadership around you to support you. What is the biggest demon that you still face today on the inner world that you have yet to fully overcome? Maybe you started working on it years ago, but it still comes up. That dark shadow or whatever you want to call it, still rears its head in situations, whether it be personal life or professional.

• 7:10Dan Lok?

  Ego. Ego. I say that our ego is not our amigo, that when we are, it gets easy to, to say, hey, you know, we have accomplished, you know, a degree of success and we feel like, oh, we know it and, you know, we don't want to listen. But it's always having that beginner's mindset, I think ego. But ego is not just, it's not arrogance, it's our blind spots, our own biases, right? Where, well, I always know how, how closing works. I always know how marketing works. I don't know how leadership works. But there are always new, new things that are coming down the pipeline. There are new things that we should learn. So I think ego, it's keeping that in check all the time.

• 7:51Lewis Howes?

  And what would you say is your biggest insecurity still? Even if you've overcome it, it's still a little bit there.

• 7:59Dan Lok?

  My, I would say because, I mean, let's, let's look at it in, in terms of mainstream, right? That with what I do, there aren't many, if you call that influencer space, let's call it influencer space, or however we will define that space. There are a lot, not a lot of Asian faces.

• 8:20Dan Lok?

  Right, it's just a fact, like you look at, I'm kind of the, the one guy that kind of got, you know, made it quote unquote, but that's still, it's still there. And I still face that. I mean, I remember in the beginning of, of my, uh, building my social media following, I could tell you like Louis, the, most of the hate and negative comments, they are more leaning towards racist type.

• 8:43Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 8:44Dan Lok?

  Yep, yep, yeah, most of them. I think the first big, yeah, big chunk of it.

• 8:50Lewis Howes?

  It was just what, just saying stuff about your race or it wasn't even commenting on the content, it was just Asian whatever?

• 8:56Dan Lok?

  Yeah, not, not the content, yeah, but like that, that kind of stuff, yes.

• 9:00Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 9:00Dan Lok?

  And I still face that, I still face that. In, in some less, but I still face that.

• 9:06Lewis Howes?

  Would that, does that affect you when you see that or you kind of just brush it off now?

• 9:09Dan Lok?

  No, no, in, in the beginning, it, it affected me a lot. Cause it was like, oh, I'm, I'm creating content, I'm building my followings. And, and because of, I'm also, as you know, my, my personality, I'm, I'm very direct, right? So, you know, it robs people the wrong way, it could be. Not that I, I want to be rude, I just, that's me, I just, I'm.

• 9:30Lewis Howes?

  You're, you're honest.

• 9:31Dan Lok?

  Yeah, it's just my personality, I don't, I don't. So, because of that, I think today it's less. It's like, there's a difference, right? In the beginning, it's like, who the hell are you? You know, who are you? And this and that, and it's like, and it's like, you're no good. And then when you are good, like when you are good enough that people can't deny that, then it's like, okay, they kind of accept that you're good. But there's still, there's still a little bit of that, like, hey.

• 9:59Lewis Howes?

  So they'll, they'll try to find, they can't criticize your content, but they'll criticize your.

• 10:03Dan Lok?

  Whatever.

• 10:04Lewis Howes?

  Your ethnicity, yeah, your hair or something.

• 10:07Dan Lok?

  Yeah, yeah, I get all that. Rob babyface, I get all that. I mean, I, I, I now I laugh at it because some of them are quite creative. They're actually quite funny. They are quite funny, I have to say.

• 10:18Lewis Howes?

  It's interesting. I used to defend pretty much every negative comment and

• 10:22Dan Lok?

  Oh wow.

• 10:23Lewis Howes?

  Um, I don't know, negative review that I would get in my first few years, years ago.

• 10:28Dan Lok?

  Yes.

• 10:29Lewis Howes?

  I would try to defend and get people to like me who were saying negative things about me. And I remember one of my coaches saw this, uh, when I responded to some negative comment online and he called me, he said, "You're just giving these people your power." He's like, "Just say thank you for the feedback and move on." Or say nothing and move on. Because putting energy and attention into the 1% of people that are leaving nasty comments, it's not supporting your mission.

• 10:55Dan Lok?

  And so And the bigger the following, think about if we have, let's say a million followers, or if 10% hating you, that's like 100,000 people. Like, if you think about putting 100,000 people in a stadium, that's a lot of people.

• 11:09Dan Lok?

  That's just a lot of people, right? And we can't control how, and people don't hate us, they hate themselves anyway. Like, they, they, it's something that we say, something that we do, who we are, it triggers something within them. And the truth is, most haters actually don't know us. Like, they don't know you, they don't know me, they don't, they don't know us. They, they came to the conclusions or they make a quick judgment based on a five-second video. Like, that's how they do it. And that's all part of it. So it used to bother me, but now it's like, no, I don't think that's

• 11:41Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Yeah, man. I'm curious about it. I want to talk about money for a while. Uh, what do you think are three things that poor people do that the rich people don't do, that you notice?

• 11:53Dan Lok?

  I think first of all, people, poor people have a negative association with money.

• 11:57Lewis Howes?

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 11:58Dan Lok?

  I'll, I'll give you a perfect example, some, from, from, from just last week, this just happened to me, literally, like in real life. I was driving, me, my wife, driving, uh, the Bentley, right, to a, to downtown. It passed through a not-so-good neighborhood, kind of like, it's called Hastings in Vancouver, kind of like the hood, okay? Because we're going to Chinatown. We stop at the red light. There's one guy that came to my car, spit on my car.

• 12:23Lewis Howes?

  No way.

• 12:24Dan Lok?

  Yep, on the window, right? And then gave me the finger.

• 12:28Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 12:29Dan Lok?

  And then walked away.

• 12:32Lewis Howes?

  You didn't say, you didn't say anything, you didn't do anything, you didn't.

• 12:35Dan Lok?

  It was just that, it's just a car, just a car, right? Uh, so you would see a lot of people, they think, oh, they say, I want more money. Hey, Lewis, I want to have more success, I want to have more wealth. But deep down, actually, they have a negative association with money. Because I always do this exercise with my students. So imagine this, imagine you're walking down the street, you hear this loud engine, like, right, and then you see it like a black Lamborghini, just zoom, drives by, right? What's the first thing that comes to your mind? Now, most people would say, oh, he's an, like, what a, if it's a woman, oh, she's a gold digger. Or if it's this young person, oh, this probably from, you know, the daddy's money, like, all this stuff?

• 13:16Dan Lok?

  Like, like, they can go through this very, very quickly, all the negative stuff, right? And then, a small percentage would be, oh, that, that might be an entrepreneur, right? Or that may be actually a father of three, right? That he's a hard-working entrepreneur, he's been working hard, and this is a little treat that he gives for himself, and he only drives it, you know, maybe on the weekends. That never comes to mind. It's all the negative that comes to mind.

• 13:42Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 13:42Dan Lok?

  So I would say that negative association with money consciously or subconsciously, they don't even know it.

• 13:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, when you resent, when you resent someone with money, or you resent money, why would money come to you?

• 13:53Dan Lok?

  Or, or people with money.

• 13:55Lewis Howes?

  Right. Why, why would, why would you be surrounded by people who have money? Or why would you attract more wealth into your life if you're resenting it, right?

• 14:03Dan Lok?

  Yeah, no, so they, so it's like even the, so that's the first thing is, poor people have negative, they have association with money. The second one is, they don't talk about money.

• 14:12Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, I say this all the time, man. Tell me more.

• 14:15Dan Lok?

  Yeah, they avoid conversations, like, it's like a taboo subject. Oh, why, why you talk about money all the time? Like, oh, we don't talk about, it's like, we don't talk about that at dinner table. It's, you don't have conversation with your kids about money, you don't have conversation with your spouse about money. It's somehow, it's a bad thing, right? It's like this, and, and think of, think of money, the best way to describe this is think of money as a, as a person in your life. Treat money as a person. So imagine if you think about.

• 14:42Lewis Howes?

  We don't talk about that person.

• 14:44Dan Lok?

  Yeah, we don't, we don't talk about you, and in fact, I don't, I think you're the root of all evil.

• 14:49Lewis Howes?

  Ooh.

• 14:49Dan Lok?

  I think you are greedy, I think you're not that important to me. Do you think this person would stay around? I don't think so, like they would be like, I don't want to be around, but you know, money is not that important. Money doesn't grow on trees. Or there are more important things than money, like all this stuff, right? Then money is not gonna stick around. So if you think of it that way. But on the other hand, if you talk about money, you cherish money, not to be a slave of money. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, hey, you know, I value you. I value money. I save you, I, I, I invest you like, you know, intelligently, right? Like, if we think of it that way, then money is like, okay, you treat me good, I'm gonna stay around. Yeah.

• 15:33Dan Lok?

  Right, you think of like that, it's almost like a lover. I love you, right? Oh yeah, that's good, I'm gonna love you back. Oh, I don't like you, you know, and I'm not gonna like you back. So that would be the second one. Okay, and the third? The third one is, it has to do with value. So poor people want money without delivering more value. Versus, you and I, we understand, the marketplace cares about one thing, it cares about value. It doesn't care about our solving stories, it doesn't care about our victim mentality, it doesn't care about how hard we work. It doesn't even care how much, how many, how much experience we have, or how many years we in business. They don't, the marketplace doesn't care. The marketplace has no emotion. The marketplace only cares about value, and what determines our value is our skill sets.

• 16:18Dan Lok?

  So think about this, where if someone is very motivated, they think positively, but they got no skill sets to offer to the marketplace, they're not gonna make money. On the other hand, you've got someone with like, let's say someone comes to you, Lewis, it's like, okay attitude, but he's saying that, hey, Lewis, I can help you with a Facebook ad. I can, you can spend a dollar, I can give you five dollars back. If he has a skill set like that, you'd be like, okay, I'm gonna give you some money to help me with my ads, right? So it, it's, it's the skill set I think a lot of people are missing. They don't understand that it's the mindset, which is what you teach, combined with your, your skill set, then you've got something that, that works. So I would say those are the key. Those are powerful.

• 17:03Dan Lok?

  I'm curious about, I wanna follow up on this.

• 17:06Lewis Howes?

  Skill set, there's a lot of people who have all the degrees and credibility in the world, but don't have the self-belief. So what is more important, skill set, actually being skilled at something? The, the ability to believe in yourself with the skill set and coupling the two, or the ability to package your skills to transfer for money in exchange? Because a lot of people can't position or package and then sell. They might have the skill set, they might have the belief and confidence, but they don't know how to package it to transfer money. Which one of those threes, the three are more important?

• 17:42Dan Lok?

  I, I would say I used to believe is the mindset. But now I would say I'm leaning more towards the skill set and I'll explain why. Because let's say, let's say, let's say you're a digital marketer, I'm gonna use this example. You're a digital marketer. You don't really believe in yourself, but let's say you know how to close, you know how to communicate your value and you're good at what you do. Well, and someone comes to you and say, hey, Lewis, you're so good at digital marketing. Let me give you five thousand a month retainer to do my social.

• 18:09Dan Lok?

  Well, that changes your belief system very quickly. Right? So I almost like to use that as an environment. It's like I teach all my students. If you have not made a dollar closing or you're not a made a dollar cooperating, whatever that you do, make the first dollar. You make the first dollar.

• 18:27Lewis Howes?

  That's the best feeling, that first dollar, man.

• 18:29Dan Lok?

  That first dollar, man, it's like, it's like podcasts. Oh, you've never made a dollar, any money from podcasts, just make a first dollar. That's the different, what's the difference between professional and amateur? Professional gets paid. Make your first dollar, now it changes, okay. Maybe I could do this. Maybe I'm pretty good. Maybe I could get better. Maybe I can do this full time. Maybe I can make a career out of this. Uh, it's easier to use the environment to shift our beliefs than try to change it just within ourselves. That's what I believe in. Like our environment is infinitely more powerful than our willpower. Way more powerful.

• 19:04Lewis Howes?

  Our environment in, in what way?

• 19:06Dan Lok?

  If you don't wanna be, if you want, if you wanna get fit, hang around with people who are fit. You'll eat better, you will want to exercise. If you, you don't smoke, you hang around with all your friends are smokers, guaranteed you will smoke. You don't do drugs, you hang around with people who do drugs, you do drugs. We can't help but influenced by the environment. So I say why not put ourselves in an environment that is supportive of our goals? I'm very, very careful with that, very careful. And I say the same thing.

• 19:33Lewis Howes?

  This idea of entrepreneurship has been a sexy, you know, word and idea, especially in the last five years with social media and everyone kind of flashing this lifestyle. Gary Vee, you know, talking about it a lot and everything. But as you know, it's hard for a lot of entrepreneurs to make a lot of money and sustain it. It's hard to get there, but then it's hard to sustain it for a while. When a pandemic hits or something else, people aren't prepared for that. Do you think it's possible for people who have great skills, who are part of a great team, a great company, that never want to start their own thing and be an entrepreneur,

• 20:15Lewis Howes?

  but are valued, are part of a team, are growing with the company, making an impact in this company and the mission that they have? Do you think it's possible for people that aren't entrepreneurs to become wealthy? And if so, what are the strategies they need to be applying right now in order to start having their money work for them as opposed to only working for money?

