#45: Transform Your Body, Transform Your Life with Dan Go

[00:00:00] Dan: When you do transform your body, you can actually transform your business and your life and your relationships. And in the course of actually doing that, when you feel more confident, when you feel more energetic, when you feel more yourself, then that is going to relate to your team, that's going to relate to your family, that's going to relate to your kids. 

[00:00:17] It's a net positive. So I don't look at it as something like, oh, you get in shape, then all these negative things happen. It's like, no, you get in shape, and all these positive things happen to you. And I want you to realize, like I did, when you transform your body, you can literally transform your life. 

[00:00:30] Josh: All right, Dan, thank you so much for joining me on Mind Meld, man. I'm so excited to have you here.

[00:00:39] Dan: I'm excited too, man. Uh, we just, we had a conversation earlier, uh, before, and, and yeah, I'm actually pretty excited. It was good to kind of like, just you know, trade to trade thoughts with each other, you know, right before the podcast. So that was pretty cool.

[00:00:52] Josh: Totally, man. That's awesome. And that's exactly what this podcast can be about. We're going to be mind melding, man. We'll be trading thoughts over the internet, although we're in the same city. So we're just opposite ends of the city in Toronto. So it's kind of cool that we're actually in the same city for once. 

[00:01:05] But Yeah, man, I'm super excited for this conversation. Like I think from our previous conversation, it seems like this is going to be a chat around fitness, that's obviously your forte, shit that you're going to be able to send off to everyone listening here. Are some actual advice, um, business of course, cause you've been running your own business for a bunch of years. 

[00:01:23] So I'm sure you have a lot that you've learned that you can kind of share with myself and everyone. And then I was hoping we can end it off by just geeking out about Twitter. We're talking about that before, like our mutual love of Twitter. 

[00:01:33] But I'd also love for you to share your story, so people listening can kind of get a better sense of like who you are, what you do. So maybe we can actually start with that before we get into Twitter. 

[00:01:41] Dan: For sure. Absolutely. So, um, my past was one of just laziness and, uh, I, I was one of four kids in one of four immigrant kids and we came to Canada when I was like in grade one. And, uh, out of all, all four of our kids, uh, my parents, I don't know why they did this, but they specifically told me we're Al everybody we're worried about Shu, you know?

[00:02:07] So they literally said, we're worried about you. Uh, we don't know what's going to happen with you. And, and I took that as like, well, sheep. Jeez, thanks guys. You know, I appreciate that. But for good reason, you know, I was, um, I was really just not that great at school or actually not interested in school. I was a high school dropout.

[00:02:26] Uh, I used to be an athlete, but then I was just kind of like stuck with the wrong crowd. I was, uh, I was actually, uh, hanging out with people who would just like party drink all the time. And my life was really just directional sin. And during this whole time, I was just getting fatter and fatter to the point where I would just be so embarrassed by my body.

[00:02:45] I would actually be the guy that would wear his t-shirts to the pool inside of the pool at the beach inside of the beach, because I was supremely embarrassed of my body and how it looked. And, um, it came to a point where I have, uh, almost like to have almost two stories. It's like the story of how I got in shape and the story of how I chose to become a personal trainer.

[00:03:06] So the story of how I got in shape is really simple. Um, I broke up with a girl and I was really hurt. I thought that she was going to be, you know, the one and all this kind of stuff. And everyone on Twitter is like, that gets so simple and right now got it. And that's happened, but I was really hurt by that.

[00:03:23] And I use that as almost like motivation and fuel to change my body. I remember. Getting to a point where I was at almost like rock bottom and I was just tore away my shirt. And I was like, I'm never going to look like this ever again for the rest of my life. And I'm going to do whatever's in my possible.

[00:03:40] I'm never going to give up. And I'm just going to try everything possible to get myself into shape. So that was kind of like my first full rate into, uh, into working out and to taking care of my body and something I learned through that whole process was, uh, the reason I chose that was because I wanted to control the only thing that I had control over, which was like myself and the choices I had with my body.

[00:04:02] So I got myself into shape. And then, uh, afterwards, or during that time, I was actually working in a corporate in the corporate world. I was doing a nine to five and to my parents, like they are. Thank God, this guy's going to make it. He has a job he's working in a nine to five. This is all we could ever ask for him.

[00:04:21] And then, and there was something that was digging at me when I was working at that nine to five. And the thing that was digging at me was just the fact that I was not passionate about it. I actually felt horrible doing the job because not only was like my, not only it was like my freedom almost almost condensed into this like nine to five, you know, work hour.

[00:04:42] But also I just felt horrible. I was actually doing something that I felt was actually was, uh, was more of a negative thing towards the clients than a positive thing. So as something like this, Things like these high interest loans to people who actually needed them. So it'd be like 25, 30%, 35%, uh, loans.

[00:05:00] They would actually put us on these calls and try to sell these people. And actually it was, uh, it was a very big American bank, which I'm not going to, uh, which I'm not going to say which bank it was, but it was a very huge American bank. That was a, that was employed by, and every single day that I came back from the job, I was like, I can't tell people what I do.

[00:05:17] I am embarrassed by what I do. And it was, it came to a point where I'm like, I'm just doing this because I'm, I'm making the most money I've ever made in my entire. And I don't want to make my life about just making money. I want to do something that I believe in something that I'm passionate about, something that I could read about and not be disinterested in, you know, like I actually look at, um, you know, whatever you're going into, it's like, you should be able to read it for the next five to 10 years, you know, and be really interested in it.

[00:05:45] That's kind of like the, that's kind of like the open less kind of like the door to, to really be passionate about what you do. So I ended up making a huge decision and I quit my nine to five job and I told everybody about it. And I said to everybody, I'm going to do what I'm passionate about, which is become a personal trainer.

[00:06:04] And then everyone, everyone, my family, my friends, everyone was like, fuck, are you doing man? Yo, cause this is like, this is like 18 years ago. So like personal training was, it's not like how fitness is right now. There wasn't Instagram. There was no Facebook. There was no social media at all. So everyone thought of like personal training as, as like the side business.

[00:06:25] Right. And every one, every one told me, I remember I had, uh, one of my friends just come to me as like, Hey, come on, man. Like, why do you want to do this? Would you want to move boxes for like a hundred K? I was like, fuck. Yeah, of course. I want to move boxes for a hundred gate. He was like, well, go do that.

[00:06:42] Why are you doing personal training? And not just like, ah, like it just doesn't, you know, it just doesn't fit me. It just doesn't feel right. I left that job. I became a personal trainer. Everyone told me that I was going to fail. It's going to go back to what I was doing before. I was basically reliving my, my high school dropout days.

[00:07:00] And I used everything that they said as, as fuel. And I was just like, you know what, I'm going to give myself two years. I'm going to figure this out. If I don't figure this out, I could always drop back into something and whatever, but I'm going to give myself two years, I'm going to do whatever's in my power to become successful at this.

[00:07:15] And then that was the start of, uh, me getting into the fitness field and knee opening up a business and doing all that kind of stuff. So, so yeah. Yeah. That's, that's where I came from, essentially. Yeah.

[00:07:26] Josh: Man, what a story, honestly, what a journey. And that's something like, it's a common thread that you see between like high-performance people and entrepreneurs. Right. And for me, what I always like to understand is like, you kind of had like these two, like awakening moments, right? 

[00:07:40] You had the one with like your personal journey with like your own fitness and your own body and your health. Then you had another one with like your work and your purpose. So I kind of want to dig into that. 

[00:07:49] I just want to like understand like from you, do you, do you know, like where that came from, do you know what that awakening moment was for you or what might've triggered that? 

[00:07:57] Dan: I'm going to say in the very beginning, it was like with my body, especially, it was a large amount of shame, a massive amount of shame. Um, I just, I just felt like I was not confident in the way that I looked. I felt like it was hampering me to a very large degree. And, uh, and also just the actions I was taking to look the way that I looked before were horrible.

[00:08:20] I was eating a bag of chips to myself, playing video games. I was, uh, going out drinking and partying with my friends and everything that I did was just making me feel more sad, more depressed, more un-confident and to, and I would be the guy that would just complain about every single fucking circumstance in his life and blame everything on everyone.

[00:08:38] And. And then I do think that, you know, the way that you treat your body and the way that you take responsibility for your body, it does lead to, uh, either taking the ownership or blaming other people. So that was like the first one. The second one was, I'm going to say it again. A lot of shame, man. Like I just did.

[00:08:54] I just hated what I was doing. I just did not like what I was doing. And I was so sick of it. I was so sick of, uh, trading my hours for, for my contribution and. And I'm going to say, a lot of people are like, don't use shame or, you know, shame is not a great, you know, power to change, not a great thing to use or whatever it is.

[00:09:15] But honestly, when you're at the bottom, when you're at rock bottom, you use, whatever's like in your power to, to get yourself out of it. So shame was like one of the first ones was one of the first feelings that kind of took me out of those things and just a huge amount of dissatisfaction with my wife.

[00:09:31] And I would say like the next one, after that, especially when it came to going into personal training, going into fitness and really putting myself into there was love was passion. Um, I loved what I did and I still love what I do. And the, you will never, it doesn't matter if it's like 18 years ago or even.

[00:09:51] I never get over the fact that people lose weight with me, they change their lives to get more confident. They get more energy, they feel better about themselves. And that's me as one of the best feelings in the world. And I love that feeling. So I'm always chasing that particular feeling right there.

