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0:00One of the things that I've noticed since we first met in Taki's mastermind, I think it was like Was it like 6 years ago? Yeah, we've known each other for a while. You have always been such a relationship builder. And you build relationships with people that like I think sometimes we can get transactional with it. It's like, "Oh, what can that person give me? I'll go build a relationship with them." But what I noticed about you is like you build a relationship with everybody and you do it really intentionally and over the long term. I don't see many people do that. So, I want to understand why you do it, kind of how you think about it, um and and what that's been like for you just in that relationship building area.

0:33>> Most people focus on money, but they don't realize that you actually have five trades. Meaning, you've got money, relationships, time, skill, and brand. If you just take money out, you can trade the other things, money, relationships, time, skill, and brand. Well, when you're starting out, you don't have money. You don't have relationships. You have some time. You have no skill, and you have no brand. So, all I had was time is the only thing that I had. So, I was like, "Well, how can I use this to trade for something else?"

1:03So, I just started to say, "Well, I'll just invest in a no scorecard relationship." That was the hardest thing. Most people have this scorecard-based relationship of I did something for Maria, so she's going to do something for me. Right? And early on from a transactional perspective, that probably gives you some transactional trust. But if you have a no scorecard relationship saying, "Hey, I'm going to deploy as much of my energy, goodwill into this process as possible, things will get better."

1:28Now, the crazy part is I had time and I didn't know what else to do. Therefore, I did the relationship thing. But I realized looking back that 95% of my net worth came from seven relationships. >> Interesting. >> The crazy part is you don't know what seven relationships when you start. And that's >> Well, that's kind of my question. So, it's like this is what I want to know is like you just did that. What I observed in the mastermind that we were in is you just showed up that way for everybody.

1:59>> Mhm. >> Yeah. How do you like you must prioritize, all right? Because we say we don't have time for it and that's really just saying I don't prioritize that. But genuinely, like you reply to text messages so fast. Do you How do you do that? I think it's my How are you doing this is my question. >> Um the you realize what I said that I I'll answer two things, in the macro and in the micro. In the macro, you have to realize that I'm a relation relationship-driven person. So, I just realized that the more I can give to others, the more it'll help them, the more I learn in that process. So, that's the first thing. The relationships are going to win at the end of the day.

2:35But it's hard to see dollar signs with a relationship. There needs to be more value to that. But in the micro, I'll give you a framework that I came up with that was super helpful for me. I call this the 10 10 forever rule. So, what 10 relationships are you willing to invest in for the next 10 years that will pay you forever? It's actually really hard to do that, right? So, if you took a piece of paper and said, "I'm going to invest in these 10 relationships for the next 10 years so that it'll pay me forever." I can guarantee you you may be able to put three names on that list.

3:07>> that. Truly, like I'm thinking of my daughter. >> Correct. >> [laughter] >> Exactly right. So, um I did that. I was able to put two names on that list. >> Okay. >> And so, I did not know who the other eight names were. So, everybody could have been part of that eight names. So, I just deployed everything to everybody to find the other eight. >> Do you have 10 on your list now? >> Seven. >> seven. >> Seven on that list. And it's been 10-plus years. So, seven people have actually generated 95% of my net worth from that list.

3:36And mechanically speaking, what does it What does it mean to be a 10 10 forever? What does it mean to say, "I'm going to give these 10 people, invest in them for the next 10 years"? I think about it as if there were a startup, am I buying their product? Am I showing up on their podcast? Am I promoting their services and and community Am I introducing them to my network? If they say, "Hey Shawn, can you come to this?"

4:00Am I saying, "Yes, where?" I'm doing whatever it takes to say yes to everything. So, it's to be a very yes-hinged relationship because you know that you don't see a direct ROI from it, but it is a it's 10 relationships for the next 10 years because you believe that that's what's going to happen. The crazy part is you don't know who the 10 are. So, you have to do it for maybe 20 30 40 50 people, and then you'll start to realize >> some people filter out. And you know what's so interesting is like people don't have staying power. So, some people will just take themselves off the list cuz they quit their business or if they pivot or whatever. I'm sure you've seen that.

4:31>> Are there names that we would recognize on that list? >> Um well, you know Alex and Leila, right? That they are the I had five on the list until I became partners with them. So, they are the the other two. We've not had a chance to contribute massive net worth to it yet, but it's coming. >> Yeah, for sure it's coming. I wanted to ask you about, you know, cuz you just recently became the CEO of acquisition.com. I'm assuming that it was in part because Leila's now having a baby or whatever. I'm sure you've seen that.