• 20:37Dan Lok?

  I love that question. I've never been asked that question and I have a very good answer. One thing I learned from my mentor, he said, then you don't get rich on income, you get rich on equity.

• 20:49Dan Lok?

  You don't get rich on income. So if for someone with the skill sets, think about a ship, right? There's only one captain. We're going from here to there. So you look at Jack Ma who started Alibaba. Yeah, Jack Ma was very successful. Well, but the initial founders, they didn't do too bad either, right? So you have the people who maybe you are the founding members, the founding team with a startup that is going places with the right visionary, with the right founder and CEO, which by the way, that's also, I think, only certain people fit that profile. That's what I believe in. Okay, that's what I believe in. And I learned that from through Culture Index,

• 21:30Dan Lok?

  which is like a survey that people take to see what personality that fits. So only certain people are fit for their CEO profiles. But everybody else, they can still contribute and if they have equity, they participate, they could still do very well financially. In fact, it's like if naturally they know they are not the CEO personalities and materials.

• 21:53Dan Lok?

  If they just try to be that, it doesn't work anyway. It just doesn't work. But it doesn't mean they are not valued. Yeah, I mean, to me, I play a role in my company because I have certain skill set, right? But I cannot do what I do

• 22:08Dan Lok?

  better than what like my team, they have certain skills that are way better than me. Like just this morning, we had we had a technical challenge. It's like I, I, my team could fix it. I don't know how to handle. I, I, I just.

• 22:19Lewis Howes?

  We're trying to set up Zoom before this. Yeah.

• 22:21Dan Lok?

  Yeah, like I'm like, I have no idea. I like, I, I, no joke aside, I actually don't know how to turn on the camera.

• 22:28Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 22:29Dan Lok?

  I, I literally do not how to turn. I don't know what the button is.

• 22:32Lewis Howes?

  You know how to do the iPhone now, so that's easy.

• 22:34Dan Lok?

  That's easy. I, I can handle that, but like this, the X D stuff, I, I cannot handle. So what, what I'm saying is you, you look at that, that if they are, they participate in a, in a, in a vehicle in a good market that's growing trending. And if they could be part of that founding members, they can get equity early on, they could do very well.

• 22:53Lewis Howes?

  And what if they can't get equity or they're not early on? And they join a team after a hundred employees and it's.

• 22:59Dan Lok?

  And not as good. So you can see the timing of it, right? The timing of it is you want it to be too early, higher risk. Too late, that means you don't get as much upside. And also depends on your skill set. Right? What, what's the skills that you bring to the table? But they could, they could do very well. Just, I, I, it's called intrapreneurship, right?

• 23:16Lewis Howes?

  Intrapreneurship, yeah. And what are some things that people could do? If they say, oh, that's not me, but I'm making a good salary and I'm going to be making more money. What could I be doing with my money? So that it earns me more. What would you suggest?

• 23:29Dan Lok?

  Every one of us needs to be an investor. Doesn't matter how we make the money. I, I teach a concept called the wealth triangle, right? Which is kind of got three parts. The first part is what I call high income skills. And high incomes, I define high income skills, the skills that could make you more than $10,000 a month. Okay, $10,000 a month. Because I noticed something about human beings, whenever we get past that six figure mark annually, something shifts that I rarely see someone go past six figure and go back to $50,000 a year. It becomes a new comfort. It's like you know how to, once you know how to get there, you could stay there. It becomes, it becomes a very, it's a fascinating thing to see. So I think that ten thousand a month, hundred and twenty thousand dollars a year, high income skills.

• 24:13Dan Lok?

  And then a second part is what I call a scalable business. A scalable business, not just any business, but a business that is scalable. Such as a, a software business, an influencer business, or econ business. A scalable business. And then you have what I call high, high return investments. And I define high return investments as investments that would give you a ten percent return year in and year out. Ten percent return or more. So you, so you look at thi- this wealth triangle. Now, he's, he's the thing. If you have high income skills, you're already earning income.

• 24:48Dan Lok?

  Your scalable business gives you profits and your high return investment builds your net worth. Right? Wealthy people talk about net worth. They don't talk about income, right? They talk about net worth. So you look at this, now, let me ask you this question, Lewis. If someone who is like, I, I'm making thirty thousand dollars a year, I want to get into some real estate stuff. You're like, hmm. You don't have money to put into it, yeah. Yeah. Do you have high income skills? No. Do you have a scalable business? No. I wanna buy some properties with no money down.

• 25:19Dan Lok?

  Kinda risky. Kinda risky, right? Cause if you follow this, the first thing you gotta focus on is, is increase your income. Meaning develop skill sets that the, the marketplace will value. Do that first. Now, with a scalable business, you can start one or you can also invest in one. It doesn't always mean you have to start one. So you can invest in one, that throws, throws off profits. And then you've got your, uh, your high return investments. See, when we come to high return investments, it's about the preservation of the capital. It's not about getting the maximum return. We, we, it's almost, we don't, we don't need it to, to get fifty percent. I just want ten percent. Because I'm making money with these two things. Right. This, I just want. You just don't want that sitting in a bank and not making anything.

• 26:04Dan Lok?

  That's right. That's right. So now, the return off capital, off investment, not just on investment. Now you're making more income, you're, you're becoming more valuable. Hopefully, your income increases every year. Your profit goes up. You take extra cash, you put in high return investments. Gives you more peace of mind. Then you, you, this is, this is same, same wealth triangle goes a million, ten million, a hundred million, exactly the same. Yeah. It's exactly the same.

• 26:30Lewis Howes?

  If you're a, if you're looking at a 21-year-old, 25-year-old who's about to get started in whatever, a job, an entrepreneurship endeavor, and you're looking at them and you have a 20-minute conversation with them, what would you say is the number one sign that they would be successful? What would they have to embody, talk about, not talk about? Uh, you know, in order for you to be like, you know what? This person is, in the next two, three years, I want to watch them because it's going to be a trajectory, or at least they're going to be growing in some way. What would be that sign that someone would be successful?

• 27:09Dan Lok?

  Someone who has a, who has the obsession to learn, to learn. Because I remember many years ago, I was attending a two-day workshop on digital marketing, right? At the time, it's funny, don't laugh at me, but it was a workshop, and the instructor was teaching how to do pop-up on a website. Like, we're talking many, many years ago, when it was a big thing, adding a pop-up, right? And I remember the day when he taught us, okay, if you want to get more opt-in subscribers, add a pop-up to your website, and he's how you do it, okay, great. So, it's a few hundred of us, a few hundred of us in the hotel room. So then I went back to the hotel room and I talked to my coding guys, okay, let's add this piece of code, we'll capture more opt-in on the website, great, right?

• 27:54Dan Lok?

  And then we were getting more opt-ins, like, just that evening. So day two, the instructor comes back and say, hey, so I taught you how to add opt-in and stuff, how many people have you done it?

• 28:05Dan Lok?

  No one.

• 28:07Dan Lok?

  I put on my hand, I thought everybody did it, but no one did. And I was like, this is kind of fascinating, right? And then I share, I said, yeah, actually works, we added a pop-up yesterday, we get more subscribers, it's awesome. And that's when I learned something about myself, that, that I'm very eager to learn, I'm very eager to execute. Very eager to execute. If I want to look at someone who's 21 years old, if they, whatever that they, wherever they want to be, if they have that obsession to learn and execute. The action takers, action takers are money makers, right? Uh, that, that I would say, you could, you could see it in his or her eyes, that they are, they are, they're action takers.

• 28:49Dan Lok?

  Not like, I'm making excuses, I don't know, I'm not ready, timing is not right, I'm not good enough, and, no, they just, they just execute.

• 28:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I think, uh...

• 29:00Lewis Howes?

  It's not about being afraid, it's about just being willing to take action even when you don't know what you're doing. I think a lot of people, they don't know what they're doing and it cripples them. And they say, oh, I've got to figure out what to do first and then when I feel comfortable, then I can go do it. But I feel like when you're talking about it's like, I didn't know what I was doing. I was just like, I just need to make some money. Let me go figure this out and embarrass myself and make mistakes and make a couple bucks.

• 29:24Dan Lok?

  I say that you want to act as if all your dreams have come true and then you challenge your reality to catch up. It's much more powerful when you act as you're already there. Think about this, I'm gonna ask you this, when you had the idea for the podcast, not, not, not this, not the Lewis House today. I'm talking about in the beginning, right? Not, not, not the followers like in the beginning.

• 29:51Dan Lok?

  At the time, there's no credibility, there's no, you were just getting started, there's no name, right? It's like you, you try to get people on the show, well, I don't know if I want to be, right? All that stuff. But now people are honored to be like, they would be like, they would knock on your doors, hey, Lewis, can I be on your show, right? But think about all these years, in the very beginning, at least from my observation, correct me if this is wrong. I saw that you were already acting as, hey, you know what, I'm, I'm a brand.

• 30:20Dan Lok?

  I'm gonna, my show is gonna have tens of millions, hundreds of millions of downloads.

• 30:25Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely. Yeah, I started, I started investing in my, my design and my brand to be like, what is the example that I would want to look at? If I would book this person, if I would go on their show, if Oprah would call me, if Ellen would call me, what would I need to look like?

• 30:41Dan Lok?

  And Ellen did call you.

• 30:42Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, yeah, it's like, what would I need to look like to be a New York Times bestseller before I wrote a New York Times? But like, what would the branding need to be? What would the, the messaging need to be? What would the results need to be in order to get there? And I just started acting as, with that vision and minds. And it kind of goes into this. Segues into the law of attraction, which um I'm curious your thoughts on the law of attraction. When it comes to manifesting money, when it comes to manifesting your dreams, manifesting goals, the dream partner, uh whatever it may be for someone. In your opinion, how does the law of attraction work? And in what way does it work best for money, business, health, relationships?

• 31:26Lewis Howes?

  What do you, what do you feel?

• 31:28Dan Lok?

  I'm a very strong believer in law of attraction. I made a video on YouTube about this as well. But law of attraction is basically thoughts of things, right? Everything is energy and you become what you think about. Essentially, that's what it means. But that's just one of the laws. You have law of gravity, you have, you have laws of cause and effect. I think what, whatever we do, we need to learn and understand these other laws exist. Law of action. So it's not just law of attraction. It's like you're trying to do a math equation. You only know a plus.

• 32:01Dan Lok?

  But there's minus, there's equal sign, there's, there's a lot of things that bracket. There are a lot of things you could use to, to make a, a equation work. But that, oh, I only know a plus sign. So when you've got, it's like, when you've, you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Right? And people just utilize that and they don't, they don't look at everything else. So I believe in it. I believe in having the vision board. But also believe in having other things like where you think about even the law of realism. Right? Even the law of cause and effect, the, all of these things. So, yes, I believe in it, but it's just one, it's like, think of it's like one or two percent of the equation.

• 32:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 32:43Dan Lok?

  But then there's the rest of the, the equations.

• 32:45Lewis Howes?

  How, how have you seen it work for your uh life or business, the law of attraction?

• 32:50Dan Lok?

  So, perfect example. Many years ago, I had a dream of getting my first, I was young, twenty something years old. Right, one of my dream car was at the

• 32:59Lewis Howes?

  Couple of years ago?

• 33:00Dan Lok?

  Couple of years ago, twenty, couple of years ago, thank you, appreciate that, I appreciate that. I hope I stay young then, like, you know, like that, uh, but what was my dream car? I was driving the Master uh three at the time, the hatchback. My dream was to get a Master RX eight, like the rotary engine. Young guy, I want to get a sports, my first sports car. There was, so I had that on my vision board, like I cut out the poster, like from an ad and I would look at it every, every day in front of me. And then what I would do is I would go to dealerships and test drive the car, okay? And I would go to different dealerships because you don't want to go to back the same dealership to kick you out, right? You know, like I go to different dealerships and I would drive the car and I would visualize what is it like to drive the car?

• 33:44Dan Lok?

  So I would visualize, I'm, I'm in the car, I turn on the, the ignition, I can hear the, hmm, the engine. I, I know the, I can smell the leather, I know the color of the red, like everything, I know, I know exactly what I want. And I picture so many times and I test drove it so many times. So here's what happens, when I made enough money, I went to the dealership. I said, I want the RX eight, these are the features and these are what I want. And the sales guy was like, well, you know, Mr. Luck, let me take you to a test drive and all that, I said, I don't need that. Well, let me talk about the features, I don't need that, I don't need any of that. So I said, let's do the paperwork. He said, it's the fastest close is ever done, he's never sold a car this fast.

• 34:23Lewis Howes?

  You knew exactly what you wanted.

• 34:25Dan Lok?