[00:10:08] Josh: Man. That is so awesome. So like, it's like you're giving people exactly what you gave yourself in those early days where like, I want you to be able to have that as well. 

[00:10:17] And so now you're working specifically with founders, like entrepreneurs and business owners. Was that the case at the beginning when you first started your personal training journey or like, were you working with like, just like everyone or what was that like at the time. 

[00:10:29] Dan: How's this working with gen pop general population, people, just regular people. And, uh, I owned a gym for about, I think it was like about 10 and a half years until I sold it. And, and during that course of time, when I, when I own that. I kind of, I kinda took that as my experience. You know, I looked at it as like, I can just like test stuff in here.

[00:10:51] I can see exactly what's up. So I didn't necessarily like niche myself to entrepreneurs or founders, you know, in that sense, it was only after I sold that gym where I asked myself, okay, well, I I'm not done yet. You know, I still have a lot to get to this world. 

[00:11:06] So if there was one person that I would love to help, who would it be? And it was always entrepreneurs, it was always founders. And the reason being is because, you know, during the course of me building that gym, uh, what happened was, is that I entered a law masterminds. I made a lot of friends and almost like 99% of my friends were entrepreneurs at that time. So every single time I go to like this mastermind and I see an entrepreneur, who's just crushing it in business, but is like 40 pounds overweight.

[00:11:34] I'm like, dude, what are you doing, man? Like, No, because I always see that if you can build an incredible business building, an incredible body is almost, is almost easy. It's way easier than that. You know, like I actually, I'm actually looking at it as like simpler, but then when people don't necessarily have the body to kind of, I guess you could say match up to their success.

[00:11:58] I don't like seeing my friends get out of shape. So I said to myself, you know, what if there's one person that I want to serve, it's going to be entrepreneurs. And here's the reason why number one, I love him. Oh my God. Like, I love talking to guys like you, your brother, who we just realized that we both know.

[00:12:14] Um, I love talking with any entrepreneur out there. Who's just trying to crush it. I love it. And this is where I get like a lot of my rocks off. I get excited. So I want to work with people who I want to work with. So that's the reason why I chose entrepreneurs. And, and secondly, I just said, Hey, entrepreneurs are my friends.

[00:12:31] I hate seeing my friends get out of. So I will do whatever's in my power to make sure that they get into the best bodies that they can be and understand that, you know, when you do transform your body, you can actually transform your business and your life and your relationships. And in the, in the course of actually doing that, when you feel more confident, when you feel more energetic, when you feel more yourself, then that is going to relate to your team, that's going to relate to your family. That's going to relate to your kids. 

[00:12:59] It's It's, it's, it's a net positive. So I don't look at it as something like, oh, you get in shape, then you have to, you know, then all these negative things happen. It's like, no, you get in shape, and all these positive things happen to you. And I want you to realize, like I did, when you transform your body, you can literally transform your life.

[00:13:14] Josh: Absolutely, man. I know for me, like, it's been like a slow grind for me. Like, I was never like the athletic type, but for me it was a time I think when I was in like at university, at Ryerson in Toronto, I was like, you know what? Like, I just had this like snap realization. I think like you did this.

[00:13:30] It's like a one thing it's like, it's like nothing's ever the same after I just like, had this idea of like, Hey, look, I'm an artist at heart. I was able to create art on paper, on canvas, digitally 3d, all this stuff. I'm like, what's the difference between that? And like my body, I can sculpt my body. Like I could like, like, uh, like, uh, like anything just like anything you're literally sculpting it.

[00:13:51] So for me, it was like, I was never out of shape by any means, but I wasn't super athletic, but as soon as I start, I made that decision. I started going on this path of myself of like, just like. Bringing it as part of my identity, I guess, like, I am like an athlete, not by no means a professional athlete, but I know that, you know, I'm going to be working out three to five times a week and I just make it part of my identity. I just started feeling so much better. 

[00:14:14] So this is kind of where I want to get into here. It's just like, it's not even about looking good, but it's about feeling good and that energy that just, that you start building up from the core. 

[00:14:22] So I just want to know from you, like, like how have you been able to bring that to people? How have you been able to spark that? Give them that spark. Cause not everyone actually wants to do it internally. Right? How do you like help them out there? 

[00:14:36] Dan: Well, number one is, uh, I don't bring him there, uh, at all. Uh, they come to me and they're like, I'm ready to make a decision. It's like, you, you made a decision, right? I'm never going to do this anymore. I'm never going to stand for this enough is enough. I'm going to treat myself like a treat my art and I am going to treat my body as if it is something that is worth, you know, working on.

[00:14:59] So it comes from late. Literally when people come to me, there should not be any motivation. The should not be like, uh, anything other than the fact that I'm making a decision to take control of my body right now. So when they started working with me, the funny thing is, is that we try to make things as simple as humanly possible for the entrepreneurs.

[00:15:22] So a lot of times, you know, when you ask entrepreneurs, how are they getting a shape and all this kind of stuff, they're going to be like, I'm doing blood work and I'm, and I'm doing like, you know, I'm mashing my diet to the, to my blood side band. I'm doing this complicated diet. And then I'm doing this complicated workout inside the gym.

[00:15:36] And the thing is, is that smart people like to over-complicate things for himself so much. So what we do is we simplified a process and our processes. I'm not going to say it's simple because there is like a ton of nuance to it. But what we do is we just say, Hey, okay, well, let's look at your lifestyle.

[00:15:55] Right. Let's look at exactly what you're doing right now. Let's look at what's working. What is exactly working on the fitness center for you that we can, that we can use, that we can actually take advantage of what exactly is missing. Right. 

[00:16:06] And I take it through almost like these four pillars that I feel like every single person, whether an entrepreneur or not an entrepreneur should actually treat their bodies. And it's a very simple four step process. 

[00:16:20] So the very first process is going to be assessing. We want to make sure that we have a measure that we're measuring some sort of value on the regular. So if we're asking an entrepreneur, how often do you, uh, how often do you track your sales? There'll be like every single day.

[00:16:36] Uh, how often do you track? For some people, it could be like, uh, opt-in rates, or it can be like a lead generation, whatever it is. They have a measure that they're tracking on a regular basis, but when it comes to their bodies, you ask them, okay, when's the last time that you waited. I didn't want to touch the scale.

[00:16:52] I don't want to say, I don't even know. I don't want to see what the scale is going to say. You know, when I step on it. Right. And that's a very big mistake because as we know, like, you know, Peter, Drucker's like, Hey, what you measure, you manage. And if you're not measuring anything, if you're not assessing where you are, then you're basically guessing.

[00:17:08] And you're throwing things at the kitchen sink without even knowing if it's making a difference. So you've got to have something to assess. We assess very simple things. One like weight measurements, pictures. And also if you want to get granular and very detailed, we go with DEXA scans, which are the gold standard for body fat and, uh, for measuring by fat and muscle gain.

[00:17:27] So the next step is going to be using the diet to burn the fat that they have on their bodies. So a lot of people try to use the workouts to burn, to burn fat on advisory, tried to circus to try to do cardio. And this is like taking a teaspoon and trying to empty out the ocean. Right. And, and a lot of people will be like, these studies say this, and these studies say that like, literally there have been meta analysis done on if actual, if exercise actually burns the amount of calories that you think.

[00:17:55] And no, it doesn't. It actually is very minuscule in terms of how many calories you're burning. So we use the diet to burn fat and we actually try to tie their diet as much as possible to their lifestyles. Now, if their lifestyle is all about drinking alcohol every single day, uh, drinking multiple drinks and like all this kind of stuff, I say, there's gotta be some compromise here.

[00:18:15] We gotta be like normal functioning human beings. Okay. Like, no, we can't necessarily eat a bag of potato chips and think we're gonna get away with it every single day. So we make some compromise, but we do tie as much of their lifestyle to their diet. 

[00:18:29] And the next one would be building muscle inside with a workout and building muscle.

[00:18:35] It actually helps you burn fat in the very roundabout way. So when you build muscle, you actually add points to your metabolism. So what we do is like muscle to me is like compounding interest. And a lot of people are like, I don't want to look like a bodybuilder and whatever, and I'm just. Dude, trust me.

[00:18:51] You won't all right. Yeah. You won't look like a bodybuilding. Trust me on this one. People don't like actually, when people say that they don't realize the amount of dedication, the amount of drugs, it takes that to get someone. So to look like someone that's on stage, but I digress. So we seek to build muscle, especially in their weakness areas inside of the gym.

[00:19:11] And we do this with what I call like the lazy man's workout, uh, the lazy man's effect, workout to building effective muscle. All right. And it's quite simple. Basically. You try to get as strong as possible in the gym and, and you do it in a way. That's going to make sure that you have great form while you're.

[00:19:29] And you simply just try to progress every single time that you hit the gym. You're taking long breaks. You know, I tweet in between my sets and whatnot, and that's why I call it the lazy man's workout because basically you work, you rest, you work, you rest. And during that rest, you can do anything you want.

[00:19:43] You don't have to do jumping jacks or anything like that. You can literally rest because that's what your muscles need in order to build more strength and build more muscle. And the last part that we take them through is going to be what's called sustainability, right? Because everyone and their mama has actually no problem losing weight. 