4:57Okay, interesting. So, that's good to know cuz I think a lot of people think this is a very planned-out, let's shift Shawn in so that Leila can Yeah. >> Well, the crazy part is Leila's my best friend. We didn't even know this was happening. This was a kind of 6-month thing that we were working through, and then we we actually pushed it because for a couple of different logistical reasons, and then finally we made the decision to do it. We announced it internally. In fact, we announced it internally 3 months before the the public actually knew.

5:24And then after we made the announcement, Leila one day called me. She's like, "Hey, I have something sensitive to talk to you about." And the the bigger idea was that this would give her capacity to consider those things. It just happened a lot sooner than we thought. >> Oh, and that's so good though. I mean, you're a parent, you know, like we all feel so I think so excited for them because I know that for me having experienced so much career success, being a parent is so much better. And you've talked about this, too. Um what's something do you that you think people should know about acquisition.com that they don't that you've kind of seen in your role now as CEO or even before?

5:55Like, what's something we should know about acquisition.com and we don't? >> Close to 30% of acquisition.com's operating budget is to build free stuff. >> Interesting. >> So, just think about your company's operating budget and saying, "I'm going to slice off 30% of that just to give everything away." >> PDFs, videos >> team >> team

6:20>> content, all of that. So, we have close to 30% is just built to provide free stuff. >> Yeah, I think a lot of people would be really surprised to hear that. And that would challenge their business because maybe they're spending 2% of their time on free stuff. >> The reason I suggest this is people don't know why. >> Mhm. >> And there is a 99% selfless, 1% selfish reason to that, right? The 99% selfless is you want to It's a lot easier to give away your best stuff to the world. But, the 1% selfish stuff is what people don't realize is when you give away so much free stuff, what is the point of building brand? The entire point of building brand is to reduce CAC.

6:56As in cost of acquiring a client. >> Um if let's pick a name. If Tony Robbins ran an ad or Jim Johnson from next door ran an ad and they ran the same ad with the same hook, with the same creative, with the same dollars, who would get better economics? >> Obviously Tony. >> Tony would. And that The result of that is because you have this air air kind of air power of brand. And the sooner you realize that, what you're doing is you're deploying goodwill in the marketplace so that it dramatically reduces reduces CAC. And the the greatest hack that most people don't realize is having zero CAC. In fact, we have negative CAC. We get paid to acquire clients.

7:35>> Tell me more about that. >> So, the average person will say, "Hey, we're going to run an ad and it's going to cost us $10 to be able to do that. But for us, on average, we get 100 to 200 companies every single week that just inbound us for wanting an investment. Give you the the crazy a crazy stat. Uh we invest in businesses.

8:01And the hardest part to invest in businesses is getting businesses to invest in, like candidates. There are other companies like acquisition.com that do that and they're in the private equity model. Well, there's a lot of private equity companies in the United States. We get more inbound lead flow than all the private equity companies in the country combined. >> insane. And it's cuz of the brand. >> Right, cuz we don't even have enough manpower. Now that we have AI, it's good. But we don't even have enough manpower to actually go through all the submissions of all the companies that want to work with us.

8:35>> And so tiny percentage actually you can invest in. The rest get put into other things and this is what how you say you have you get paid to acquire customers. That's really good. >> Right. So now now you now they're on our list. Now they come to our workshops. Now they So we didn't have to go pay money to acquire them as a client. >> And this was all and that sort of it follows what I've observed about the the model of acquisition.com where it really started with the only thing that you could do was potentially be invested in and then I imagine what you did basically as I understand it is you looked at all the unqualified leads and you're like, how do we make something that's actually qualified for them so they can become qualified? And that dilutes or like basically you have all these people we're talking to, let's create something for them. You created something for your marketplace.

9:21>> Sort of. So our model is really simple. We invest in businesses and all the advice that we give the businesses, they are all frameworks, processes, learnings, methodologies, etc. We said, well, we have all of these and we know that they work, how do we get these out to the world? So, now in our workshop model, which is our advisory practice, we say, "Hey, we've deployed all of these strategies into businesses. We know that they work. We've tweaked and figured them out. We want to give you the learnings on that." So, now we let the businesses that we can't work with, we teach them the same exact frameworks.

9:53>> That makes sense. And it's just Yeah, that's so smart. I think a lot of people just say, "Oh, I have 2% of my leads are qualified, and I'll just dump and do nothing with the other 98%." That's very interesting. >> Yeah. >> Do you feel that everyone should be building a personal brand? What's your thoughts on that? Should every single business owner be building a personal brand? Tell me more about that. >> Fame is the most efficient business model. >> Okay. >> Right? Because imagine if you had no Instagram.