  I know exactly, because I've seen it a zillion times in my mind. So here's what's fascinating, I got the key, I did get paperwork, right? I drove the car off the, pick up the car off the parking lot, they happen to have the model right there. I drove off the, the, the parking lot of dealership and Lewis, guess how I felt?

• 34:43Lewis Howes?

  The exact same you thought beforehand.

• 34:46Dan Lok?

  Calm.

• 34:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, the exact same before when you were imagining it in your mind.

• 34:51Dan Lok?

  That's exactly like, cause it's like.

• 34:53Lewis Howes?

  Like you were supposed to be there.

• 34:55Dan Lok?

  Yeah, it's already in my car. And I was actually months ago talking to my friend when I saw like the Alex people like a car drove by. Oh, that's my car. And my friend just laughed with me. That's not your car, Dan. So I said, that's my car. Like, I'm not lying. It's just in my mind. It's my car. It's done. Like, it's done.

• 35:12Lewis Howes?

  It hasn't. It just hasn't got to me yet.

• 35:14Dan Lok?

  It just hasn't got to me yet. Now I've got the key. I drove it home. I parked it. I didn't feel a thing. Because it's already done in my mind.

• 35:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:22Dan Lok?

  And that's one example, but I did it so many times in my life. YouTube channel. When I started my YouTube channel, you know what my wife Jenny said? He's exact. She said, who's gonna watch your?

• 35:36Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 35:36Dan Lok?

  Seriously, she's who's gonna watch you? Who wants to watch you?

• 35:40Lewis Howes?

  She sees you every day. So she's like, who wants to watch?

• 35:42Dan Lok?

  She's teasing. She's teasing. You know? And I said, no, you don't understand. I said, I'm gonna build my YouTube channel.

• 35:52Dan Lok?

  Who are like now? It's it's saturated. It's not gonna work. Listen to me. I'm gonna get my first silver.

• 35:59Lewis Howes?

  Hundred thousand. Yeah.

• 36:00Dan Lok?

  Hundred thousand. I I cut out the the silver thing, right? Put it on my wall vision board. I said, I'm gonna get that. And then when I hit it, my wife is like, ah, that's it, man. Like, I'm gonna get to the one million, you know, subs. She's like, nah, who's gonna say who's gonna watch your?

• 36:17Dan Lok?

  And I had that goal. And the same thing happened again and again and again and again in my life. So now I have the new vision. I want to build a unicorn. Right? A tech empire. I do exactly the same thing. I have my vision. I know. And then now I'm attracting the people that can help me do that. Like, now I'm looking at deals. I bought a couple of deals already. Like going to that direction. I act as if I'm already there. Then everything else falls into play. The people, the context, the relationship, the capital.

• 36:48Lewis Howes?

  Skills, everything, yeah.

• 36:50Dan Lok?

  They just come.

• 36:51Lewis Howes?

  What's the amount of money? That maybe it doesn't scare you, but let's just hypothetically, let's what's the amount of money that you're like, man? I don't have that yet. But that's a that's a big number that maybe your billionaire friends have or whatever. You're like, gosh, that's a big number. And it's not in my net worth yet, but what is that number that scares you?

• 37:13Dan Lok?

  A billion.

• 37:14Lewis Howes?

  Billion.

• 37:15Dan Lok?

  A billion.

• 37:16Lewis Howes?

  What do you think it would take for you to get there in the next three years?

• 37:22Dan Lok?

  It would take me to do something quite

• 37:26Dan Lok?

  very different from what I'm doing now.

• 37:30Dan Lok?

  I remember when I was making six-figure income as a copywriter. Like, yeah, twenty-something years old, I mean, that's good, like, six-figure.

• 37:36Lewis Howes?

  It's great money.

• 37:37Dan Lok?

  When I, yeah, like, it's good money, I was happy, but then I knew in order to transition to the next level, I had to let go of what I have. You know, like, what got you here won't get you there. So I actually, I fired all my cooperating clients overnight, one night. I said, all gone. I'm gonna focus on developing my own, like, online business. And I did it probably a few times in my career. Every single time I have to reinvent myself, I have to let go of what see what's difficult, you have to let go of what works. So my biggest strength right now, what I have, is my social media presence. That's not gonna get me to the B.

• 38:12Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 38:13Dan Lok?

  Nope.

• 38:14Lewis Howes?

  Grant's getting pretty close.

• 38:16Dan Lok?

  Yeah, what, raising capital, that's with, if it's just like influencer, right?

• 38:20Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. I think he raised like a half, I think he raised like five hundred million, I think, from his.

• 38:24Dan Lok?

  That's good, that's a great model. That's a great model, right? And something to emulate, but am I doing software though, right? That's the only difference.

• 38:30Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 38:31Dan Lok?

  So I know it's not doing this, it's leveraging this could be okay, but I need to change what I do to get to that.

• 38:38Lewis Howes?

  You need to let go of something, you can't make YouTube videos all day and expect yourself to get to a billion, unless you're Mr. Beast.

• 38:45Dan Lok?

  Yeah, and then the business cannot be just about, like, just me. It needs to be something.

• 38:49Lewis Howes?

  You gotta scale yourself.

• 38:51Dan Lok?

  Yeah.

• 38:52Lewis Howes?

  Gosh, isn't that interesting, the thing that like is allowing us to build and generate more wealth and revenue and opportunities is the personal brand, but it's gonna have to like separate some or scale around, right?

• 39:04Dan Lok?

  And, and so what the, the, the, it's like this. My biggest strength is, my biggest skills is my ability to close. But if I only I could close and my team can close, I can't scale.

• 39:15Lewis Howes?

  Can't do it.

• 39:16Dan Lok?

  So I need to have a closing team. So my biggest strength, once I get to the next stage, becomes my biggest bottleneck. In the same here, my biggest strength that got me to here would become my biggest bottleneck to go to the next level. So I I'm aware of that and I'm already saying, okay, what do I need to do? What I need to shift in order to get there? And and I'm okay. I'm totally okay with that.

• 39:37Lewis Howes?

  If you had hypothetical scenario, uh, someone came to you and said, you know, I'm gonna, I get a little morbid at times, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna shoot you in your head and your entire, everyone you love and everyone you know that you care about. Uh, in three years, if you don't reach a billion dollar uh net worth. What would you, what would change your mind now to let go of certain things? Like, what would you do in the moment? From now into those three years in order to make sure that happened?

• 40:08Lewis Howes?

  If you had to, obviously you can take as long as you want, but if it had to be in three years.

• 40:12Dan Lok?

  I would, I would probably, I'm already doing it, but I would speed up the, the, the pace of me letting go of, of things, the current operation.

• 40:24Dan Lok?

  Right? With the transition and I would focus a hundred percent on the just acquisition investment side. Because that's the only way to get there, uh, from my, from my perspective.

• 40:33Lewis Howes?

  Acquisition meaning uh acquiring software companies that you can then feed.

• 40:36Dan Lok?

  Acquiring companies, yeah, and then put a group and then you and you go from there.

• 40:40Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 40:41Dan Lok?

  Yeah.

• 40:42Lewis Howes?

  So you're already doing it, you're already doing it, but you would just, if you had a gun to your head, you'd do it faster.

• 40:47Dan Lok?

  I'll do it faster. I would do it faster.

• 40:49Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 40:50Dan Lok?

  Yeah.

• 40:51Lewis Howes?

  What do you think's your biggest fear over the next five to 10 years as you go for the billion dollar mark and beyond and everything else you want to do?

• 40:59Dan Lok?

  Hmm, not so much the fear of business, the fear of like, or, or like life stuff. I don't think I have a lot of that. Where I think I also managed to balance quite good, not a whole lot, not a whole lot of fears. Because I'm not attached. It's not like I gotta get in three years, four years, five years. I I don't really care about that. It's a challenge, as you know, it's more the, hey, I set the goal. Can I get there? What would, who I, who do I have to be to get there? Uh, but it's also a little bit like.

• 41:33Dan Lok?

  Can I do it? Like, what's my potential?

• 41:37Dan Lok?

  I thought, I think I could, but could I do it? It's like YouTube, you know, I think I could hit a million, but I actually do it, okay? I could, but can I get to the next level? It's more like that. Yeah.

• 41:47Lewis Howes?

  How does someone overcome the, uh, identity of imposter syndrome? Once they've reached the six-figure mark of copyrighting and, oh, but how could I get to half a million or a million? I'm, I could never do that, or I could never get to 10 million or 100 million or a billion. How do we overcome that identity of imposter syndrome that so many of us put on ourselves? In the transition of life?

• 42:09Dan Lok?

  I, I'll, I'll share with you what works for me. It's, it's, uh, it's interesting because when I was, uh, making six-figure, my mentor, Alan, my first mentor, he invited me to, invited me to a mastermind group. Okay. And it was like five, six guys, and I was the youngest guy, like I was young. And all these guys are like millionaires, successful business guys, way older than me. And I, I felt, you want to talk about imposter syndrome, I felt like, well, I don't belong here. I, I like, I'm young, I'm not experienced, my business is only a few hundred K, like, I, I like, I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be here. So I would be like a, like, almost like a mouse. I wouldn't speak, I would just take notes and, and they would talk and all that. And after a while, I was like, something clicked in me.

• 42:54Dan Lok?

  I started taking notes, I started hearing the problems, I see how they solve problems. And just one day it clicked for me.

• 43:03Dan Lok?

  These guys are just like me.

• 43:06Dan Lok?

  They're not 10 times smarter. They don't work 10 times harder. They're just like me. And when I had that shift, suddenly the imposter syndrome disappears. Now I'm more vocal and I'm sharing. I'm like, oh, Dan's got a good idea, like I'm sharing. And they naturally pull me up. They're natural. And now, before you know, now looking back, who, uh, not today, looking back, that mastermind group, the very first mastermind group I belonged to, those guys, and we're still friends, by the way, after all these years. We're still good friends. What they have done in business, now looking back today, right? I'm looking at, okay, wow, like, that to me now is a small business, right? So the same thing here, I'm looking at that next level.

• 43:51Dan Lok?

  Hang around with people at that level and something we click for you is like, you know what? They're smart, but they're just people.

• 43:59Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 43:59Dan Lok?

  There's, there's nothing they can do that I cannot do.

• 44:02Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 44:02Dan Lok?

  It's just like you met billionaires, you, you've met a number of them. What are your thoughts? You see them at first like, oh, maybe they are like super crazy intelligent, right? But after you, after you, you hang out with them, what are your thoughts?

• 44:15Lewis Howes?

  Uh, they all have fears and doubts and they, a lot of them are much older. And so they have a lot more time to be able to get there. And so I'm just like, okay, they've had time to, to get to where they are. And they always, you always have something that most of them don't if they're much older than you. And that is you have time. They, they have more money, you have more time and they, from what I've noticed, they almost admire the ability to be kind and curious about their success. They admire and appreciate the curiosity that someone can bring to them. Because they wanna, they wanna be able to share their story, their success, their, their, their, their skills. They wanna be able to give it back, like you said.

• 44:57Lewis Howes?

  So I think when you, when I come from a place of just gratitude and curiosity, I recognize, okay, these are usually older, older individuals who are twenty, thirty, forty years older than me. And they don't have the time, you know, honestly, I could die tomorrow, but they don't have the, the youth like I do. And there's a, there's a mutual respect in the sense that, okay, I'm hungry, I'm going after something, they've done it. And as long as I have humility, uh, they usually open up their fears and insecurities, just like that I might have.

• 45:29Dan Lok?

  Yes, and do you find that, do they, do they, are they like, have three arms and four legs? Are they, do they have ten times more IQ?

• 45:36Lewis Howes?

  Uh, they, they, they all had challenges and adversity they had to overcome. And they all.

• 45:41Dan Lok?

  Usually they, they are, they do very well in one sector, right?

• 45:44Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, absolutely. And they all kind of talk about what you said, they had to let go of something that was working at some point and reinvent to get to the next level.

• 45:52Dan Lok?

  Yes.

• 45:52Lewis Howes?

  And, um, and, and always be scaling up their thinking. Not holding on to old beliefs, but like scaling up to new thoughts, new processes. Um, and it's always been about. A team of people, you know, they never did it alone. Most of them, you know, they had bigger companies with thousands of employees or hundreds of employees to get there. So it's it's not about whereas probably me and you in the beginning in our twenties was all about how can we develop a skill and do it on our own.

• 46:21Dan Lok?

  Yes.

• 46:22Lewis Howes?

  And that can only take you to so far.

• 46:24Dan Lok?

  That becomes a bottleneck.

• 46:25Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, exactly.

• 46:26Dan Lok?

  So it's exactly that that I think that's how we kind of eliminate or cure that imposter syndrome. We hang around with people like that. You oh, they're just like me. They they have the doubts. They have the fear. They have the struggles. Okay, like it's normal. And once we normalize it, then it's like, okay, I could see what are they doing? What are the models? How? What's their views of the world? I want to take. I want to learn that. How they see the world, how they make decisions. And the more we do, then we'll we'll get closer and closer. It's it's I got this from when people look at like, let's say, in our world, influencer space. Right? You have the the friends, the colleagues we hang out with, right? We all know, right? That's that's who we hang out with.