[00:20:00] Everyone has lost weight. Everyone has lost 10 pounds. Like a lot of people have lost 20 pounds, but how many people have actually kept it off for their entire life? Right. A very small percentage. And they're actually say it's like 3%. I say it's like anywhere between like three to 10% of people who actually lose weight are able to keep it off because they never think about, they always think about how to lose weight and never think about how exactly am I going to keep this off for the rest of my life.

[00:20:27] Right. They're very outcome dependent, but it's kind of like, what's the point of making a million dollars. If you're just going to spend a million dollars the next year, you know, in the same year, you basically are left with nothing and all the, all the effort that you use to like make a million dollars.

[00:20:40] Well, guess what? Like you have to expend that effort again, you know, and you haven't even learned how to save, right. Or you haven't even learned how to like keep your money. So sustainability is huge and sustainability is very different than when you're trying to lose weight. That's something that I want to point out to a lot of people, it's just that the things that you're going to do to lose weight are not the same things as you're going to do to sustain the weight off. And that's what not a lot of people understand. 

[00:21:02] So, so yeah, I mean that whole process is actually called "Abs", ABBS. And it's a very simple four step process that people just took their body transformation or whatever goals that they had through that process. They would actually not only be able to lose the weight, they would actually be able to sustain it out because you're focusing on everything that matters.

[00:21:21] Josh: Wow. Okay, dude. That's awesome. So I love how you've simplified it and like the four steps, so easy to remember, right? Abs like what are you trying to do throughout this process? I want, I want abs, so this is awesome. I love how you've done it. So I do have questions on each of these kind of sections in each of these steps.

[00:21:36] But before we get into that, I actually want to know, like, how did you come up with this? Like, how did you actually make this so simplified? Cause it seems like you've distilled like such a fast amount of like knowledge from a bunch of different areas and put it into an easy to understand, easy to follow system. And obviously you've been doing this for like decades now. Right. So I want to know how you've kind of distilled that. 

[00:21:56] Dan: A lot of mistakes, man. So many mistakes. I've made so many mistakes as a coach. Many, and I, maybe I shouldn't be admitting this, but like all of these were born because of my own ignorance. So like when, uh, intermittent fasting came out, I put everyone on intermittent fasting plans. When Kito came out, I made everyone cut their carbs.

[00:22:16] And then what I realized about kind of doing this to clients is the fact that number one, you're not necessarily doing something that can be sustainable for their entire lives. We've literally tried everything man, in the 18 years that we've been in business. We literally tried every. And what we found is that the long way is the shortest path, right?

[00:22:37] The long way is actually the shortest paths to their goals. So we found that when people try to lose, like, let's just say 20 pounds in like six weeks, guess what it's going to come back and it's going to come back faster and harder than it did before, because they don't understand the body's defensive mechanisms and processes that actually protect them from losing that weight in the first place.

[00:22:57] So if you lose 20 pounds, your body subconsciously is going to actually try to bring you back by upleveling, cravings, upleveling, appetite, and people don't realize this when they're dieting, when they're trying to lose as much weight as they can within a certain period. 

[00:23:09] So we understood that if they actually just gave themselves a long enough runway for their goals and on the long enough runway to actually lose the weight and sustain it all.

[00:23:20] Then what's going to happen is, is that yes. It's going to take maybe who knows, maybe it's going to take longer than six weeks. It's going to take maybe who knows anywhere between like four months to maybe six months to lose the weight it's going to take maybe, uh, maybe the same amount of time to keep the weight off.

[00:23:35] And we did this all through just like testing. Uh, we used our clients and like the gym, unfortunately, the gym, you know, before we got our shit together, it was used as like a breeding ground or laboratory. And we tried everything in there and we failed a lot. So, so literally after going through so many fads after, after chasing so many fast methods, we settled on the, the longest path, which was actually the shortest path for everyone to lose weight and keep it off for the rest of the lives.

[00:24:04] Josh: Wow. Okay. That's awesome, man. And where there like books, was it, uh, anything that you've done to study? Did you have like mentors or, or trainers yourself? 

[00:24:12] Dan: Yeah, for sure. I've had like numerous coaches, uh, one of the guys that I definitely look up to, who's not on the internet anymore. Uh, his name's Martin Berkhan, he's kind of like the guy that came out with like the 16, eight fasting, but he's kind of backtracked on that. Um, I loved his book, uh, Alan Aragon, very evidence based, uh, uh, fitness practitioner guys, like Brad Schoenfeld.

[00:24:34] Uh, I, I basically, I didn't necessarily get mentored by these guys, you know, by them speaking directly at me, but I basically, I bought their books. I did their certifications and, and it was just like, it's just a collection of, of mentorship, you know, throughout the 18 years, you know, I got mentored both in fitness and I got mentored both in, in business as well and also in life.

[00:24:55] And my whole thing is, is also just like what I realized over the course of my life is just coaches and mentors. Like they basically take a to Z and they condensed. Into, almost like a, to a, to D if that makes any sense, they condensed the time they condense that they actually make the, the success a lot more sustainable because you're, you're doing what the wise men say, which is to make profit off of the mistakes of other people.

[00:25:21] So these guys have already been through like 10 years, 20 years of making mistakes. So I've, I, I will hire them for as much as they, they will charge so I can take advantage of that. And I don't have to go through the same mistakes myself. So a lot of mentorship, a lot of a trial in there and a lot of books. Uh that's for sure.

[00:25:40] Josh: it brings up a really good point where I want to go deep on Twitter in a bit, but it's exactly like we talked about before. It's like, you can follow like the smartest people in the world, read and hear what they have to say. And you can learn directly from them without having to be in the same room, which is incredible. And that's kind of what education is. 

[00:25:56] I think it's funny that you went through this journey of like dropping out of school and being like, Hey, screw this. And then like going, it happens like when we're talking about my brother happened with him to where he dropped out of school, cause he wasn't interested, but he's like the most studious person I've ever known.

[00:26:10] Now read so many books. I spent all this time researching and studying. He's like, oh, I can't, I'm studying. I'm like you don't have class or anything, but he's just studying through life. It's such a great mindset to have. 

[00:26:20] Dan: Yeah, man. Um, it I've literally read like a hundred times more books and in the time that I have not been in school than the time that I did, only because I get to choose the books that, that I want to read. Right. So I don't, my curriculum is one that's chosen for. And if I feel like I'm like, even right now, so, uh, uh, I'm, I'm in the process of becoming a C I'm in the process of learning how to become a better CEO.

[00:26:46] So I am inundating myself with like, uh, things like the 15, uh, rules of conscious leader or leadership and things like, uh, Jocko's book and just like being studious in that respect and trying to like trying to amalgamate so much information in one condensed period. 

[00:27:01] So it's almost like Neo in the matrix. You can like Uplevel yourself in like a matter of, you know, set or him as a matter of seconds. For me, it's like a matter of weeks and months. So, so that's, I mean, that's the cool thing about life. I actually do feel like when you read a book, it's like having a conversation with an old fucking thousand year old man, you know, I was like, you can have a conversation with that guy.

[00:27:24] And this is a guy that's basically distilling his 50 years of experience into 300 pages. So I look at it like that and I was just like, who does not want to take advantage of this. And you can choose whatever you want to learn as well. It's, it's almost like when you're free to learn on your own, that's actually one of the most learning happens because you get to choose exactly where you put that focus into.

[00:27:48] Josh: Yeah. absolutely man. And I think like the biggest thing is like a lot of people are spending all their time being entertained and not enough time educating themselves. Where it can be the same thing where like, when you're being educated and you're learning about things that you're actually interested in, it makes the world of difference.

[00:28:03] And it's so much fun. Right. You just get so immersed into it. So for you when you're at K for example, cause I know you're into this. Learning how to become a CEO. What is your thought process? When it comes to K, I need to learn about the subject or this thing, obviously there's books on it. There's internet, there's podcasts. There's people there's, there's so much there. 

[00:28:21] What is your thought process behind learning this? Like, do you have a certain way that you jot down notes? Do you have like a note taking system? Like, do you have something where you can like distill it yourself? W I'd like to hear how you kind of approach that. 

[00:28:33] Dan: My perfect way of learning is to, is to actually learn, uh, highlight, take notes, make notes inside that book. Sometimes I do Kindle. And to try to teach it to someone else right afterwards, to distill the information inside of my brain and to get a better understanding of what I'm actually talking about. That is like my perfect way. And one of the ways I distill that is literally, uh, using Twitter. 

[00:28:59] Um, you know, I'm not going to say that I'm not going to say that I do that all the time with Twitter, but if I am in just like anything, like if you read a book, that book is like in your brain space, it's your world at that point, right?

[00:29:10] Like every, every one of your, not every one of your thoughts, but a lot of your thoughts are pertaining towards, like, I don't know about what this guy said, but what this guy said is like really awesome. Really cool. 

[00:29:19] So I'm reading like the book, uh, the 15 rules of conscious leadership. And one of the biggest ideas that has stuck out to me was the, the have a line, basically, there's this like big black line and it's very binary and you're either learning or you're trying to be right.

[00:29:38] So learning is on the above line trying to be right as on the below line. And then afterwards I explained this on Twitter. Right? Just to, just for me to get a better understanding of what that means to me. And then, and then I just start riffing on it. So I had to say like, you know, if you can teach it to other people, that's probably the best way for me.