10:18>> Yeah. I can't. Please Let's not put that out in the universe. >> No, but there's a reason for that. You you took the time to actually building an asset, and that asset now allows you to run your business. Well, what is the What people don't understand is that at some point, the business has got to do with CAC. Everything is about cost of acquiring client. And if you just use that as the operating metric, you have two ways to go about it. You can either do it organically and build a brand so that you can then reduce CAC and make acquiring client cheaper, or you can go run ads and acquire the client. So, for example, you have You talk about this.

10:57You build a new product. You tell people, "Hey, I've spent the last 6 months building this product. I've uh taught all my students this. It's had great results. I want because you've been following me, I want to offer it to you first. Comment the word product, and you you're going to go get it, right? Well, dollar for dollar, you outside of your ManyChat subscription, there's no cost to actually get that lead, but you've spent a year and a half of content media team, etc. to get that. So, net-net, you have spent the dollars in some way.

11:28Or you can just run an ad. And the nice part is, when you run an ad, you get a transactional client. When you actually get when you build a brand, you get an endorsed client. The client already trusts. So, normally when you get a when you pay for a lead, the lead is generally skeptical. But when they come through the brand, they're they're warmed up. They're predisposed to actually buying stuff from you. >> That's so smart. And you know what we've noticed is and I'm sure this is like you you know this, obviously, but we've noticed is like we just the more we do the organic stuff, the cheaper the cost of acquisition is. But you're right, there is a real cost and we sat down and like actually calculate. We know how much uh cost to acquire an organic customer is based on labor and team and all of that. Um but it it we noticed it immediately. We started running ads or we started doing organic content 3 years ago, but we had been running ads for a few years before that and we immediately noticed a huge dip in our cost to acquire customers. Um so, I'm going to ask just cuz I'll I'll share a little bit about where I want to go while we're talking about personal brands and I'd love to get your thoughts on what you would do in my shoes. Um I want to be like the next Dave Ramsey. I want to be the next Oprah. Like I really am very comfortable saying I want to be famous at that level. Um I do think it's a very efficient business model and I think that the people that I want to help are those beginners who, you know, I always say I don't want to help millions of people or I don't want to help a few people make millions of dollars. I want to help millions of people make a few extra thousand dollars a month. Um and so me and Oprah and me and Dave Ramsey, we have similar target markets. What would you do in my shoes if I wanted to go from like kind of like a a medium-sized fish in a small pond to a bigger fish in a bigger pond, what would you do if you were me?

13:03Modeling what already works is a really good thing, right? For two reasons. One, that you have format validation. And two, you have audience comfort. What do I mean by that? For 30-plus years, what did Ramsey do? He did a call-in talk show and he talks to these people about their personal finances and how they should get out of debt and tear up their credit cards and do the thing, right?

13:29The advice that he gives them is like 20 minutes long. It's generally the same thing. >> thing. No, yes, it is. >> asks the same exact third series of 13 questions, and then he provides a quip and an idea here, which is good, and he has done that. But, there's two things that are very important there. Number one is he has tested and validated a format that works. So, the format validation makes sense. You don't have to reinvent that. The second is more importantly, the audience accepts that as a validated, trusted format.

14:01It's crazy that you say Oprah and Dave because both of them have validated that same format. And Suze Orman did the same exact thing, but the talk show >> [laughter] >> Good. >> Yeah. The talk show format is a it actually works, and um there's a third extra benefit, which is the halo effect. When someone is asking you the question, you're automatically the the authority and the expert in the space. So, the to reach that, the more you can position yourself as the expert and then be helpful simultaneously, it works.

14:41I would I would use an existing format to attract that. I would not have to I would not validate creating a new format. >> Just keep doing what they what they've done essentially or what that works for you. >> Yes, however, you have to think about unreasonable volume, right? And so, it's it's 35 years of Dave doing four or five hours a day, >> Mhm. >> you know, in that process. And because of that, he has two things.

15:06Um significant reps, so he can do it over and over and over again. You're just good at it, and if you like it and you're good at it, you just get keep getting better at it. You get mastery. And second, the there's so many more opportunities for people to get involved in that process. So, you touch a lot more people with five hours a day of doing it as opposed to one s- session every week. >> It's true and I think that like when we That's one of the questions I have for you. I want to talk about volume because you are such a master at volume. I I never forget. I mean, you've done so many different things at at volume, but one of the things that rocked my socks off was when you talked about doing a hundred plus speeches in a year, right?