• 47:11Dan Lok?

  And we've been hanging out in here for a long time, right?

• 47:15Dan Lok?

  When I joined YPO, when I hang around with executive CEOs of like massive companies, like when I have these two worlds collide, first of all, they don't know each other. In fact, they don't even speak the same language. It's like it's speaking two different languages. And I noticed this is fascinating. I'm kind of in the middle, like two worlds collide. But I see the finance. I see what they do. I see the I see like the leadership, the management. I see the marketing, the creativity, the innovation from here. Like I see these. I'm like, this is powerful. And I kind of take both world. I'm like, what if this this world knows more about this world, which they don't. And this world knows more about this world. Wouldn't that be more effective? And I could see the potential of of that to be able to do that.

• 48:01Dan Lok?

  Taking something, a product, but you infuse it with digital marketing, branding, social media. How powerful that would be, but they don't talk to each other. So I see an opportunities there. That's how I see it. If I can marry the two and then do something from there.

• 48:17Lewis Howes?

  You've been around a lot of wealthy people. Uh, what would you say are the three best habits of wealthy, rich individuals?

• 48:27Dan Lok?

  The myth that wealthy people are greedy.

• 48:32Dan Lok?

  The the wealthier they are, almost all of them, almost all of them. They are the happiest, most humble and kindest people I have met. I've never been by people in this, I have been f***ed a lot by people in like with no money. Right. Right, like, serious, these guys, they don't need to. So they are like a just, they they are nice, they are kind. Uh, one of my, one of my, one of my right hand Desmond. He lives in West Van, which is a very wealthy neighborhood, right? He was just looking at the houses and then a guy comes in. It was talking with the guy, just chit chatting and the guy invites, very wealthy, like we're talking twenty million dollar mansion, right?

• 49:17Dan Lok?

  The guy invited him, hey, let me give you two of the house, I mean, like, you know, let me have a drink, like, it's like, these are good people, it's it's incredible. Uh, and so I think first one, it's they're actually very humble. They're actually not like, oh, yeah, I know everything, no, they're like, if they have this this curiosity about them, they're like, they they they want to learn something, oh, tell me a little bit more, I do. Oh, that's interesting, they they have this curiosity thing about them, they always want to learn more. Beginner's mind. Beginner's mind, even they know they maybe they're very good at what they do, but they know like, oh, I don't know that, tell me more about that, how do you do, how do you do the podcast, what does that work? Like, I remember one time I had lunch with, dinner, dinner, with someone who has had like twenty exits, twenty exits.

• 50:02Dan Lok?

  Very successful guy, okay? And I was like, oh, my God, I'm gonna pick his brain, it's gonna be great, I learn a lot. You know, Lewis, he he joined a meeting, like just you and I, the first thing he pulled up is a notebook. He wants to ask me how I do things to take notes. I'm like, no wonder he's successful. No wonder he's successful, it's incredible, so humble curiosity, right? And the second thing is they think big.

• 50:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:30Dan Lok?

  They don't think about measly little problems. They think about how to solve, like, you solve what? A friend of mine who is the landlord of this building that we're in.

• 50:42Dan Lok?

  Uh, he's, he has a company, a public company that sells, uh, solar windows. So you put these, uh, windows on your, on, like, uh, this panel on your windows. It's invisible, but it can, it can capture.

• 50:55Lewis Howes?

  Solar invisible window.

• 50:56Dan Lok?

  Yeah, like, so you can, you can't into electricity, right? So he's working on stuff like that. He wants, yeah, I want to put, like, I want to put this in all the buildings in North America, like.

• 51:06Lewis Howes?

  Crazy.

• 51:07Dan Lok?

  You know, they think about stuff like that, right? He also has a company that's developed, like, um, skin repair, like, kind of, like, it's some crazy, crazy things that he's into. And I'm like, I'm not thinking about that.

• 51:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, okay.

• 51:22Dan Lok?

  So they think, they think big.

• 51:23Lewis Howes?

  They think big, okay, the third, third best habit.

• 51:26Dan Lok?

  And the third is, they always, what you just said, they always put their people first.

• 51:33Dan Lok?

  They never say, I did it. It's my team, it's this, it's, you know, they're very, very, very, they're very, it, it's one thing I learned from them, and he taught, they taught me this, don't use the word I, just use we.

• 51:48Dan Lok?

  Let's say certain project went well, it's not my YouTube channel, it's our YouTube channel. But it's not, I'm my project, it's our project. We did it. So I, from a leadership perspective, I learned to eliminate the word of I did it, it's just we. Even if I finish a speaking gig, we finish a speaking gig.

• 52:08Dan Lok?

  Right? It's not I finish a speaking gig, or I was on, no, we, we, the team is excited, that we, we are going on Lewis Howes podcast. Oh, great, no, that was, like, the chat is blowing up, right? It's not, oh, me, I'm going to Lewis. No, no, it's we.

• 52:23Dan Lok?

  So I think those are the three things.

• 52:26Lewis Howes?

  What do you believe is your greatest leadership quality and your weakest leadership quality?

• 52:33Dan Lok?

  My, I'll talk about the weakest first. My weakest leadership quality is I.

• 52:41Dan Lok?

  Trust people too much too quick. And that has cost me tens of millions of dollars, no joke, tens of millions of dollars. A lot of the people problems that we have last year, and I'm transparent, like last year, I like I lay off a lot of people from the company too. That because I was trusting them, oh yeah, I think they will do a good job and I don't check.

• 53:04Lewis Howes?

  So that, so does that mean like a lack of training or proper onboard training to make sure that everything's up to what you, your standard?

• 53:10Dan Lok?

  Not even training is, I, I should have

• 53:15Dan Lok?

  delegate a little bit more systematically, not like, hey, here you go, like, there you go, here's what it is. And I don't go back and check, so.

• 53:22Lewis Howes?

  Check the work, yeah.

• 53:24Dan Lok?

  Check the work, the quality control and see if actually i- is it the right person in the right seat? I thought they have a good attitude, that's cool, that's great. So it's like people say, uh, hire for attitude and train for skills? No, I, I don't believe in that anymore. I said, you better hire for skills. You, you, you want someone with, who's done it, who come in with skills. Because if they come in with no skills, chances are you're paying for the education.

• 53:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 53:52Dan Lok?

  So I would, I would, they say if I want someone to grow my podcast, I want someone who's, who's built, like, who's done that.

• 53:59Lewis Howes?

  Who's already done it, yeah.

• 54:00Dan Lok?

  Who's already done it, like, oh, I work with so and so, work with so and so, but I grew the podcast to this, this many million downloads, okay, you're hired. I want, I would say.

• 54:09Lewis Howes?

  The cha- the challenge that I've found, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe you found it something different, the challenge I've found is when uh, it's almost like you have to hire for skills and attitude, because I've had some people come in with great qualifications, skilled, do an amazing job. But in a sense, not the right culture fit and drag, you know, pulling some people away from the vision or whatever it may be, so it's like you need both, which is hard to find.

• 54:33Dan Lok?

  Hard to find, hard to find. And it's, I, I don't even want to use the word attitude, because it's, it's not exactly accurate, it's the skills that fits the culture. Because when they come in, if they can be molded a bit, then it works. Some people think you cannot even do that.

• 54:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 54:49Dan Lok?

  It just doesn't fit. It's like, it's possible to fit in the culture. I'm not looking for like fits like a glove they want.

• 54:57Lewis Howes?

  Like perfect, but it's, hey, it's good enough, yeah.

• 54:59Dan Lok?

  Good enough, it's like, you know, get to know us, we work together, you know, we, we'll get along, right?

• 55:03Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, okay.

• 55:05Dan Lok?

  Yeah, I would say so.

• 55:06Lewis Howes?

  And your greatest, greatest quality?

• 55:09Dan Lok?

  I can coach.

• 55:11Dan Lok?

  I am very, in my opinion, I'm good at looking at people's talent and how to bring that out of them. Because as I've been mentor to so many, so I could take someone who's hmm, but I can groom them. So that, that, and I've done it for so many, so I could see, and I could probably see it better than they could see it for themselves. I always have someone, a young guy come in and say that he totally lost. I said, with your talent, your personality, you should focus on cooperating, or you should focus on this. Like, I'm very good with that. I would think that that would be my biggest skill.

• 55:47Lewis Howes?

  How do you think we can develop the skill of self-belief more? I, I think a lot of people don't accomplish what they want because they doubt themselves so much that they don't take the actions that are required to accomplish what you want. What do you think we can do to build more self-belief and overcome the doubt that the conversations in our head?

• 56:07Dan Lok?

  It's the, it's not just self-belief, I think it's self-esteem.

• 56:13Dan Lok?

  And it's self, and it's not self-confidence, they're two different things. So the self-esteem, where most people actually have low self-esteem because of the way that we were brought up, for most of us, right? We don't have, have high self-esteem. So, and we don't have high self-esteem, we go into any scenario, anything that we do, want to start a career, a business, we go in with the mindset of, oh, I don't know if it's gonna work, maybe it doesn't, what if it doesn't work? But then what I'm gonna do, right? Like, all these things does in our head. And personally, I found the best way for me personally, at least to do it, is to get small wins. I need to recondition my mind to believe. I know my mind doesn't believe. It's like my mind is very skeptical. We all have this survival brain, right?

• 56:59Dan Lok?

  The crocodile brain is skeptical. Like, oh, I want to get, you know, I want to make a million, I want to make 10 million, I want to get a million subscribers, I want to get a million downloads, podcasts, whatever it might be, right? Well, if we set that goal, and that's good, but it's like, well, how am I gonna get there? Well, let's get your first download. Let's get your first ten downloads, your first hundred downloads. Like, I need, it's almost, I need that validations to strengthen my belief. So then I strategically, how can they create those validations to strengthen my belief? So it's like playing a mind game with yourself. It's quite fascinating, right? How do I trick my brain to believe that I can do this? In other words, right? Right? So how can I bench press like, you know, 200 pounds? I can't do that.

• 57:45Dan Lok?

  Oh, let's do, let's do 50. Oh, now I can do 60. Oh, maybe I can do 70. Who knows? Oh, my friend could do 180. What the hell? Maybe I can do 100, right? It's this kind of tricks that we play and I love to do that because over the years it's worked so well for me. So I want to have those wins. It's not if I cannot bench press 150, I'm a failure. That we never start. Right? And we don't take the time to acknowledge ourselves and say, 50 is good. It's good, right? Like, good. You just have a pen to back, then do one, then do a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more.

• 58:20Lewis Howes?

  How do you show up in life without comparing yourself to where everyone else is at? You know, where your friends are at, your successful entrepreneur friends, or people who are certain, you know, have a six pack, whatever it is. How do you develop the small wins but not be like, ah, but I'll never be like that? Or that person's got so much more money or whatever.

• 58:40Dan Lok?

  I am very competitive and this used to bother me a lot. It's like a field for me, like it's the competitive, as an athlete, you get it, right? It's like, yeah, like I'm, I'm, you need, you need almost like a target. You know what I mean? Like, I'm gonna beat that. I'm gonna be, be better, like. And I found that works to a degree as a motivation and your fuel. But it's actually, it's like diesel. It's not very healthy. It works, but it's not very healthy versus electricity, right?

• 59:11Lewis Howes?

  It'll get you there, but it's not clean.

• 59:13Dan Lok?

  Yeah, it's not clean. It's not clean energy. It truly is not clean energy. And, but it would be like, it's sometimes, how many of us want to become more successful because we want to prove somebody wrong? Right?

• 59:26Lewis Howes?

  That was me my whole childhood.

• 59:28Dan Lok?

  There you go, we want to prove someone, or, or we want to show that we, you know, we, we're better than you think. Right? But you underestimate me. Or it's like a revenge thing. It's okay. Not a clean energy, right? It's okay. Uh, and I found that.

• 59:42Lewis Howes?

  It could get you there, but it won't be, it won't feel good.

• 59:45Dan Lok?

  It won't feel good. And it, it's actually very destructive because you probably self explode or self sabotage to a degree. And I found that it works and then later on, I, I can I be very transparent?

• 59:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 59:57Dan Lok?

  Okay, I'll be very transparent. When I set up to do YouTube, I looked at, uh, Ty, Ty Lopez, I look at Grant, I look at number of, of like influencers. I said, I want my followers to be bigger than that.

• 1:00:10Dan Lok?

  For YouTube.

• 1:00:12Dan Lok?

  At the time I had like, I know a hundred thousand, whatever, not, not as many. I said, I'm gonna bypass that. I said, I'm gonna bypass Gary Vee, I'm gonna bypass this. That was my target. I'm just being very transparent.

• 1:00:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:22Dan Lok?

  And guess what? Now, let's say, I, now I'll say my YouTube, my, my, I bypassed them. So freaking what?

• 1:00:28Lewis Howes?

  And how did it feel when you passed them with the energy, with the not clean energy of, uh, you know?