[00:30:00] Uh, but obviously like taking notes, going back to them, rereading them, reread, or trying to read books as slow as possible, especially if they're freaking good. Trying to stop yourself from speed reading. That's probably another one, but yet teaching other people has probably like the best way to retain it.

[00:30:14] Josh: It makes so much sense. I mean, Twitter makes sense. You can do threads. Like there's people like teaching full on like university courses in like a thread it's like, okay. Like I just got a degree in something just by reading this thread. It's actually incredible. I don't think I get the same thing.

[00:30:28] Actually. I do get the same thing on YouTube. Like YouTube is a great place where people put that in a video form. Um, but I think like through writing and reading it too, like people will blog about it. They'll write articles, we'll do podcasts like this. 

[00:30:39] So actually I would like to learn, like, since you're learning about how to become a CEO, what exactly is that to you? Like what is the CEO mindset? What is it that you're trying to get out of it? Like you said, the below, below and above line, then what have you actually learned from that experience? 

[00:30:53] Dan: I, I learned that I'm still in the learning process. So, so number one, it's, it's turning from the doing to communicating now. So I have a team, uh, we grew from a zero to nine people within the year, and I had to kind of go through an adoption process because I'm so used to doing everything on my own.

[00:31:17] I mean, I'm so used to having control over every aspect of my business, whether it comes to the email writing, whether it comes to Twitter, actually Twitter, I have complete control over. I'm never relinquishing control of that. But when it comes to like coaching, when it comes to every single aspect of my business, I had control over it.

[00:31:34] So the, the whole notion of a CEO is actually to let go of. It's to let go of control to, to communicate, to train as much as possible to, to get people, to do the job the way that you feel it should be best done. And to create a, an air of collaboration, but also still like leading, still pushing that needle, still pushing people in the places that they need to be and doing it in a way where I'm still trying to let go at the same time.

[00:32:04] And I think my big thing right now is just communication, right? Because there's so many moving parts, especially when you get yourself from like, when you're going from like zero to 1 million, you know, I feel like that's kind of like the beginning stages. So you kind of try and doing everything on your own and whatever, when you're trying to go from like one to two or two to five or whatever it is, like, it, it all comes down to really communicating because there's so many moving parts to what you're doing.

[00:32:29] And there's so many things that are on the flights, what you're doing and. And another aspect of it is, is, is actually just like zooming out as far as humanly possible. So the best CEOs that I know are thinking like 2, 3, 5 years in the future already, they're already planning for like quarter three in like 20, 23.

[00:32:51] And I'm planning for quarter four in 2021. Like I got it. Like, so now I'm starting to, to really like, it's really like bacon, what does the vision look like? What are we doing in three years? What is going to take us to where we need to be within that time? Right. And then it, to me, it's like communication and vision.

[00:33:13] And, and then I'm not going to say I'm perfect at that, to be honest, like, cause I'm still learning, but, but definitely, uh, I'm trying to, to slow the, or actually speed up the learning curve, but by reading books and actually talking to mentors and talking to, to my own friends who are running like, you know, teams of like 10 30, 40, 50 

[00:33:31] Josh: Awesome. And I mean like the great thing is your clients, they're all entrepreneurs, right. So I'm sure you can pick their brains and ask them. 

[00:33:37] Dan: I, 

[00:33:37] Josh: it's 

[00:33:38] Dan: I try, I try man, like, but I actually like, I'm very like, careful about that. Uh, because, because I'm, don't necessarily want to blur the lines between what I'm trying to do. And, and in general, I'm very careful in general of like, thinking like I'm trying to acquire something from someone, if that makes any sense, especially at the invested in me. Right. 

[00:34:06] I'm just so careful. Maybe I'm over careful with it because I am like working with guys that are running billion dollar businesses that, uh, are New York times bestsellers. I was like one of the best authors in the freaking world. And I want to ask him questions. I do. And maybe it's on me, but, but I, I'm kinda just like, you know, just, I feel like there's a balance of like, uh, you know, doing your job and maybe like every now and then saying, well, what do you think about this?

[00:34:33] You know, Jim, you know what, I got this little, this little situation, maybe you can help me out with it, but if I'm still trying to figure out what that balance is and what that line is, because I do help, like if I can just some of the best entrepreneurs in the world. So, so yeah.

[00:34:48] Josh: That's interesting because it's like a relationship that you're building there. Right. And I totally see that where you're like, you want to have that, like be the mentor in this relationship. And then I know exactly mean by like blurring that line, breaking down those walls and that things get blurry. But I'm wondering like maybe if it's at, maybe after like the program or like a certain part, less part of the group in the system or something, I don't know. But it's, it's really interesting. 

[00:35:10] I'd also love to know if you can talk about it as like, who are some of these people that you're coaching. 

[00:35:15] Dan: Uh, just out of like, uh, well, I can't talk about who, uh, I'm necessarily working with, but, uh, literally I worked with guys who actually, one of them, you just did an interview with me, his name's mark Feldman. So he's the CEO of the Game Show Network. 

[00:35:31] And he's like this 57 year old CEO, uh, was never in shape in his life. He dropped, he dropped like, I think it was like 33 pounds. And he gained like seven pounds of lean mass of muscle. And I was just like, and that's supposed to be impossible at 57. But he did it. He talked about his, uh, his experience. So we have, you know, we have guys like that and we have New York. We, we have actually a couple of New York times bestsellers.

[00:35:55] And just actually, like the funny thing is, is like we have guys who are literally secret freaking like, you know, people don't know anything about them. And these guys have just secret kind of like just bosses. You know, if that makes any sense, it was a secret bosses. No one knows about them, but they're like basically running anywhere between like a million to like, you know, an eight to nine figure business, essentially.

[00:36:17] So yeah, I work with all these guys, but also do work with a lot of hype, a lot of high-achieving executives as well, like guys who are a little bit more top of the ladder. So guys like that could be a president or vice president. Um, but yeah, like, uh, yeah, those are the types of guys that we work with. A lot of entrepreneurs love digital entrepreneurs as well.

[00:36:38] Josh: it's so interesting. Right? We have like the Twitter folks were like, there's people who are great and they're doing huge things and they, you know, they have a massive net worth and they're running huge businesses and they're on Twitter all the time. And you can see their daily thoughts, which is insane.

[00:36:51] And there's, these people are like behind the scenes, they're running the show, but they don't give a shit about social media. it could be the age, it could be whatever, but they just don't care. It's so interesting.

[00:37:01] Dan: it is man. It's just, you know, I actually found, so a lot of people, we have this thing on Twitter, I've never been out to whatever before, so you have like a guys like you and myself who show their face and they're like, Hey, what's up? I'm Dan I'm Josh. Uh, you have guys who are anonymous, uh, obviously, right?

[00:37:16] So you put, be so surprised at everyone thinks like anonymous people are like, we don't want to show our identification though. The real, the reality is is that they just don't. I've met like so many millionaire anonymous guys, and I've also met a lot of like, actually there was there's this one. Who, uh, I forgot what his name is, but he's like this he's he's hands. He has a slough on his profile pic. 

[00:37:44] And then, um, I remember I said something on Twitter and uh, one other guy came on and said that he was like, Hey, yo man, you should be slunk and raw eggs and whatever. Then the guy went to slot profile. Picks says, dude, like it's already been proven that, you know, rides are not bioavailable, yada, yada, yada.

[00:38:03] So the other dude calls him out and then he actually posted other do posts his like his body on, uh, on Twitter. He was like, Hey. You know, you, you can't talk to me like that you're anonymous. You're probably some like fat dude or whatever that is. And yada, yada, yada. 

[00:38:18] And then, and then the Slav guide basically posts a pic of him. And he's like this massively jacked a guy from the UK and he's like, yeah, come at me, bro. Like, what were you saying? He's like, no, dude, that's, that's a big picture. And then the guy literally posts a videos like, hello, William. No, it's not a fake picture. He's like the Jack dude. 

[00:38:38] And that's why, I mean, it's like, you have like these, you have a lot of guys who are just anonymous, who are actually just crushing life, who don't need the recognition who don't need, you know, to, to have their voices heard on Twitter. But they're on it because they're being entertained by like guys like myself and guys like yourself kind of thing.

[00:38:54] Josh: It's so interesting. Right. And Twitter is like one of the few places nowadays you can actually do that. Like Facebook, obviously it's like basically a government ID at this point. Like they're really like enforcing like human ID. LinkedIn is like, not as bad, but like it's everyone's professional lives. And then I guess Instagram is just like your best life, your filtered life a lot of the times. Um, so it's really interesting. Right. 

[00:39:19] So for you now, um, I kinda want to go back a bit, cause you mentioned that when you first started your business, there's no Instagram, there was no social media. And now, like you've built a large part of your business on Twitter, on a social platform. And you're obviously active on Instagram where most fitness people are. 

[00:39:34] So I'd like to hear how that's changed over the years, how you've kind of grown up with social media, how you kind of took over Twitter and how you built your whole Twitter following. 

[00:39:44] Dan: Yeah. So my Twitter following came, uh, as a result of COVID actually. Uh, so I'll get back to them a little bit, but, uh, but my, my previous social media experience was just a. Uh, posting on Facebook the entire time posting these long form, you know, just like, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I, I, if I were to condense it, it would be like this, like Twitters to me, Twitter's for thinking for thinkers.