15:44Did I read that I saw that somewhere correctly? I've done like 19 since October and I just can't wrap my mind around a hundred and I want to know, can you talk about volume? I think that my audience, they're beginners. They're the gap between what they think it takes and the reps that actually takes is so huge. I would love for you to just pull back that curtain and talk about volume to them for a minute. >> I don't think a lot of people see this. Um so I'll give you a baseball example. Babe Ruth, who if you know baseball, um is known for the number of home runs he hit, but the people don't really know the number of strike outs he got, which is wild. Uh there's this guy Jim Dyson, who actually created the Dyson vacuum.

16:205,126 attempts to try to create a vacuum. He made the vacuum that we know as of it today in 5,127th attempt. If he had given up in his 5,000th attempt, we would not probably have a vacuum as it is today. Uh take Abraham Lincoln. Most people don't know this. He lost eight elections before he actually became one of the greatest presidents in the United States.

16:45We don't realize the volume game. Now, um most successful people have this amazing complex of superiority, which they believe that, "Hey, I have something to share with the world. I'm good at this thing. Therefore, I'm going to show up and do the thing." But they also have crippling insecurity. I have crippling insecurity. So I believe that, "Man, I'm not talented enough. So what would I need to do to make this work?"

17:09So I ask myself the question, "What would make the input volume so high that it would be unreasonable that I fail. And I just say, "Oh, that's what I need to do? I'll just make it unreasonable that I actually fail." So, the the volume thing is really important because uh you just have to convince yourself that the number of If the number of inputs are so high, you just put tilt all the odds in your favor. There's actually a great story. I don't know if you've heard Have you heard of the 60 lbs of uh 60 lbs of clay story?

17:40>> I don't think I have, no. >> So, uh a professor at a university walks into class, a pottery class, and he says, "Hey, divide the class into two halves. That all of you, you are going to make the perfect pot this semester. And this this other group, group B, your job is to make as many pots as you can. You're going to make 60 lbs of clay. And at the end of the semester, we're going to judge, you know, who had the perfect pot." Well, at the end of the semester, they looked and you had perfect pots from the one perfect pot from the group A and lots of pots from group B. And they found that all the perfect pots came from group B.

18:17>> Just cuz of the reps. >> All the perfect pots came from the reps. And when you realize that there's so many versions of this, you just say, "Man, I I the volume will get me the results." Um there's a great kind of three-word phrase that Alex uses. He says, "Volume negates luck." >> I think I've heard that, yeah. >> And anytime you get stuck, you're like, "Hey, this is the Where What would it take for me to be What would it take so that it's unreasonable that I fail?" And I think there's an unreasonability to this overall.

18:45I'll actually tell you a I talked to my son about this. So, my son's 14, which is wild. Ellie, we'll get there in a second. >> I know. I can't believe he's 14. Cuz when I met you, I think he was like maybe eight or nine. Yeah. >> So, uh when we have children, we often talk about this concept of deserving. We say, "Oh, yeah, that kid. Oh, she deserves to go to Harvard. She deserves to have gotten that uh success. She deserved to have made that football team. She deserves to have gotten to this camp. She deserves that.

19:13He deserves that. And in colloquial language, we understand what that means. But what is deserving? So, it made me like stop and redefine what deserving means. It's like, what is deserving? And what would it mean for me to deserve the success that I want? What would it mean for you to deserve, you know, the fame, the the fortune, and the impact that you have? What What does deserve mean? And I realized that if I could define deserve, then I would get whatever I wanted. And so, I came up with this definition of deserve, which is having unreasonable effort, but reasonable expectations.

19:49>> Yep. >> So, if somebody uh said, "Oh, I I can't believe, you know, Jenny made the the golf team." You're like, "She showed up three times a day. She worked out before they got there. She actually worked out after. She got private training. She got group training." Unreasonable effort, and her reasonable expectation was she would make the team. >> I think my students who are beginners have the exact opposite problem. They have unrealistic expectations, and they're nowhere near putting in the reps that they need to. And so, I think that's really good for them to hear. I think what I'd love to touch on and you you've done you know, you've you've had so many starts, right? You've You've done a lot of different things in your career.

20:28Um there's this pivotal point that my people like run into, and they've been doing it for a little bit of time, and they're discouraged, and they feel like they've been putting the reps in, um but they haven't yet seen the results. They haven't yet seen the success. Um what would you say to them? How can I get them to stick with it and put in the actual volume that they need? How do I help them bridge that gap?

20:52>> Two answers to that. The best way to know that you're actually in the right path is to have two things in place. Number one is to believe in the input-output formula. Hey, Maria said that I need to do these three things and I will get the result. Cool. Input output formula. The next thing you ask yourself is what would it take to make this unreasonably tilted in my favor? Well, she said do these three things. Can I do this 10 times? I'll give you a crazy story.