• 1:00:34Dan Lok?

  I felt, first of all, nobody gives.

• 1:00:39Dan Lok?

  Like dude, they don't give a shit. I don't really care. I don't like, I thought I care a lot. Once it's, oh, okay. Like you maybe, oh, we did it. Okay, then what?

• 1:00:48Lewis Howes?

  That way, yeah.

• 1:00:49Dan Lok?

  Yeah, who cares? And then I realized, actually, nobody cares. Your customers, your clients don't care. Your competitors probably don't even care. You kind of care a little bit, but by the time you hit it, you don't really care either. So the whole thing is just kind of a meaningless thing. So once, so once I get there, I'm like, this is just silly. Like, why? Like, why compare? Like, it's great. If, if anything, um, I was at Clubhouse and, uh, Grant joined the call. But some people will see, oh, Grant and I, are we competitors? I don't see that at all. I studied Grant's materials, right? But I, I, I buy the 10x growth recordings. I got studies, I read his book, I love it. I bought probably, I don't know, 50, 60 copies of his book to give to people.

• 1:01:32Dan Lok?

  So I like, I don't see that at all. I admire what is done to accumulate the social capital, convert it into real estate assets like this. No one's ever done, no one's ever done this before. This is, this is brilliant. I can learn something from that. I can learn something. Look at what Ty is doing, what Gary V is doing, what all of them are doing. I'm like, I don't see that. And it's, it's like, hey, we all have our own paths and it's not like, it's our ego. You have more subscribers, you have more downloads, but the truth is, your audience doesn't care. No one cares. It's just our own little ego cares a little bit. But when you do hit it, you don't care either. So it doesn't really matter.

• 1:02:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And when we focus on, what I've learned of was the hard way is when we focus on running our own race and becoming the best version of ourselves and reaching our vision and our potential. We don't have to be constantly saying, well, how do I beat this person or that person? We're just becoming the best version that we can be with our goals.

• 1:02:27Dan Lok?

  And we will never be happy because you compare, you can always find someone who's higher.

• 1:02:32Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:02:32Dan Lok?

  Much higher.

• 1:02:34Lewis Howes?

  And there's no finish, there's no finish line either.

• 1:02:37Dan Lok?

  There's never a finish line. So then it's not healthy. Then we don't enjoy the, the, the moment. And it becomes, that's why I say it's, it's a one kind of energy, but it's not very clean. It's not very sustainable. Convert it into electricity. It's better, it's cleaner and you'll be happier. And I learned that the hard way. Truly, I learned that the hard way.

• 1:02:58Lewis Howes?

  Me too, man. It took me thirty, I mean, when I turned thirty, I realized, wow, I'm, I'm doing this the wrong way. I was able to get results and accomplish goals, but never felt good inside. Because I was always doing it to prove people wrong or to, to compete or to be the best.

• 1:03:13Dan Lok?

  And the problem is because it works to the degree.

• 1:03:15Lewis Howes?

  It does.

• 1:03:17Dan Lok?

  It's like, this is like this, like, I know it's not clean energy, but it kind of works. I'm, I'm accomplishing stuff. I'm getting stuff done. But then long-term, it doesn't, it doesn't work.

• 1:03:32Lewis Howes?

  I want to ask you about martial arts. I know it's a big part of your life.

• 1:03:34Dan Lok?

  Oh, yes, I love that.

• 1:03:36Lewis Howes?

  What would you say the three biggest lessons you've learned from your entire martial arts journey? Whether it be from your first lesson that you took as a, you know, a young buck? Or this morning in the dojo? What's the three greatest lessons that you've learned?

• 1:03:52Dan Lok?

  I mean, I love martial arts and a lot of my business philosophies today, I learned it from martial arts. Bruce Lee, of course, I'm a huge, huge fan of Bruce Lee. And I would say the three big things that I've learned.

• 1:04:10Dan Lok?

  This is going to go deep. Let's see if you're going to go deep. I'll talk about the first one. So in first one, in martial art, in anyone that's learning a, a, a, a style like karate, taekwondo, boxing, whatever it might be. At first, we have to learn what they call the form. You've got to do the, you know, the form, right? How you do the forms, how you do a punch properly. And that's great. But then after a while, we have to learn it, master it, and then we have to forget it.

• 1:04:41Dan Lok?

  Because when you learn it, when you execute, when you're in a sparring and any kind of scenario, when you're using it, you can't be, "Oh, he's going to punch me this way, then I'm going to do this. And he's going to do this, and I'm going to do this." It doesn't work. It doesn't, it doesn't flow, right? So the first lesson is flow, don't fight.

• 1:05:00Dan Lok?

  How do we, how do we flow with, with the movement? And you don't come into any scenario predetermined. "Oh, you're going to throw a kick, then I'm going to block, and then I'm going to hit this way." It's never going to be like that. It's just like in business, oh, what is the blueprint? Well, there's no blueprint. Because it depends on how the marketplace will react to your offer, to what you do, the customer. This is, this is a dynamic. By looking for a blueprint, you've already failed. Because by definition, it's about never-ending problem solving.

• 1:05:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, adaptability, yeah.

• 1:05:33Dan Lok?

  Yeah, it's all about solving bigger and bigger, bigger problems, right? There's a blueprint. So I think that would be number two, to flow, don't fight. And the second one is this, I learned from Bruce Lee, I'm going to say it in his quote. I'll do my best to rephrase it. He said this. "Before I learned the art, a punch is just a punch, a kick is just a kick." After I learned the art, a punch is no longer a punch, a kick is no longer a kick. And now I truly understand the art. A punch is still just a punch, a kick is just a kick.

• 1:06:05Lewis Howes?

  So, so a punch is a punch and a kick is a kick? What did he say at the end?

• 1:06:13Dan Lok?

  After I truly understand the art, a punch is still just a punch, a kick is still just a kick.

• 1:06:18Lewis Howes?

  Got it.

• 1:06:19Dan Lok?

  So what he's saying is that in the beginning, when you you don't know anything, you learn something. I don't know how to punch, now I know how to punch.

• 1:06:28Dan Lok?

  And then you learn different ways. Oh, I didn't like if you don't know anything about shot, you just ah, I'm gonna punch like, you know, sucker punch, right? But now, oh, you know, you put your hand this way, you know how to jab, you know how to how to uppercut, how to cross, how to hook, you know, combination. But you know how to bob and weave, you learn all another kick, you know how to do all this stuff, right? But then, once you learn so many things, just like in business, just like in life, you've got so many techniques. But then there's no attributes behind the techniques.

• 1:06:57Dan Lok?

  Right? You and I can throw a same punch, we can throw a jab. Mike Tyson can throw a jab, well, Mike Tyson's jab is a lot more deadly, still a jab. But the power, the speed behind the punch is completely different from all of us, normal people.

• 1:07:12Dan Lok?

  So what Bruce was saying is, you learn all these techniques, but ultimately, how do you simplify what you do? So knowledge is daily increase, but wisdom is daily decrease.

• 1:07:25Dan Lok?

  So how do you learn? You don't know nothing, you learn a lot. And then you narrow it down to not knowing a whole lot. And now you know a hun- so you from not knowing anything now, now a hundred things, now I just need to know these five things that work.

• 1:07:39Lewis Howes?

  Simplify.

• 1:07:40Dan Lok?

  Simplify, and simpli- simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

• 1:07:46Dan Lok?

  That would be the second big lesson I learned. That it's like now when I close someone before many years ago, I would have, you know, fifty ways to close a sale. I have now one, one line.

• 1:07:59Lewis Howes?

  What's that line?

• 1:08:01Dan Lok?

  What would you like to do next?

• 1:08:04Dan Lok?

  That's it.

• 1:08:04Lewis Howes?

  So before you learned every strategy and technique.

• 1:08:07Dan Lok?

  Oh, would you like in blue, blue and red, like alternative clothes, puppy dog clothes, you name it, right? No, what would you like to do next? Now, it's very simple, very elegant. But then there's the stuff behind the stuff. Right? So that's simplicity, I, I love that. Like you could, on a closing call, you could take control with just the first line. I'll, I'll demonstrate, can I demonstrate?

• 1:08:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, please.

• 1:08:30Dan Lok?

  Yeah, so if you, instead of saying, hey, how are you? That's, you know, how are you, sir? How are you, you know?

• 1:08:41Dan Lok?

  I teach, when I teach it, when I do this, I said, instead of doing that, a simple line is, what can I do for you? Now, it's very simple line. But that simple line, I can deliver it with different tonality. So let me demonstrate. This is fun, this is gonna be fun. So, so I'm gonna do it in, I'm gonna do it wrong, then I'm gonna do it the right. Let's do it in different, so first one. So imagine if you're on the phone, uh, I'm a closer, right? So you just, Louis, tell me like the, the feeling that you get from, from like just raw, whatever comes to mind, okay?

• 1:09:17Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 1:09:18Dan Lok?

  First one, first one. Hey, what can I do for you?

• 1:09:22Lewis Howes?

  Uh, desperate.

• 1:09:25Dan Lok?

  Uh, desperate?

• 1:09:25Lewis Howes?

  Excited, desperate, uh, passionate.

• 1:09:28Dan Lok?

  Passionate?

• 1:09:30Lewis Howes?

  Um, uh, anxious a little bit, yeah.

• 1:09:33Dan Lok?

  Anxious, little bit salesman.

• 1:09:36Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, very sleazy, sleazy salesman, yeah.

• 1:09:38Dan Lok?

  Sleazy, right? Okay, so second one.

• 1:09:42Dan Lok?

  Uh, wha, wha, wha, wha, wha, what can I do for you?

• 1:09:47Lewis Howes?

  Nervous, scared, unsure, uncertain, uh, yeah, not believing yourself, not.

• 1:09:56Dan Lok?

  Okay, let's try the third one. What can I do for you?

• 1:10:01Lewis Howes?

  Not credible.

• 1:10:03Dan Lok?

  Not credible.

• 1:10:04Lewis Howes?

  Not credible, more like uh.

• 1:10:06Dan Lok?

  People pleasing a little bit.

• 1:10:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, happy-go-lucky.

• 1:10:08Dan Lok?

  A fake, live is fake, right?

• 1:10:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:11Dan Lok?

  Live is fake, okay, fourth one, and I'll do the last one, fourth one. Um, what can I do for you?

• 1:10:18Lewis Howes?

  Not caring.

• 1:10:19Dan Lok?

  Not caring.

• 1:10:19Lewis Howes?

  Don't care about the job, don't wanna be here.

• 1:10:21Dan Lok?

  Don't even wanna be here, right?

• 1:10:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:23Dan Lok?

  Okay, last one.

• 1:10:26Dan Lok?

  What can I do for you?

• 1:10:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, certain, clear, calm, trustful, trusting, yeah.

• 1:10:35Dan Lok?

  So, it's one line.

• 1:10:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:37Dan Lok?

  It's the same punch. It's the attributes behind the punch, so we're not talking about different closing lines or or scripts or even how you close. I'm just talking just the opening. I have lost or made a sale with just one line.

• 1:10:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:10:54Dan Lok?

  Right? Just with my tonality, I haven't talked about your needs, I haven't talked about budget, I haven't talked about anything. If I say, hey, what can I do for you, I've already lost the sale.

• 1:11:05Dan Lok?

  I don't need to continue forty-five minutes for the rest of the call, I've already, I've finished, I've lost the deal. So just, that's attributes. One simple line. So that's where the depth that comes in, it's a jab, but is it a Mike Tyson jab? Or just a regular Joe jab, it is, you know, that's the difference.

• 1:11:23Lewis Howes?

  Uh, that's powerful, that's a good distinction. Okay.

• 1:11:27Dan Lok?

  And then the last one.

• 1:11:28Lewis Howes?

  Yep.

• 1:11:29Dan Lok?

  Or would be for, so as Bruce Lee talks about that, and then I love his philosophy and his very famous, famous quote. He said, be water, my friend. Be water, my friend, it's about emptying the cup. And we notice in martial art that, and that's why I love Bruce Lee's martial art philosophy. It's the jikendo, that's his martial art style, means the weight of the intercepting fist. It is not about, hey, you have a Japanese karate style, Korean kicking style, or Thai boxing, or whatever. It is about learning these things, accumulation, and then strip away what doesn't work, what works for you. And then you combine that together.

• 1:12:11Dan Lok?

  So it's not like I'm a judo guy, I'm a kickboxing guy, I'm, no. Like, I can kickbox, but I can also do judo. So it's like this, I am not a copywriter. I can do copywriting.

• 1:12:28Dan Lok?

  I am not a YouTuber, but I know how YouTube works. I'm not a public speaker, but I could speak.

• 1:12:36Dan Lok?

  So I see those as skillsets. It's not my identity. It's just a skillset that I have. And I can combine all those. So you see how what I do, like martial arts fits into everything I do, like that's.

• 1:12:47Lewis Howes?