[00:40:10] And Facebook's for like a, your friends, your mom, your grandma, dad, and Instagram's for, uh, just, just aesthetics, essentially. Just they may or may not read the caption, but they'll definitely watch the build. Definitely see the photo. Right. 

[00:40:27] So before Twitter, I was, uh, you know, I mean, I was just like getting clients off of like Facebook essentially. Right. I was just like, Hey, what's up? This is what I'm doing. And the people would actually contact me on Facebook and be like, Hey, what's up? I'm all this weight and all this kind of stuff. And then COVID happened. And when COVID happened, everyone just got like scared. So I remember COVID happened. It was like March.

[00:40:49] I think it . Was like 20, of March, 2019. When it first, when he first did the lockdown. And that was like the first month. I didn't make a dime in income, which is scary. You know, it was like super fricking, this is like super fucking scary. I was like, holy shit. Like, you know, I'm scared now. Like not, you know, don't, you know, for me, or for me to say, like, that's like, COVID scary, but now I'm scared for my business.

[00:41:14] And because basically everyone's just holding on and they were like, I don't want to make any investments into health. I don't want to make any investments into anything until I figure out what's going on. 

[00:41:22] So I actually said to myself, I was like, I'm not going to sit around and just like, hope this thing fucking goes away. I am going to be proactive. And for me, productivity was, uh, was actually searching out a social media channel that I can spread ideas with, you know, very fast, but also one that could scale one where I can scale the, the reach that I had. 

[00:41:45] And for me, Even at this point in time, my whole thing is still reach. I just want to reach as many people as humanly possible. I just want to spread these ideas. I just want to get them out there as much as possible. 

[00:41:56] So I saw Twitter as that angle, but I never really, I never really tagged it as something that was going to be like a business or anything like that actually thought Instagram was going to be, you know, the, the thing for me.

[00:42:08] But I ended up getting mentorship with, uh, Ed Latimore at the time. So right when COVID hit Atlanta, Mer came out with like this mentorship opportunity and I was like, I am doing this and I'm just going. And actually I remember like when he, when we talked and I was like, I'm doing this, uh, I don't care. I actually made a commitment to myself.

[00:42:27] I was like, I'm going to show up every single day to this platform I'm going to create. And I'm going to be as authentically myself as humanly possible. And I'll let the chips fall wherever they fall. And my whole thing was just like, do the work, show up, do the work, show up, do the work be consistent. And I've literally spent since like March 2019. So like. 

[00:42:48] Every single day has been spent at least like one hour of it's been spent, like, you know, just producing for Twitter, creating content for Twitter, showing up every single day, Monday to Sunday, it doesn't matter to me. I've basically just committed to that. I was going to be creating every single day and lo and behold, man people actually started to really dig the ideas I was putting out there.

[00:43:11] And this was actually during a time when it was like super negative and my whole thing when go into Twitter was . Just like, you know what? There's so much negativity in this world. I want to be the bright light and the source of positivity for people. And I know that negativity is just, you know, part of our lives.

[00:43:28] It's just, you know, we can never get away from it, but I have. I don't want to perpetuate the negativity that's going on in this world. And I want to be a positive light for everybody. So that's what I committed to. And since then I haven't looked back at all. It, it, uh, yeah, I would say like after ed LATAM or actually I was like, after starting to get traction with that LATAM where I was like, oh my God, This is so cool.

[00:43:49] So I actually got a mentorship with Zuby. Zuby music, right? The women's deadlift world champion. And, um, I got mentorship with him and that turned out like the stuff that, the stuff that Ed and Zuby has taught me has actually has actually carried on with me to this day. And they have, uh, they have mentored me in terms of like how I should produce content, how I should actually write content in the first place.

[00:44:16] And if it . Wasn't for those, you know, those coaches, I guess you'd say, or those mentors, I wouldn't be where I am right now. Um, but again, I, you know, a huge part of it is just me saying, I'm just going to show up every day. I'm going to create as much tweets as possible and just let chip, let the chips fall for wherever they fall.

[00:44:31] Josh: Man that's unreal. So like, first of all, going into it pre COVID, how many followers did you have? Cause now you're like almost 125,000 

[00:44:41] Zero. Zero to 100,000? 

[00:44:42] Dan: I had, so I had one Twitter account and then I just scrapped it because I made the biggest mistake that anyone can make on social media, which is like, at that time, I think it was like 20. I forgot what it was. It was like 2012 or 2013. I like paid for my followers. And then after that, that just totally fucking kibosh that account.

[00:45:01] And I was like, you know what, I'm starting fresh and I'm not going to buy anything. I'm not going to buy followers or whatnot. I'm just going to create. So I literally started from like ground zero from like absolute zero. 

[00:45:13] And then now within the span of a what's, uh, now it's like a, I don't even know, maybe 14, 15, 16 months or something like that. Or sometime like that. Like now I'm at 123 and a half thousand followers, which is crazy. Let's just, I don't know. It's not crazy, but. Yeah. I'm flabbergasted 

[00:45:36] Josh: man. yeah, it's yeah, riding that wave is insane in that short amount of time. It's funny. Cause there's during, COVID when I actually got back on Twitter, I don't know what pulled me to Twitter, to be honest, but I just found myself on it. Somehow. I just found again, I actually didn't start scratch from scratch.

[00:45:52] I had like some of the other followers, um, following other random people, but somehow I don't know how I just happened to start following the right people. My network literally started just growing in that. So people like yourself started showing up on my timeline to follow you. And then once they follow you, I looked at your following list.

[00:46:10] Like the people that you follow, which is only like 400 people or so. And I was like, shit, I already follow so many of these people. How does it, how is it that we just happened to be in the same sphere of people? Like you said, these amazing thinkers. It's so interesting how that happens. 

[00:46:24] Dan: It's like a subculture, twitter is, right. And a lot of people look at Twitter. The, the normal person would look at Twitter and be like, that's a place of like toxicity and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, but the reality is, is what I realized about social media is that social media is just as toxic as the people that you follow.

[00:46:42] So, you know, it is literally going to be that. So, uh, for me, uh, you know, th you know, guys like James Clear, and Naval, uh, Ed Latimer, Zuby, uh, there's a reason why, like, when you make it on Twitter, you get noticed by almost like everybody like that. They see you they're on the radar because it is, this is a subculture. 

[00:47:04] Is very hard. I actually say this is, it's so much harder to get a like, on Twitter as opposed to getting a like on Instagram or Facebook. Right. Like, especially in the beginning, it is. It's not impossible, but it's fricking hard. It is like one of the hardest things. And, but once you get it and once you start to get traction. 

[00:47:24] Once people start to listen to you, you can, you can build this following this, just like rabbit that just wants to hear what you have to say. 

[00:47:31] So, and one of the things I love about Twitter, I know you've never asked me this, but one of the things I love about Twitter, which actually means. Was the fact that you have access to all of these great thinkers. 

[00:47:44] So, you know, guys like, uh, so I told you this before, and I was geeking out about it and I don't mind I'm, I'm a fan man. I'm like freaking Shane, a Perrish from mental models, like messaged me. He's like, Hey man, reading your stuff. You're doing great. 

[00:47:58] And I was just like, like, he's like one of my favorite authors in the world. But the thing is, is that I don't necessarily think that can happen off of Facebook or Instagram, but that could definitely happen off of Twitter.

[00:48:11] And you also said one, the thing was like riding the wave. I always look at it like this. Like when you have momentum, you got to hold on to that momentum. It's like a wave. You hold onto it as much as possible. You try to write it up as, as, as much as long as you can. And that's what I feel like I am on Twitter. That's why I keep on creating every day. I just, I'm just riding that wave and I'm keep, I'm trying to just like know amplify and extended as much as I can.

[00:48:33] Josh: Man. That's awesome. So for those early days, like, you know, I know exactly what you're talking about, like Twitter's very hard even get a few likes and comments and people replying, and to get a fricking retweet, obviously like. 

[00:48:46] Basically what I've heard is to get a retweet, they have to think like that's something that I would tweet myself anyways. Literally that's exactly what it is. Right. It's like, this is something that I want to tweet, but it's in someone else's words. 

[00:48:56] Um, but I want to know. So like going back to in the early days, being mentored by Zuby and Ed, what were some of those things that they kind of told you that stuck with you that you think may have, uh, impacted you? 

[00:49:08] Dan: So very, very, okay. So I'll say one thing from Zooey was timeliness. Uh, so, uh, I run. Actually create off of like a schedule I create on this thing called Hyperion and I just, I basically just create thoughts there, post them on and it comes out. But I also come in and I talk my shit whenever I feel it's timely.

[00:49:29] So Zuby was just be as timely as possible. If, if people are talking about something that you're actually interested in, like right now, you know, uh, unfortunately a lot of people are talking about mandates and a lot of people talking about, you know, COVID still and all this kind of stuff. Well, that's the kind of stuff that people are actually listening to right now.

[00:49:46] So be timely with your tweets don't necessarily. And one thing I realized is also like, don't be polarizing for polarizing sake, right? Like, don't try to polarize people just because you want attention, but really if you have an opinion about something and you're not being a Dick about it, then, then post it.

[00:50:03] You're going to have some people hating you, but that's okay. So the other thing that I learned from Zuby is just like conciseness. I mean, like actually it's, it's actually, that's something I learned from ed from Zuby I learned just like absolute unadulterated authenticity. So if you, if you like, here's his tweets, it's Zooey talking, right.

[00:50:24] It's literally Zuby talking and he says like, just, just put it in your own voice as much as humanly possible and, and being consistent with that. That was obviously one of his dealt with ed. His was all, his was a lot about being very concise with your words as a writer. So things like saying just very, uh, anything with the L Y that, that ends with it.

[00:50:47] You want to remove that shit from your vocabulary, uh, things like, you know, On Twitter. There's a, there's a bunch of things that people say, um, on a regular basis is like something like, well, that's just my opinion or whatever it is. Have to fucking say that you can just be concise. This is my opinion. All right.

[00:51:03] And I don't have to say, this is my opinion. I'm posting on Twitter. So, you know, so basically just like cut out all the word vomit. And show them exactly what the main idea is. The one of the things I do on Twitter sometimes it's like, I'll actually write like a paragraph of word vomit. And then, and then at the last line, they'll be like, okay, that's the idea I want to get to.

[00:51:22] That's the only thing that I would post out of this paragraph. So his thing was just being concise as humanly possible and yeah, in general, like when I look at Zuby, when I look at the ad in the way that they, they create, they they're. So like they're there every single day. They're not taking any breaks actually.

[00:51:40] Zuby I think takes breaks on Sundays. I'm not sure. Yeah. I think he takes a break on Sunday, but, but 

[00:51:45] yeah, there, yeah, this is like a schedule, a break, but they, they basically don't take any breaks they're on it every single day. So, so yeah. I'm so glad to have those guys as mentors. They really pushed me forward.

[00:51:55] Josh: that's unreal. And of course, just by like following people and reading what they have to say, you can kind of like model off 

[00:52:00] them. Right. And I think what's really cool is, is, sorry. I, you, you mentioned about it being concise, like, has it changed the way you actually think and speak now? Because Twitter, like you said, it's for thinkers and because you're editing out your words and making it very concise, have you, have you found that you become a more concise speaker as well? 

[00:52:17] Dan: More of a concise writer, a little bit of a concise thinker, a lot more of a concise thinker, if that makes any sense. Right. So, um, a lot of times, like I love again, we talked about threads in the very beginning. One of the reasons I love threads is because as opposed to like a blog post, there, isn't a word vomit.

[00:52:37] You literally have 280 characters to, to really post whatever that point is going to be for that. I, I just love the conciseness of that. So I find that a lot, it makes, it may seem like weird to a lot of people, but like my thoughts are actually more concise. I'm just like, I trust the thoughts that say, um, something like eat, drink water before coffee, something that's concise.

[00:53:01] Is that right? That is like, that is something we're I can just be like, okay, well that's my thought. And I can just like, literally put that in with my writing. I cut out a lot of bullshit. I cut out a lot of like the, the stuff that you use to like fluff it up or whatever. I literally just like go straight to the freaking point, right.

[00:53:21] When it comes to, when it comes to writing and when it comes to speaking, I'm not sure if it like made me like a better speaker. I'm not exactly sure about. It's so funny, man, like, you know, like again, Twitter's like subculture. So sometimes like, even with my speaking and my thoughts, I always thinking that, that, that Twitter speak a little bit when, when I realized that there's a whole world out there that that's outside of its that speaks a little bit of a different way.

[00:53:44] Uh, eh, man, there was actually like one more thing. Uh, but I can't think of it right now, but, but in general I do think that it's just made my ideas a lot tighter, if that makes any sense. And then I can extrapolate on those ideas with like a lot more writing, but it always gets down to the main idea.

[00:54:00] Josh: Yeah. absolutely man. And what's great is like, so we talked about this in the previous call. Is that like you called Twitter, the quote unquote, like God level platform for entrepreneurs. So I'd love to hear a little bit why, like, why you think that and what, why it's obviously great for you and great for your business, because these are the people that you're working with. 

[00:54:17] Dan: well, I feel like any social media platform is going to be great. And you're like, if you're making money off of it then awesome. I think Twitter is the God level platform because of a few things. 

[00:54:28] Number one is networking, uh, the network effect. I mean like you have guys like Nepal that are literally senior tweets. Uh, you guys, you have guys like James Clear, you can, you can have access to really amazing thinkers, uh, people that you would not necessarily have access to them like Instagram or Facebook or whatnot, maybe who knows. So that's number one, the network effect. 

[00:54:49] Uh, the other one is kind of weird in a sense where, so right now I'm building, like, I'm not going to say I'm building a business from scratch, but I am building a business right now.

[00:55:01] We're still in startup phase. Like we're still starting up this business, so to speak. So I look at Twitter as one of those places where. Because of the fact that you can actually scale it and you can actually post links on Twitter. That's what makes it the God level platform. So it sounds so weird because.

[00:55:21] I'll I'll give you an example. So we're growing this email list, right? We're going in email. This, I actually feel like Twitter is not something that we can rely on because we're, we're, you know, it's a platform that we don't own so they could pick us off anytime he wants. So we're growing our email list right now.

[00:55:38] If I were to try to grow this email list on Instagram, I'm not sure exactly how I would get them to click on a specific link. Right. As opposed to Twitter, it's like, you can literally post that link onto your tweet. And I've actually seen this lot. Don't agree with it, but it works. I seen this lot on Twitter where people have information products and literally they're using scarcity, like things like, okay, there's 10 left of a digital product.

[00:56:04] Like come on. Nine, left, eight left, but they're doing this because they're actually making sales off of Twitter directly off of Twitter because people can click that. That's why I think it's like the God level platform for being able to sell anything, because you can literally just link everything. 

[00:56:21] Now, if you try to do that on Facebook. Sure. I mean like you mean that you may or may not have a following there, but you're following is like cat that 5,000 people, that 5,000 friends, and even then, like, most of your friends just want to chill with you. They don't want to hear about like, you, you know, like, oh, go get my often and all those kinds of stuff on Instagram, you have to be like, click the link in the bio and blah, blah, blah. Do all this stuff maybe, or maybe not they click. 

[00:56:44] But for me, that's why Twitter is like the God level, especially for business building, especially startup mode, just because you can collect emails. So we've grown our email list from like 5,000 to 20,000 within a span of less than a year, actually like a span of like, five or six months of just posting, like these followup tweaks to, to our, to our main tweets. 

[00:57:05] And that that's, that's what I feel is like one of the best things about Twitter. And the last thing about Twitter actually with, from the business building standpoint is, is again, it's like a network effect in terms of like, if you get big people just noticing you, but also it's the people that you are interacting with, where your friends who are giving you all sorts of ideas.

[00:57:24] So I would not even be interested in NFTs, right? If it wasn't for all my friends on Twitter, buying a mutant ape yacht club, fricking NFTs, you know, like, and posting it on their, on their, whatever, you know, I would not know about that. Uh, if it wasn't for Twitter and I think Twitter is actually one of those things that keeps your ear to the ground of what is actually happening.

[00:57:47] What's quick, what's fast, what's happening in the world. And that's the reason why I like it. Like, if you hear any news story that comes out on the news media or whatever it is, you can actually be certain that you came out on Twitter you'll wave before that actually happened. It is instantaneous. So that's why I think Twitter is like fricking amazing for business.

[00:58:06] Josh: Man. That's so awesome. And it's so true. Like Twitter, sure. It can be a bubble a little bit like a bubble, but a good bubble of really early adopters. Right? 

[00:58:15] Like I'm seeing all these people, you said half these people are changing their profile pictures to apes and other NFTs. It's like, you wouldn't do that on Instagram. Really? Maybe they did, but like for sure, they're doing on Twitter first. Like that's 

[00:58:27] Dan: They wouldn't, they wouldn't get it right. They just wouldn't like people, you change your things. So an ape, and then it was like, lights, change your profile picture. He'll figure it out. What was this person? 

[00:58:36] Josh: Cartoon monkey. 

[00:58:37] Dan: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then, and that's what everyone's like, oh, dude, that shit, you know, what'd you pay for that 

[00:58:44] Josh: Yeah, like you paid $200,000 for this photo, like it's insane. 

[00:58:48] Dan: Yeah. People get it, you know, people like Twitter's a little bit too shiny, but it's, it's, it's definitely on the trends like right away for sure. 

[00:58:56] Josh: Right. And how do you balance, like, you know, shiny object syndrome on Twitter? W w you know, I mean, obviously if your main thing, like, how do you kind of balance, like, obviously you still want to keep your ear to the ground and see what's new. See what's happening. Twitter can, like, it's a lot happening at once. Right? So how do you balance that shiny object syndrome? 

[00:59:12] Dan: I, funny thing is, is I try not to read other people's thoughts as much as possible. Uh, I take a lot of time, uh, in my Twitter, replying, maybe replying back to people who are following me and people have commented, but I really limit the amount of time that I. Take in other people's thoughts because it can turn like the danger too, is that it can turn into a big ass echo chamber and whether that's good or bad, I don't know.

[00:59:42] Right. But still like when people get very, uh, when people get very, I guess you could say invested in a certain idea, then they could take the idea like sway far and just become about it. Right. So my whole thing is just like taking the literal breaks away from consuming other people's content on Twitter.

[01:00:01] And, um, and literally not using Twitter as, as anything else other than maybe just like, you know, little 15 minutes bursts here and there. But I try not to take in there. You know, I try not to take in any one's like thoughts because the more thoughts that you take in from other people, the less thoughts are going to have for you.