  Absolutely, absolutely. I want to talk about identity for a second because I think this is a topic that can hold a lot of people back or it could propel them forward. How should we be thinking about our identity in terms of the words we use, the attachments we have to a self-identity, the things we do? Or how should we be unattaching to identity? What's your philosophy about identity in general?

• 1:13:14Dan Lok?

  I have an Instagram, one of my most popular Instagram graphics, a cartoon. It's a picture of a person and then with a ching ball in the back, right? And the quote is, "Most people don't become who they want to become because they're too..." You cannot become who you want to become because you're too attached to who you were. You're too attached to who you were from the past. And I think our identity changes with us, right? So in the beginning, maybe you see yourself as an athlete. And then you see yourself as an entrepreneur. And then you see yourself as, say, a podcaster. You see yourself as an influencer, as a celebrity influencer. Like, I think it changes with us.

• 1:13:56Dan Lok?

  The key is making sure that the identity actually serves us and is who we want to be. Right? And I like the identity to be just a little bit, a couple of steps ahead of who. It should be, make me feel a little bit uncomfortable.

• 1:14:10Lewis Howes?

  What's your current, what's your current identity?

• 1:14:13Dan Lok?

  So you talk about branding or you're talking about my own personal?

• 1:14:16Lewis Howes?

  Personal, business, a life, what would you? Well, how would you identify if I said, hey, who are you? What do you do? What would your identity response be?

• 1:14:26Dan Lok?

  I love that. I love that. So the branding wise is king of closing. I want to, that's what, closing in person, in print, online, offline. That's what I focus. That's what people like to pitch and hold you. You need to give them something to pitch and hold you. Just like the school greatness, right? If you need to pitch it, once they get to know you, they know you're just much more than that. But they need something to, to grasp, right, to, to, they can latch on to. Uh, in terms of self-identity is, is really the CEO of a, a tech, a tech investment firm. That's how I see my identity. But I know the gap and I know, okay, what do I need to do to, to become that? So who are, how I see myself, which is very different from looking at just what I do now. You can see, right?

• 1:15:10Lewis Howes?

  What was the hardest?

• 1:15:13Lewis Howes?

  What was the identity that was the hardest to let go of at a period of your life? Whether it was, I don't know, copywriter to entrepreneur to single to married or, you know, no kids, the kid, like what's been the most challenging thing to let go of identity wise?

• 1:15:30Lewis Howes?

  For me, it was athlete, like that was my whole life. And then when it ended, I didn't, I was like, what do I do with the rest of my life? This is my life and now it's gone. And I had to learn to let it go and reinvent.

• 1:15:49Dan Lok?

  I would say it is from.

• 1:15:58Dan Lok?

  I think it's from a marketer to CEO. That would, that's probably the most difficult.

• 1:16:06Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Why was that challenging?

• 1:16:08Dan Lok?

  Because it's, it's like, this is what I'm good at. This is what I've been doing my whole life.

• 1:16:15Lewis Howes?

  That's why you make your money.

• 1:16:16Dan Lok?

  Yeah, this is why I make money. This is what I know, right? And to transition that to being a CEO where you don't, actually, you don't want to be the best marketers for your company. You don't want to be the.

• 1:16:27Lewis Howes?

  It's hard to find someone to replace you.

• 1:16:29Dan Lok?

  Yeah, like, how do I find someone? No one knows it. And especially for us, it's our personal brand. That's even harder. Who knows how to promote Lewis House better than Lewis House?

• 1:16:38Lewis Howes?

  So hard, man.

• 1:16:39Dan Lok?

  Right? Like, how do you do that? So I think transitioning that that was the most difficult. But I'm glad I made a transition. But that transition was hard. And I think I'm still transitioning. Not done yet. Not done yet, but it's better.

• 1:16:52Lewis Howes?

  We'll probably always be marketers. In a sense, we'll always be marketing, but maybe we won't always be marketers. Yes, exactly. It's like, we'll always be using marketing to, you know, generate leads and sales, to build something that we want to build, whatever it might be. Our personal brand, tech, software, anything.

• 1:17:10Dan Lok?

  Yes.

• 1:17:12Lewis Howes?

  But.

• 1:17:12Dan Lok?

  It's tough.

• 1:17:13Lewis Howes?

  It's a good distinction. Yeah, that's.

• 1:17:14Dan Lok?

  Because it's such a powerful skill. And then to to transition to leading to have other people perform those skills that you know, maybe for you and I jump in, it's easier.

• 1:17:26Lewis Howes?

  It's easier.

• 1:17:27Dan Lok?

  It's no, I can't do that to scale.

• 1:17:30Lewis Howes?

  I know, man.

• 1:17:31Dan Lok?

  That's a struggle.

• 1:17:31Lewis Howes?

  It's how do you remove yourself and empower marketers, have an army of marketers?

• 1:17:36Dan Lok?

  An army of marketers. And and and we, and the reality is, we could only do so much. Like, we cannot do, create content and then optimize the content and YouTube and Instagram and Clubhouse and and pay ads and funnel and emails. And I mean, you know, you name it. Right? It's too much.

• 1:17:56Lewis Howes?

  With every, with ten new social media apps coming out a year, it's hard to be everywhere.

• 1:18:00Dan Lok?

  It's too much. And then we don't want to miss out, right? We want to kind of be on it. But then every single one of those things takes takes bandwidth. Like, it just takes time. And you still need to grow the business. And you still need to manage the team.

• 1:18:13Lewis Howes?

  People and, yeah, and take care of your health and, you know.

• 1:18:15Dan Lok?

  And you still want to be healthy and take care of your health and exercise. And the relationship, where you still want to spend time with your loved ones and your family. And it's this, it's not easy. It's not easy. It's crazy. But I did, I did learn something, though. A few months ago, I had my friend, Brian Scudamore. From 1800 got junk CEO, he came to the studio, I asked him this question and I think he loved this. I said, Brian, talk to me, man, talk to me, I want to know, right? So his company is out doing almost half a billion dollars a year revenue.

• 1:18:46Dan Lok?

  And I said, tell me the truth, running a company is half a billion dollars, right? Come tell me like the, the, what's it like? And he said on the interview, he said, Dan, running a like a 500 million dollar company, it's way easier than a 15 million dollar company.

• 1:19:03Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:19:05Dan Lok?

  It's a running a 15 million dollar company is way easier than a, you know, than five million. And five million is way easier than 500K.

• 1:19:11Lewis Howes?

  Wow, because you're doing it all on your own at 500K.

• 1:19:14Dan Lok?

  That's it? I said, I said, no, I said, I first I said, nah, there's no way. Like I, it's almost like I don't, I'm a little skeptical, I'm like, I don't believe that. But tell me a little bit more, show me your schedule. So he showed me his schedule. So, so go to the office how many days a week? Come on, tell me the truth, man, you just leave in the office? No, go to the office one day a week. I said, what?

• 1:19:36Dan Lok?

  One day a week? What happens to the other days? Well, you know, most days he works in Starbucks, right? Starbucks before the COVID, a few hours a day. It takes like three days, two to three days off a week. He takes a two months off a year.

• 1:19:53Dan Lok?

  I'm like, what the heck? He said, yeah, because you've got the team, I've got the people, I've got everything it runs. I'm like, bingo.

• 1:20:02Lewis Howes?

  That, it just, it probably took him decades to train the team and find a team and build the culture and systems and processes, I mean, that's the work.

• 1:20:11Dan Lok?

  He was saying, Dan, when I was doing a million dollars a year with 180 got junk, it's him hauling the trucks and, you know, moving junk. He said, now it's like we do a million, couple million a day.

• 1:20:25Lewis Howes?

  I'm not doing nothing, yeah, yeah.

• 1:20:26Dan Lok?

  I'm not doing nothing, I'm not. He's got a very strong integrator, like very strong like president running the company. So he's like, he makes all the decisions. He just, he does his visionary work, strategies. So we hang out here for half a day. He talks to me, and then won't ask me about social media. It just, he does his stuff. I mean, it's awesome. I learned from that. I'm like, okay. Uh, like we, that's, that's a goal. That's a role model. So bigger is actually easier. They have more time off. It's not a hustle, hustle, hustle kind of thing. So that's what I learned. I hope that's useful.

• 1:20:58Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's good. What's a belief and a thought that you have in your mind? Maybe it's a little thought or a little, a little belief. It's not strong all the time, but maybe it's still there, a thought or a belief that holds you back.

• 1:21:18Lewis Howes?

  Again, maybe it's not like constantly in your mind always, but it's there. It's, it's still there. It's still lingers. It still tries to hang out with you.

• 1:21:29Dan Lok?

  Maybe it's a little bit of the, uh, I'm not ready.

• 1:21:34Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 1:21:35Dan Lok?

  Yeah, I'm not ready. Not the, I'm not good enough. I, I handled that a long time ago. It's, I'm not ready. Like, am I ready? Right now, we're looking at, at a, at a tech deal, right? It's pretty sizable. I'm like, we could pull the trigger, but am I, am I ready to, to run that? Like, you know, cause it's the tech. It's got a CTO, like, uh, you know, am I ready for that? Like to, to make that leap, right? It's like, that, that's, that's, that would be the big one. I think that one is the one that's holding me back. Otherwise, I would have gone faster.

• 1:22:07Lewis Howes?

  When, when do, when do you think you'll know you're ready? And when should people know when they're ready for anything in their life?

• 1:22:16Dan Lok?

  I think, I don't think we'll be ready. One thing I did, I did say that my mentor taught me is that then you'll never be ready. You just need to be comfortable.

• 1:22:26Dan Lok?

  You just need to be comfortable enough to make the decision to pull the trigger. So I'm looking and I'm like, I don't think I'll be ready until I'm I'm in it. Just like you won't know you can have a podcast with so many listeners until you kind of do it. Until you do your first show, your ten, tenth episodes, a hundredth episodes, right? It's like, oh, I can, I can do this, right? It's it's that. It's like now we are setting up the the the um the on the investment side, like raising capital.

• 1:22:56Dan Lok?

  Am I ready for that? How how would the world perceive that? What would that look like, right? Now you're dealing with regulations and, you know, all that stuff, it comes in, comes with it, right? Am I ready for that? So I I have, I have that. I think that would be the one that's holding me back.

• 1:23:12Lewis Howes?

  And when you have a negative thought in your mind, whether it's that or just a limiting thought, let's say, maybe it's not negative, but it's a limiting thought. How do you um let it go? How do you not let it consume your mind and and really hold you back in that moment or in your life?

• 1:23:33Dan Lok?

  Goes back to I I need, I need the the the validations from the environment. So then when I feel that little bit of, oh, am I ready? So then I would call the people like my mentors and all that, that they have colleagues, advisors, they have done it. And they would be like, okay, why do you think you're not ready? Well, you know, I I don't, I'm not so sure about this. What about this piece is going to run this with the product after I I buy it? Would would it tank? What if it's, I don't, I don't know. If there's some technological stuff that I'm not aware of, I mean, that that would be a big problem. Well, just have a CTO to do the due diligence, that they would kind of bear left brain and say, do this, do this and this. Are you okay? Are you comfortable with it? I'm say, I'll be more comfortable, right?

• 1:24:18Dan Lok?

  Well, what if, what if you do the deal in a way that you you do some down payment, but then you do an earn out? So you know the guy will stay for at least a year, year and a half. Would that give you more comfort? I say, yeah, that would give me more comfort. So they would teach me how to use techniques and business acumen to make me more comfortable, right?

• 1:24:35Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:35Dan Lok?

  So it's that kind of thing, which I may may not be aware of, or even I know, but then they would tell me, maybe you never thought about it in this way.

• 1:24:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:43Dan Lok?

  And that that helps a lot. So that's how I need to do it. Like, I'm not a guy that sits and then suddenly from not knowing or from no belief to belief. I I need those micro things that move me forward.

• 1:24:57Dan Lok?

  It it's as little as, I I know it sounds so silly, like I talk about the investment fund. It's as little as, let me talk to a lawyer and start the paperwork.

• 1:25:07Dan Lok?

  Like, it's that.

• 1:25:09Lewis Howes?

  It's just doing it.

• 1:25:10Dan Lok?

  Yeah, let's just let me do the first step, right? Forget getting all registered. Let me just, just do the paperwork first, the first step of paperwork. Let's do a name search of the fund. You know what I mean? Like, little thing. Let let me, let me, let me talk to someone who's running a fund that's this size. What was that like? Like, that little thing. I need to do those little things for myself.

• 1:25:28Lewis Howes?

  The small wins.

• 1:25:29Dan Lok?

  Small wins, just small.

• 1:25:30Lewis Howes?

  Small wins.

• 1:25:31Dan Lok?

  That I could do that. I won't hesitate to do that, and it's no big risk.

• 1:25:36Lewis Howes?

  Right. Let me buy the domain name. Let me get the Instagram handle. Let me call your lawyer.

• 1:25:40Dan Lok?

  Get a logo going. Let me get a logo going.

• 1:25:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:25:43Dan Lok?

  It's that, it's that.

• 1:25:46Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious.

• 1:25:46Dan Lok?

  Sounds silly. I know it sounds silly. It works, though.

• 1:25:49Lewis Howes?

  It works, yeah. I'm curious, who was the most important figure in your life growing up? And what was the greatest lesson that they taught you?

• 1:25:56Dan Lok?

  My mom. It would be my mom. There's no, no, no, no comparison, no comparison. Just because, uh, my mom, single mom,

• 1:26:06Dan Lok?

  really being here, sacrificed so much, raising a kid, who I was very rebellious, right? And being entrepreneurial, not wanting to go to school, not doing well in school, and say, I'm gonna be entrepreneur. I'm gonna do this. And and my mom is the furthest, like, my personality and my mom is like the opposite. She cannot believe I'm doing what I'm doing. Uh, and she's, cause she's an introvert, uh, very kind, humble, but that that would be the, the, from a personal perspective. You're talking about from a business perspective, uh, like business figure, Jack Ma.

• 1:26:46Dan Lok?

  It would be Jack Ma. One of my dreams, someday I can interview him.

• 1:26:51Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, have you met him?

• 1:26:53Dan Lok?

  No, I have not. I have not. He would be, he would be on top of my list.

• 1:26:59Lewis Howes?

  He's, he seems very inspiring. Some of the videos I've seen of him, he seems a

• 1:27:03Dan Lok?

  Yeah, I have so many.

• 1:27:04Lewis Howes?

  Wise human being.

• 1:27:06Dan Lok?

  Yes.

• 1:27:06Lewis Howes?

  So what was the greatest lesson your mom taught you then?

• 1:27:10Dan Lok?

  My mom, my mom is someone that has no enemies in life. Like she is, like she would go to like buy groceries and she would get, she would be friends with everybody. Everybody, see her name is May, right? English. May, everybody would know her. Everybody likes her and like it's, there's something about that. And she has very life-like, long-term, long-term friends and relationships. I'm like, yeah, that inspires me. Because sometimes in business, we're so focused on, hey, goals and all these, you know, things we're gonna accomplish and make things and build things and we're like, hmm, maybe we don't take the time to, to nurture the, the relationships.

• 1:27:52Dan Lok?

  I'm guilty of that. I'm, I'm guilty of that, just as everybody else, right? And I think that I could do better in that. Like that she would, she would be my role model.

• 1:28:03Lewis Howes?

  And what's your advice for people that wanna make money and wanna build their business? But also have an intimate relationship, whether it's be married or not be married, but be with a partner and thrive in life? What are some of the questions you should ask before getting in an intimate relationship? In order to know if your financial success will happen or not?

• 1:28:29Dan Lok?

  That's why you're the best. You ask the best questions. Seriously, seriously.

• 1:28:35Dan Lok?

  You will only be as successful as your spouse allows you to be.

• 1:28:38Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, tell me more.

• 1:28:41Dan Lok?

  So if you are an entrepreneur, you better have that conversation day one. You better not, not like sugarcoat it. You better not. So one thing I, I, when I met my wife, Jenny, so many years ago, right? We're now together thirteen years, right? Uh, first month when we were dating, I said, Jenny, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm kind of a workaholic. I'm not a typical boyfriend. Like a lot of stuff that you think a boyfriend would do, I just won't do, or I don't have time to do. This is my dream, this is my goal. I I I laid it all out, like in a dinner table. But I said, what's your goal? What are your dreams? And at the time, she told me I wanted to go to Disney, I wanna, I I made a whole list.

• 1:29:24Dan Lok?

  I said, baby, these are all your dreams. I promise you, I'm gonna make all of them come true.

• 1:29:30Dan Lok?

  That's my close. Every single one, I take care of your dad, take care of your family, you're, I I'm gonna do all that for you. Right? But on the same time, knowing a lot of stuff, I'm just, I cannot do. Or I I'm I'm not good with that. Are you okay with that? I'm not a typical boyfriend or husband. Like, uh, and Jenny did a little, uh, just a couple of months ago, uh, at a at a virtual event we did for my students. She was roasting me in a funny way. She's like, yeah, I'm like, not romantic. I forget her birthday, I forget anniversary, I like, it's just like that kind of stuff. But it's better to communicate that upfront, because you cannot have a spouse that is not a hundred percent on board.

• 1:30:13Dan Lok?

  They would destroy, they would destroy your progress, you would self sabotage. Imagine you're doing your thing, hey, I'm growing a business, right? I I'm I'm I'm building something. Well, you don't care, how come you don't spend as much time with me? How come you're on the computer all the time? Or how come?

• 1:30:31Dan Lok?

  It just doesn't work. You know, why, why, why do we need so much? I'm hap- imagine, imagine you have a spouse saying, oh, Louis, it's okay, you already have a lot down, so you don't need to grow, it's okay, I'm happy, I don't need more, don't get more from me. You're like, that's not helping, that's not helping me, honey. This is not helping at all. I like, I'm going through a lot of shit.

• 1:30:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:52Dan Lok?

  Like, don't be telling me that, it doesn't help me, right? So if the spouse is not a hundred percent on board, it's just not gonna work.

• 1:31:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:01Dan Lok?

  This is hard, it's just, this is hard. This is not a nine to five.

• 1:31:04Lewis Howes?

  This is hard, man.

• 1:31:06Dan Lok?

  This is not nine to five of, oh, you know, we get off work Friday, let's have a drink, and Saturday, like, I don't even think about what I do, no.

• 1:31:13Lewis Howes?

  What's, what's a weekend, what's a weekend?

• 1:31:15Dan Lok?

  Yeah, like twenty four seven, man. It's twenty, like, we don't, is it Sunday, is it Monday, I we, who, who cares?

• 1:31:20Lewis Howes?

  I don't know what days are, yeah.

• 1:31:22Dan Lok?

  Who cares? Like, no, no, I know what, the marketplace doesn't care. So the spouse be upfront, tell them better than sugarcoated and then later on they find out their expectations are not the same. And if you, and if you want a lot of money, like I mean, you want to have wealth and your spouse has negative association with money, or they don't like money, or they don't want a lot of money, you got a problem. You will have a big problem. Because this would, I've seen it again and again.

• 1:31:54Lewis Howes?

  What are a couple of questions you should ask the other person? Um, when you're, you know, getting ready for commitment and whether it be together as boyfriend girlfriend or just uh, marriage, what are two or three questions you should ask to make sure you know financially, this is the right.

• 1:32:11Dan Lok?

  I, I don't know what, what is the perfect question is what I asked.

• 1:32:14Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:15Dan Lok?

  It's just what I asked. I said, what's your ideal life?

• 1:32:21Dan Lok?

  What would the ideal life look like?

• 1:32:23Lewis Howes?

  And if her, and if she said, my ideal life is my husband being home half the time and being around and you know, coming back at four o'clock every day, a little early.

• 1:32:33Dan Lok?

  And I want you to disconnect and just spend time with the kids and don't, okay, that's not gonna work.

• 1:32:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:32:38Dan Lok?

  It's not gonna work, right? Um, I also asked, what's your ideal like husband? Like what, what would you expect from a perfect ideal husband, right? All that. And then I also ask her, what's your, we call that your, your, your, your landmine? What's something that I won't go there and I won't touch? And she knows mine and I knows Jenny's and that's why we never go there. Like there's certain things where you will never say that. And she'll tell me, never say that to me. You go there, we're done, like it's, it's gonna be bad. So I never say certain things. Ever. We can be arguing, we could be, we don't, you just never go there. And that's why we don't argue. Cause we know each, we, that's your, that's the minefield, that's my line, we don't touch it.

• 1:33:22Dan Lok?

  We just don't go, like example, like, you know, example, I, I know a friend of mine, his thing is with a spouse, he hates when the spouse walks away. Like it's, woman's like, I don't want to argue, I just, I don't want to talk. His thing is like, when that happens, he just, he, he flips.

• 1:33:38Lewis Howes?

  Explodes, yeah.

• 1:33:39Dan Lok?

  He just explodes. But she just doesn't want to be, she just wants some distance, but he just explodes. So when they communicate, it's like, don't ever do that. And she doesn't do it and they're okay.

• 1:33:50Lewis Howes?

  What's the, what's the thing you appreciate about her the most in your life?

• 1:33:56Dan Lok?

  Being such a supportive wife, because I am, to me, I'm, I'm, I'm not a good husband, as far as I'm concerned, quite frankly. Like, it's just, uh, Valentine's Day.

• 1:34:07Lewis Howes?

  Recently, yeah.

• 1:34:09Dan Lok?

  Nothing.

• 1:34:11Dan Lok?

  No flowers, nothing. I don't, it's, we were driving, it's like, oh, I see flowers, what's it, oh, is it, oh, February twenty fourth, oh, Happy Valentine's Day.

• 1:34:23Dan Lok?

  Oh, happy, okay. Like, she doesn't get mad, she's like, like, that to me, it's, I really appreciate it. I'm, I'm just not good with those things. It's not, but our relationship is great because she understands, like, I will show my love and care in a different way. In a different way, not the, because my mind is occupied so much with other things. That I'm, it just, I don't spend time with, with, I don't spend time thinking about those things. But I, that's, I think, one thing I, and we actually, we're working a business together. So we're twenty-four seven together all the time, like, ten, so we see each other, we live together, we work together twenty-four seven for like, I don't know, how many years now, right? And we don't, we're good, like, we don't get tired of each other.

• 1:35:07Lewis Howes?

  That's good.

• 1:35:08Dan Lok?

  You know, so, so that's, I'm great.

• 1:35:10Lewis Howes?

  You're, you're, you're both aligned, you're both aligned with the expectations.

• 1:35:12Dan Lok?

  Yeah, yeah, like, I don't need to, oh, I need to get away from, from my spouse, I need to get away from, like, I, I, we don't have that.

• 1:35:20Lewis Howes?

  And when, and when do you feel the most loved in your life?

• 1:35:25Dan Lok?

  When.

• 1:35:28Dan Lok?

  Because you know the five love language, you know, the, the, the, what's it, affirmations.

• 1:35:33Lewis Howes?

  Gifts, yeah, service.

• 1:35:35Dan Lok?

  So, so service, mine is service. Mine is, mine is service, active service. So that, that's when I feel most loved. So when she's supportive, when she's helping me and, and that, and then I, I feel your love.

• 1:35:48Lewis Howes?

  In the last year through, it's really been a year now since the pandemic started, um. When was your heart the biggest? When did you feel the most warmth, the most love, the most intensity of like, your heart expanding the most?

• 1:36:06Dan Lok?

  When, it would be when I made a decision to.

• 1:36:12Dan Lok?

  Let go some of the people on the team.

• 1:36:15Dan Lok?

  And the existing team members was very supportive. Because I thought it would disrupt the company a lot. Think about like the morale, the spirit, what that is like. And then we're talking.

• 1:36:32Dan Lok?

  Maybe forty percent of people.

• 1:36:34Lewis Howes?

  Well, you let them go.

• 1:36:35Dan Lok?

  Yeah, it's a big cut, right? And to be able to do that. And then finding the team actually more united. Better connection, happier. And just like, yeah, that's just, that warms me up. Like, it's incredible. Because, because, because with what we do, we spend, I spend more time with my team than with my family. Because in business all the time, so, so we're very close. And to be able to, to see that and they.

• 1:37:13Dan Lok?

  Because they could easily be, oh, yeah, you know, now I'm just, I'm now de-motivated, I'm this. And like, they could go very wrong, right? But not one person, I mean, like, not one person did that. That was, that was, that was just incredible. That motivates me even more and say, okay.

• 1:37:30Dan Lok?

  We gotta grow. Because I could grow, so I could be able to reward them even better.

• 1:37:38Lewis Howes?

  And what's one thing that you're proud of that most people don't know about you? Maybe it's not public information, or it's not talked about that much.

• 1:37:46Dan Lok?

  One thing I'm most proud of. I'm trying to think.

• 1:37:52Lewis Howes?

  It's not in your bio, it's not in your about me page, it's a.

• 1:37:57Dan Lok?

  I think some people know this, but the proudest moment would be. Now, I share with you, at seventeen, my mom and dad got divorced, right? So then, seventeen, sixteen, and then my dad went bankrupt at seventeen. So he stopped sending us money at seventeen years old, when I was seventeen. My mom was never worked again in her life, so. Like, we were living off of whatever little savings that we had. And that's how I got into business, because I wanted to make money, right? And I had a lot of resentment towards my dad at that time. Actually, I didn't talk to him for a few years. For a few, I didn't even talk to him. He would send me faxes. Fax machine, and I'll never reply. Because I was, I was pissed off, basically.

• 1:38:42Dan Lok?

  Why did you, why, why you divorced my mom and you don't send us money? What's wrong with you, right? Right, like, at, at that time, I didn't know what he was going through. Now I know, but at the time, I was very, I was, I was seventeen years old. Sure. Teenager, right? And afterwards, I talked to my dad again, and, and many years later. And I was making more money. So there was this, we're talking many, many years later. Now, I'm like, way ten years later, more than that.