[01:00:19] So, so a lot of that is just like, you know, me being, just trying to be as introspective as possible, trying to learn from books as much as possible and really just limit the amount of time I spend on, on that platform. Yeah. I hope that makes sense. It's like, I spend a lot of time at that platform, but it's really just for, uh, for the stuff that's interacting with me at that time. And me interacting back with the people that are interacting with me. Yeah.

[01:00:42] Josh: So if I'm getting this correct. So you write out all your tweets with hype fury so you're not even on the Twitter platform, because again, I can, you know, you're like, Oh I have this thought, you go to tweet it, like, oh, what's this. And then you get thrown off track.

[01:00:52] So you just exclusively use hype fury and then are you just going on Twitter just to respond to people who would like maybe responded to those tweets? 

[01:01:00] Dan: Yeah. Like basically it's just respond. Like they're like there a comment that they gave. Um, try to show him that I saw whatever they posted and engagement to me is a huge thing. Um, I'm not as good as Adam as I was before. Uh, only because my business has gotten more complicated. I've spent less time on Twitter in the first place.

[01:01:22] And, but I do try to just like up that engagement and just try to engage with as many people as possible. And on the flip side, you know, when I am on Twitter, uh, I'll let, like, it sounds so weird because like, when you're beginning on Twitter, you're basically engaging with other people in order to get engagement back to yourself.

[01:01:43] Right. That's what a lot of people do for me now. Um, it's a different game because if I give engagement to someone, I have a big enough following where people could actually look at that as an. Right. And I'm responsible now. So if so, I will actually, so I will actually like, you know, limit my time. I go on hype fury, create my tweets and whatnot, but also it's just like, um, if I do like someone, if I do like retweet someone, that's an actual, like endorsement now. You know, that's a, that's a literal endorsement for me.

[01:02:17] So I'm, I'm becoming hyper careful, hyper aware of like the things I'm liking now, the things that I'm actually re-tweeting and whatnot. 

[01:02:25] Josh: Wow. That's interesting. That's really interesting way to look at it, but it makes total sense, right? Especially we talked about it with the retweet. That's basically your tweets. You're endorsing that it makes so much sense. 

[01:02:34] Something that really, I just found really fascinating is, you know, Twitter sort of what got you to this level now, but then you're like just saying like, okay, the business is growing. We have to do other things, there's so many other things that, that it needs my attention from. So then you stopped doing the thing that got you this success in the first place, which I find really interesting, but it's how things kind of happen. Right? 

[01:02:54] Dan: Well, I think things have to evolve a little bit and you have to be very mindful of your time. Um, that's number one, and you know what, I've never stopped being, I've never stopped producing on Twitter. I never stopped creating onto it. I've actually, upleveled my creating on Twitter. 

[01:03:10] I've created, I've uh, committed myself to creating at least like 10 to 12 tweets, you know, just every single day, you know, just every single day. So I'm still creating on Twitter. I'm just purposely spending less time on it, uh, for my own mental sanity. 

[01:03:27] Josh: Yes, of course. And you were saying before that you don't even really check your DMS cause I can imagine it gets insane. 

[01:03:33] Dan: Yeah. Like for everyone listening to this, like I, this was not going to happen at all. I never checked my DMs, and then Josh actually, uh, messages. And I was like, Hey, what's up? And that just like, kind of took it as like, you know, just a suck, just like a regular person. And then it's just so happens that we know, uh, I know your brother, obviously, you know, your brother, but that was kind of, you know, that was kind of, and I did some more research on you.

[01:03:58] I was like, oh shit, this guy is actually legit. And, uh, and that's how we kind of like, uh, that's how we kind of got on this podcast in the first place, but you're right. I never chat. Like I don't check DMS and I've rarely checked DMS. And uh, if, if something does come across my way, then my assistant will probably pop it up. But usually not on it. 

[01:04:16] Josh: Yeah. Awesome. I can't, I honestly can't believe it happened. And the funny thing is, while it happened, I was at the gym two in the morning. I I'm assuming you are as if we're in the same time zone in the morning. So I was like at the gym and I saw you coming to my DM. I was like, oh man, like, this is great.

[01:04:29] I'm like, oh Dan, like, I'm like Mitch was my brother. Mitch was just saying, Yeah.

[01:04:32] Dan, this guy, Dan just joined my program. I'm like, yo, Dan's like huge on Twitter, man. I've been following from following him for like months. He's like what? And I'm like, Yeah, like he has a massive following on Twitter. He's like really big on there.

[01:04:43] Like a lot of people follow him and, and really, uh, engage with them. So it was really interesting that I was like, oh yeah. Mitch is my brother. Like, wait, what? It was really funny. And maybe this is a little bit of a, a way that we can kind of bridge into like your next step. You were saying at some, at some point you need to evolve and play different games.

[01:05:00] So now you're kind of getting into LinkedIn and I'd like to hear how it's differed. Um, cause he ended up going to a different platform. I want to know how that's changed for you and how you think about it. 

[01:05:10] Dan: the thing with LinkedIn is, and I hope no one from LinkedIn is like following me here. But the thing with LinkedIn is that. Right now we have automated it. Right. We have automated, you know, the, the process towards it, the content creation side towards it. So we're, so we're actually distributing off of, uh, off of LinkedIn first, but we want a multi-channel distribution. Right? 

[01:05:33] So, uh, if I create something on Twitter, I want it to be on Instagram, I want it to be on LinkedIn. I want it to be on Facebook. I want it to be on any social media platform and to, to, to have that done automatically. So, so now, like, because my way of thinking is is that, Hey, nothing's promised we don't know what the heck's going to happen tomorrow, who the heck knows, but I can't leave my destiny onto one platform. 

[01:05:59] I can't leave myself up to, to really just like, you know, relying on all platforms. So now's the time to cross-pollinate now's the time to Uplevel the, the followings on each and every platform. LinkedIn is the one that we're looking at, because that has a lot of our core clients that has a lot of the people that we want to work with.

[01:06:17] And then the next one that we're going to be working is going to be Instagram. Don't know if we're going to be doing Facebook. We'll see. But, you know, but, uh, but again, we have, I don't man, like TikTok is one that I've like kind of followed because you can get, you can really get like a really, you know, fast following on that one.

[01:06:36] Um, but I refuse to do dancing videos. I refuse to do the whole music thing where they're like, no, and just like pointing at shit. I refuse to do any of that corny fucking shit, you know, and I refuse to play that game. So I also look at social media platforms as like, if I don't feel like I want to go.

[01:06:57] Then I'm not going to go on it. And it's always, if it's always going to be there, it's always going to be there. You can always promote like that, you know, something had happened, but I think everything has its time. And, uh, in the general I think sick talk would, would be more of a distraction than it would be actually bringing in our top clients. So, so yeah, yeah,

[01:07:16] Josh: The one thing. So I will bring this up. So I'm not like a huge TikToker. I'll I will probably post like clips from this on TikTok. Cause like, again, you talked about distribution, I've found is the video version of Twitter. So I don't know if I'm going to change your mind about it. I don't know if I'm going to change other people's mind about it, but for me, when I go on TikTok, it's not that dancing teams.

[01:07:36] It's like, again with Twitter, you can go on its toxicities. The news is garbage or you follow the right people. So I follow the right people now. So my fault and I've engaged with the right content. So on my four ups. When I click on that and I go on the app, I scroll in like five videos. I'm learning something that's pertaining to exactly what I want, 

[01:07:54] um, with content creation. It's, it's incredible. So you don't have to, you can post whatever you want, right? So you can have thousand videos and not one of them dancing videos could be you speaking to the camera, like what you would, what this might be cool for you. Take your tweets and turn that into a short TikTok video where you're talking to the camera about that. I think that would work really well. And then you have. 

[01:08:16] Dan: love that idea. 

[01:08:17] Josh: Right, right. And it doesn't have to be. And TikTok doesn't have to be overproduced like YouTube or something. It's literally you holding your camera. It's the video version of Twitter. It's so simple, so easy. Um, I think it will be huge for a lot. And for fitness, it is huge because you have the video aspect. Right? 

[01:08:33] Whereas, Instagram, you're not going to get that reach maybe with reels, but because you can also like, Hey, here's like a quick tip on like how to burn fat. Here's a quick tip on like building muscle. And I think you can go Twitter, like gain gain even more than you got from Twitter on, on TikTok. I 

[01:08:49] Dan: You're changing my perception, now. You're literally changing my perception of what tick-tock was. Uh, and I'm not gonna lie like frick, sometimes you can, you can keep on scrolling on TikTok and that just like, you know, it's just like, it's addictive. It's literally addictive.

[01:09:05] So you're changing my perception. Um, I'll talk to my CEO and we're going to put this on quarter one, 2022. 

[01:09:12] Josh: Yes. And the last, the last thing I will add is that you can do links in it and on your profile, you can have a few different links. You can link directly to your Instagram, to your YouTube. So it's a little bit better, I think then like Instagram in that sense. Um, so Yeah. it's worthwhile investigating and kind of seeing if it's worthwhile. 

[01:09:30] Dan: Awesome. Okay. We're going to talk a little bit more about this after this. So yeah, 

[01:09:34] Josh: yeah, 

[01:09:35] Dan: wrap. Yeah.