• 1:39:09Dan Lok?

  And I know my dad was struggling financially. So I was in Hong Kong. I remember I talked to him. So now, we okay, like, we, we, we, he saw me, he was like, hugging me, kissing me. And by the way, my dad never kissed and hugged anybody, like, he's kind of a Asian father, like. Sure. Yeah, like, but he was hugging me, kissing me, crying, I'm like, what the hell is going on, right? So. Was that the first time you've seen him in a long time, or? Many, many years. His hair is like, great, like, he's like, many, many years. And I took him to, in Hong Kong, we were walking, right? And I said, hey, dad, I said, dad, I mean, you see that window there? Yeah, yeah, so I said, I see that window there. I said, you see that, that, that, right, that, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay? And I, I pulled out, set of keys from my, from my pocket.

• 1:39:53Dan Lok?

  I said, dad, that's your unit.

• 1:39:58Dan Lok?

  Wow. Put on his, I put on his hands. And I never forget the look.

• 1:40:07Dan Lok?

  He first, first, he was shocked, but he was.

• 1:40:11Dan Lok?

  Like just speechless.

• 1:40:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:40:12Dan Lok?

  Cause think about that, he wasn't supporting me. You know, he made some mistakes. And now going back and now it's like. To him, I'm guessing, but it's like. Don't worry, your son is fine. I take care of mom, I take care of you. And then my dad, all he did, I still remember, he was right here, he put his hand on my shoulders, right? His shoulder, it's like this. He said, looking, he says, look at me, he said. He said, let's get lunch.

• 1:40:43Dan Lok?

  That's all I need is here. And there was, and a few years later, then unfortunately he passed away. But that, that was a very special moment that we had, I never forget that. That was the proudest thing, more than anything I've ever done. And it doesn't matter all the, none of that. That. That was.

• 1:41:00Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful, that's beautiful, it gave me chills just hearing that, that's beautiful, man.

• 1:41:06Lewis Howes?

  What's the? One thing or one question you wish more people would ask you that they don't ask you?

• 1:41:24Dan Lok?

  It's not so much a question, I'm trying to think. Yes.

• 1:41:30Dan Lok?

  I, I would wish. More people. Would.

• 1:41:39Dan Lok?

  Get to know. Not get to know me more. Is.

• 1:41:49Dan Lok?

  How should I describe that? It's, it's, it's, it makes me reflect, that's why I'm taking the time.

• 1:41:53Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, well.

• 1:41:53Dan Lok?

  It, it, it's, it's the.

• 1:41:59Dan Lok?

  I wish people would see beyond. And, and actually get to know me more. Right, doesn't matter if the content, doesn't matter what it is, it's.

• 1:42:11Dan Lok?

  I think, I don't know what is a question, but it's, I wish more people would know that.

• 1:42:14Lewis Howes?

  What do you wish people would get to know more about you? Beyond what they see online?

• 1:42:25Dan Lok?

  That I'm a teacher at heart.

• 1:42:29Dan Lok?

  That I'm a teacher at heart, that that's my my passion, my passion. And we talked about this is accomplishment, but I think at the end of the day, I'm a teacher at heart. That's that's my my passion. And that's what I want to do. That's my purpose, right? Doesn't matter how big my company gets, I still want to allocate part of my time teaching.

• 1:42:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:46Dan Lok?

  That's that that would be it. And if they would be, if they are, they need help and they're willing to learn and they.

• 1:42:55Dan Lok?

  I I just, I wish they could see that they could. Doesn't matter if closing and skills doesn't matter, but there's something, because I could see what I've done for so many. There's something that I saw, maybe something I could do, I don't see a lot of people could do. That's a little bit different. That's a little bit different. Um, a lot of my students, they call me Sifu because Sifu is a like Sensei in in Japanese martial art. Sifu is like the mentor in martial art term, right, in Asian martial art. So they all call me Sifu. So it's like mentor. And and I take that word very seriously. So I wish more people could see that.

• 1:43:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's cool. Well, I'm learning a lot from you, man. I appreciate you sharing and I've got a lot to, I've got a lot to learn from you for many, many years. So I'll be. I'll be learning whatever you share.

• 1:43:40Dan Lok?

  It's it's mentor learning from mentor.

• 1:43:42Lewis Howes?

  Of course, man. Yeah. And hopefully we can hang more soon in person and and can pick your brain more. Just a cou- a couple of questions left for you. Uh, before I ask, before I ask them, I want to make sure people check you out on social media. I mean, you're everywhere. Millions and millions of followers, Dan Locke, uh, or Dan Locke official on different platforms, uh, YouTube, millions of followers, Instagram, Facebook, all that. So I want people to follow you. You also have a, uh, a, what is it? The smart challenge dot com. Create your personalized roadmap to an unbreakable business in five days or less. I'm assuming it's a, a free challenge that people can go through, uh, for five days.

• 1:44:20Dan Lok?

  So so the smart challenge, uh, we do this live, uh, two to, we just finished one. We do this two, maybe two to three times a year, which is a five day. Uh, I take them through everything that kind of what I am doing to be more recession proof and pandemic proof. Right? Because it's one thing to be recession proof. It's a whole other thing to be pandemic proof. So I walk through the business model, how I do social media. Basically is this, in the five days I teach, how do you use social media? Combine it with a scalable business model and how do you scale with a remote team? That's what the five days is about, right?

• 1:44:59Lewis Howes?

  I love it.

• 1:44:59Dan Lok?

  And it's like, I think it's forty, fifty bucks for the five, for the challenge. So not free challenge, but fifty bucks to get it live. And every single time we do it, we get huge, huge response.

• 1:45:10Lewis Howes?

  Awesome.

• 1:45:11Dan Lok?

  Just, just love it.

• 1:45:12Lewis Howes?

  There you go. Thesmartchallenge.com for that, to help you for your business in the future. And now in recession or pandemic or anytime, to really just become more bulletproof really as a, as a business.

• 1:45:25Lewis Howes?

  And how else can we support you before I ask the final two questions?

• 1:45:29Dan Lok?

  I would say is if there's anyone listening to this, if they're entrepreneurs, if they're in the tech space, if they're, they need a, they need, they're looking for capital and looking for partners. That's what we're growing, that's the space that we, so if they're software founders, if they feel that there's some synergy, just contact us. I'd love to hear from them.

• 1:45:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And do you know Dan Martel?

• 1:45:50Dan Lok?

  Yes.

• 1:45:51Lewis Howes?

  Should, you know, he's, he's in the SaaS world. I'm not sure if that's part of the tech SaaS world you're looking at or more.

• 1:45:57Dan Lok?

  It is, it is, it is. Dan actually coaches me on two of my SaaS.

• 1:46:03Lewis Howes?

  Oh, there you go. He's a smart guy, so.

• 1:46:05Dan Lok?

  Yes.

• 1:46:05Lewis Howes?

  Uh, but if you're in the tech world, uh, reach out to you. So I'll have people do that for sure. Okay, this is a question I ask everyone at the end. It's called the three truths. So I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical situation that it's your last day on earth, many, many years away. You get to live as long as you want, but eventually you gotta turn the lights off, Dan. And you have created and accomplished everything. Business, relationships, life, everything you've ever want to put out and make its happened. But for whatever reason, hypothetically, you've got to take it all with you to the next place. You've got to take this interview, your books, your content, your courses, the businesses that go with you. So no one has access to this information anymore or any of your written word or audio or video.

• 1:46:49Lewis Howes?

  But you get a piece of paper and a pen, you get to write down on the last day of the three biggest lessons that you would share with the world, or what I like to call three truths. What would you say would be those if you could only share three things?

• 1:47:03Dan Lok?

  Wow, that's a, that's a deep one. Wow. It makes me reflect my whole life, my mind, it's like spinning.

• 1:47:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:09Dan Lok?

  Wow, that's a good question. That's, I, I gotta learn from that. That's such a good question as an interviewer. Holy shit.

• 1:47:18Dan Lok?

  So I can only write down a piece of favor to communicate to the next

• 1:47:22Lewis Howes?

  To the world, this is all they would have left to remember reminded by you as your your teacher at heart. So what would you share with the world? These three truths, three lessons? And this is it. They don't get anything else.

• 1:47:38Dan Lok?

  Okay, so the the first one would be

• 1:47:43Dan Lok?

  the first one would be

• 1:47:53Dan Lok?

  you are not your business.

• 1:47:57Dan Lok?

  I would say you are not your business.

• 1:48:00Dan Lok?

  Okay, that's the first one.

• 1:48:03Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean?

• 1:48:05Dan Lok?

  Meaning that business is is an entity that gets you from point A to point B, that it shouldn't be too attached to it. That you you you build it, you leverage it, you you you work within it, but it's not you. You're not your business.

• 1:48:22Lewis Howes?

  Okay, that's number one. Number two?

• 1:48:33Dan Lok?

  Seek fulfillment, not accomplishment.

• 1:48:37Dan Lok?

  Because that would be the biggest mistake that I made. Early, probably in the first thirty years, like when I hit thirty years old. Seek fulfillment, not not achievement.

• 1:48:50Lewis Howes?

  The third?

• 1:48:51Dan Lok?

  The third would be

• 1:48:54Dan Lok?

  act as if there's no limit to your abilities.

• 1:48:59Dan Lok?

  Act as if there's no limit to your abilities.

• 1:49:03Dan Lok?

  That's what I could come up with today, but maybe when I'm ten years older, it's something different, but my current state of mind.

• 1:49:09Lewis Howes?

  Of course, of course. Those are powerful, man. I appreciate that. Well, Dan, I want to acknowledge you for a moment because it's been fun to watch your journey over the years, continue to evolve and transition in your identity and reinvent and serve people. Obviously, you're a business, a successful business leader, but you're in service Of helping others in your business, which I think is the greatest business to have is when you're helping people, teaching people, giving them tools, skills to improve the quality of their life. And I want to acknowledge you for being a Renaissance man. I love meeting people that are interested in other things than just the main thing. You're interested in martial arts, you're interested in

• 1:49:48Lewis Howes?

  in other areas of life and I appreciate the qualities of learning different disciplines and acknowledge you for being a master than more than one thing and focusing than more than just business and money. And and also for your your your joy. I think um when we think of business leaders at times, we can think of these joyless, driven to succeed, money hungry types. Yeah, yeah. Corporate leaders with no soul. But you know, we've connected a few times in person and obviously online and you you bring joy. And you know, even with the suit buttoned up and clean and sharp looking, you can still bring the joy and the humor and the

• 1:50:29Lewis Howes?

  the inner child out, which I really appreciate and acknowledge. So I want to share that with you and acknowledge you. And my

• 1:50:36Dan Lok?

  Can I just say that Louis, I also want to say that you you are an inspiration to me. You may or may not know. But even so many years ago, I listened to your podcast, like you inspire me and it's vice versa, the respect, seeing you grow, seeing, I I think I would resonate and understand you more because I could see the what you've gone through, the brand and and the identity and everything that you've gone through. So it's this is not because I'm on your show, I'm just saying, I just want to acknowledge that, like, to be able to do that from and how many athletes want to transition to entrepreneurs and do it well, very few.

• 1:51:13Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it, man. Thank you.

• 1:51:14Dan Lok?

  So so I just want to say.

• 1:51:16Lewis Howes?

  I appreciate it, man.

• 1:51:18Dan Lok?

  Brings the greatness within me as well. So you inspire me.

• 1:51:20Lewis Howes?

  Of course, man. Well, I'm excited to do more stuff together and continue building the friendship, man. I'm appreciative. Um, final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:51:34Dan Lok?

  To become more than you thought you could be.

• 1:51:41Lewis Howes?

  There it is, Dan Locke, my man. Thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it, brother. Love you too, man. My friend, thank you so much for being here, for listening to this episode, for gaining value. I hope you enjoyed this. I hope it was powerful for you and your life right now. Is there one thing that you found interesting that you could apply, that you could use to improve the quality of your life? If so, start taking action on that right now and post a review over on Apple Podcast. Let me know what part of this episode was the most valuable for you. Post a rating and review on Apple Podcast and click the subscribe button right now to stay up to date for the latest and greatest on the School of Greatness with some of the world's most fascinating human beings to help you unlock your inner greatness. As well, if you want to get on my secret texting list, my community of people that are getting

• 1:52:26Lewis Howes?

  updates, weekly inspirational messages, motivation and behind the scenes content, then text the word PODCAST right now to 614-350-3960 to get on my community texting list. And I want to leave you with this quote from Ellen DeGeneres who says, "I say always follow your passion no matter what, because even if it's not the same financial success, it'll lead you to the money that'll make you the happiest." Phew, it's always fun when you can make money doing something you love. Typically, when you love something and have passion and enthusiasm for it, you find ways to add more value to that thing and ultimately you'll end up making more money down the road. I want to remind you today, if no one's told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy,

• 1:53:09Lewis Howes?

  and you matter. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.