[01:09:36] Josh: Absolutely, man. Okay. So I think we're running out of time here. I don't want to take too much of your time, man. This has been amazing. I really appreciate you taking the time to chat and just like sharing your knowledge here, man. This has been amazing. 

[01:09:46] And it's so cool to like, I always bring this up when I bring people from Twitter onto the podcast, this is like the long form version of Twitter where I'm like, you know, I'm getting your thoughts, but now I can actually like talk to you, which is unbelievable. It's really 

[01:09:58] Dan: absolutely. Yeah, it was great. And then the, I just love this aspect of just like riffing back and forth and, uh, and yeah, man, I, I enjoyed my time here. That was for sure. 

[01:10:07] Josh: Awesome. I really appreciate that. So I have a few final questions for you before we get going. 

[01:10:11] So the first thing is sort of like, what are some of the challenges that you're facing? So you mentioned before, like All of these wins, like you're growing, but you also have challenges with like your mindset as CEO. What is the main challenge right now that you're facing in your business? 

[01:10:25] Dan: Uh, there is the, oh man, there's two challenges. Uh, there's number one is the patients factor. Uh, I am very, I'm very impatient. I want things to happen now. Um, and I do get somewhat. I'm not gonna, it's not emotional, but I just get, you know, when things aren't getting done on the time that I feel like they have to get done, but I just have to be patient because we have so many, we have literally like five, six projects on the go right now that we're just trying to, we're all trying to like, you know, they, we all have like hands on deck for four different people.

[01:10:56] So I just have to be more patient, a lot. The other one would be just like, uh, the, the relinquishing of being in control. Uh, I have to have to understand that I don't have control over every aspect of my business anymore. I should not have control over every aspect of my business if I want to grow. And I have to.

[01:11:14] And still train the people to do the job in which I think it should be done, but also trust them. And I think it possibly do the job even better than I could. And it's that relinquishing of just control of like, from having every aspect of your business, just like controlled by our hands to alright, man, I trust you.

[01:11:34] Like just, just figure it out. You're you're gonna, you know, you'll, you'll, you'll figure it out. As long as it gives you the right training, you're gonna figure it out. So those would be like my top two challenges.

[01:11:42] Josh: I have zero doubt that you're going to get, you're going to smash through those challenges. Cause it seems like you're taking the, like a lot of people like, hey, I have this problem. And like, that's it. But clearly you're, you're taking the time to think about it, learn about it, seek out help, seek out mentorship. Like how can I best approach this? 

[01:11:59] So that is really cool. It's really interesting for me to hear people who are like, they're crushing it like yourself. They're just absolutely killing it. But there's always challenges that, um, that w I don't say block, but that's the next step to like your next version to your next evolution? 

[01:12:13] Dan: Well, I like to think of life as like this, like a constant struggle. Right? And it's like, it's actually, it's, it's a decision. It's an understanding that life is a struggle and you solve one problem and it's going to create all these other problems. You're never going to have a life away from challenges away from problems. You're just going to have better ones. And hopefully you're going to have better one. 

[01:12:35] So, so yeah, things are going to break when you're drawing and things are gonna happen. And, uh, and it's just like this, this acceptance that you're never going to have a life that is, that is void of struggle problems or challenges.

[01:12:48] Uh, so I I'm trying to actually, I would say that is just like, that is like the, the philosophy I'm trying to encompass right now, you know?

[01:12:56] Josh: Oh, dude. That's awesome. It just makes me think like, you know, as human beings too, as soon as you stop having problems and challenges in your life, that's probably near the end of your life, unfortunately. Right? That's when muscle starts atrophying, right? Like, unless you have like constant struggle, you know, you're not going to be building strength.

[01:13:12] You're not even gonna be just like holding onto what little muscle you still have. Right. When there's no struggle. It's like, it's, that's sort of the end. So a hundred percent, I, 100% agree. It's all about constant struggle. And that's even what I think human, like humanity is like, you know, we're having this global warming problem.

[01:13:29] That's a problem that we will hopefully eventually get over and then there'll be other problems. And they'll just keep the problems. Like, I think to me, I think anyways, when you have these problems, it forces you to level up. Like you just saying, then 

[01:13:42] Dan: yeah, 

[01:13:43] Josh: going to be more challenges. And if there's no challenges, you're not going to continue to. 

[01:13:46] Dan: yeah. It's a signal, man. You know, it's I literally wrote this on high theory today. I love this whole destiny thing. It's like, so, so I literally wrote this song on hight theory, which is to say that, uh, any, anytime that you really come across. It's really assigned from the university. You gotta love the fuck up, right?

[01:14:08] You got to get better in some way. And if you feel emotional about something or whatever, that's, again is a signal that something is wrong. There is a, there's something wrong that is inside of you that, or not something wrong inside of you, but there's something that needs to be tended to. So tend to that.

[01:14:25] But these are all signals. And a lot of people, I think personally, like our lives have gone so much easier, right? Our lives have gotten so much easier, so much better. All of our, all of our basic needs are being met. And now people need to actually bring in these outside forms of struggle to make themselves better, to actually up-level themselves.

[01:14:47] Because they're like this life is a struggle, but, you know, we cater to the weakest part of society and, you know, you can, you can have shelter, you can have food, all that kind of stuff. But it's the people that actually, uh, significantly tack on these struggles on top of themselves to create new problems for themselves.

[01:15:02] These are the guys who ended up growing. These are the guys who have the game better, you know? So it is what it is my friend.

[01:15:09] Josh: Dude, that is such an incredible insight. Wow. Okay. My mind is a little bit blown from that. 

[01:15:14] Um, okay. So last, last, real question. Um, so if you had a $1 billion advertising budget, I know that you right now are really focusing on organic and be like, I don't even want to touch paid ads yet. We talked about, um, so if you did have a $1 billion budget that you can post across every social platform posts some billboards and you can just give one message, what would it be? 

[01:15:40] Dan: Oh, gosh, I wish he asked me this question. Like the other day, got me. Give me time to prepare for it. Uh, Man, uh, 

[01:15:49] for me it would be Transform your Body, Transform your Life. Uh, I really do feel that, uh, the body and your choices with your body are the things that you have control over. 

[01:15:59] We don't have control over a lot of things. And we just talked about this in this podcast. Like it's actually about relinquishing a lot of the control. You don't necessarily have that you think you have, and to only, you know, maybe double down on the things that you actually do have control over. So you have control over how you move your body.

[01:16:15] You have control over the foods that you put into your body. And then once you start doing these things like exercising, drinking, water, uh, getting, uh, eating the right foods, those very. Are the very acts that will make you happier. They will bring more peace to your life. They will actually give you more energy even without changing your body.

[01:16:37] Just the simple act of trying to get in shape is going to transform your life. And then once these body starts, once you actually start to walk around with like, uh, less with a, without a 20 or 30 pound weight vest on you and you start to feel really good about yourself, start to feel really like yourself.

[01:16:51] Again, that's going to transform your life and that's going to transform the lives of everyone around you. So if I had a billion dollars, uh, unlike Drake, I wouldn't be putting my lyrics all over the Gardner and all over the highway or whatever, but I would put, I would put a chance from your body chance from your life.

[01:17:08] I would put that in everywhere, and this is actually a message that needs to be heard, uh, more so now than ever before, with everything that we're going through.

[01:17:16] Josh: I absolutely agree. And that's fantastic. That's a great way to wrap up here. 

[01:17:20] So I guess just before we get going, where can people find you online? Where can they learn a little bit more about high-performance founder and where can they get started? Like, if they're really interested in this, they really want to keep going further. 

[01:17:31] Dan: Yeah, uh, number one, um, if you want to follow me, go to twitter.com/fit founder. Uh, that's where I post every single day, about 10 to 12, 13, possibly more than that every single day. Uh, the next one is, is that you, if you are super motivated and you're already there and you're willing to really make that decision, you've made that decision that you want to get in shape and you want doing the most sustainable way possible.

[01:17:56] If you are an entrepreneur and I'd say, uh, go to our website, high-performance founder.com/. And apply for one of our coaching programs. I'm telling you right now, like we are doubling down on this program because it has a 94% success rate and is one of the most effective ways that I know to get entrepreneurs into shape in a way that stress-free in a way that actually minimizes the stress and increases our energy.

[01:18:20] So definitely if you're that, then go to that. I also have a podcast it's called the high-performance founder. So I go really deep into the topics that I talk about on Twitter on there. So those are, those are three awesome avenues in which you can get more of me. 

[01:18:34] Josh: That's awesome. Dan. Kay, so I'll put all those links in the description of this podcast. So you guys can quickly go to those and wherever you guys want to go next. You guys can choose your own adventure. There's plenty of places to go. 

[01:18:44] But Dan, this has been absolutely amazing, man. I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom and just having this amazing conversation. It's been an absolute blast on my end, man. 

[01:18:52] Dan: Absolutely same with me. Uh, thanks for teasing out a lot of the ideas and just having this great conversation. So I just want to say, thank you so much, and actually I do really appreciate, uh, you know, allowing me to, to speak to the guys that follow you.

[01:19:06] It's a, it is something that I actually appreciate. I'm grateful for. And, uh, yeah, man, thank you so much for this opportunity. 

[01:19:12] Josh: Awesome. Thanks so . Much Dan, All right, everyone. Thank you so much for listening or watching. If you're on YouTube, uh, until next time take care.

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