21:25I've been working with the US Navy SEALs in a very special program because most Navy SEAL team members are in the SEAL teams for 10 20 years and when they retire they know nothing else apart from taking orders and doing the thing. And in this program that I'm with, I get to sign one retiring tier one operator a year. I just talked to this guy and he says, "Well, what do you think I should do, Sharon?" And I said, "You have an amazing story. You should get on podcasts and tell your story. But before you do that, you need to build a presentation and you need to deliver that presentation multiple times." He goes, "How many times?"

22:03I said I picked a number. I said 100. He goes, "Okay." Six months goes by and he delivered 300 of those. >> Oh my gosh. >> Right? He said to me, "Sharon, you said to me like what would it take for me to be make it unreasonable that I fail?" And in one of those 300 interviews the person who interviewed him hired him to be the president of his company. So, you're taking the input output equation where I said 100, do the 100 and he's like, "What would it take for me to be make it unreasonable?" And he did the thing.

22:35The The advice that I would give your students is make sure you have the input output output equation. Know exactly what the inputs are to get the output that you want and then ask yourself how can I supercharge this input to make it unreasonable that there's no way that I don't get this result. >> Do you think that part of beginner struggles in this is that they don't really want like they hear the volume and they're like I don't want it that bad. Do you think that Does that Do you notice that or do you think the more is disconnect and like the lack of them knowing what to do?

23:04Like they're unclear on their inputs or they don't want to do the inputs. >> I think they don't know. I think they don't have certainty that the inputs will work, right? So, it is our job as teachers, leaders, mentors to say, "Hey, here [snorts] are the things that need to happen along the way." I think it's very hard. So, for example, for right now, if you told me, "Hey, if you do this thing for the next 10 years, I think it will work." I'm at a point in my life now where I can do that.

23:32>> Yeah. >> But early on if you told me, "Hey, you just have to stick to this for 10 years." That's hard to do do that. So, what we should do is to say, "Hey, here's the input-output equation. Your first goal is this." So, I'll give you an example. A lot of people talk about financial freedom. And Ramsey, Orman, whatever. And I was thinking, man, this is so hard. That How how You're talking about full financial security? That is insane.

23:58That's a very hard concept. And because most people don't know how to put their mind around that, they just say, "Well, I want to be a billionaire." I'm like, bro. >> [laughter] >> You have no idea what a billion dollars is. I think that's a lot, right? And I have my friend recently, he said, "Well, I want to have a $55 million net worth before I'm 55." I go, "Why?" He goes, "Well, it sounded cool." Sounded cool? You I mean, you you make $100,000 a year right now. This is great. And that to 55 million is a big jump.

24:24So, I came up with this the milestones. And I said the first milestone of actually getting there is you want your active income to be greater than your monthly expenses. So, you want your job to actually manage your lifestyle. That way you're like, "Hey, I'm working really hard. I can live the lifestyle that I want. I feel good." Most people, if you just do that, you're already in 80% of America, you're already doing really really well. Well, what is the second milestone?

24:49Now, it's not a billion dollars. The second milestone in my opinion is having one year's worth of expenses in liquid investable assets. Because if the world goes to hell in a handbasket, you at least have one full year to reinvent yourself. I'd be like, "Hey, world went to hell in a handbasket. I lost my job. I I go on Murray's Instagram and I follow everything that she says and I have 1 year to reinvent myself. Cool, so I have that." Well, third is the biggest jump, which is now to get financial freedom, you need to stop trading time for money. Well, what does that mean? You need to become an investor of some sort or have the business work for you.

25:24The so the third milestone is where your passive income is equal to your monthly expenses. That means you're not trading time for money and something is happening, right? Either your business or you run an affiliate program or your investments, etc. So, now you have to move away from being an active investor to an active worker to a passive investor. Now you have to learn new skills. Then the next milestone is you're then saying, "Okay, cool. I have my passive income is equal to my monthly expenses means I'm financially free. Like, I can wake up in the morning and not do anything and my lifestyle's taken care of." Well, what's next? Well, can your passive income be two times your monthly expenses? That means it covers everything and you have a whole 'nother load where you can do whatever else you want with it. So, you have all this discretionary income.

26:08I feel like once you do that, after that is what I call a post-economic plan where you're not thinking about money anymore. Now you're you're doing it because you want to do it. Now you're doing it because you want to do art, you want to do a podcast, you want to create, you want to write, you do whatever else. And that can be how you get to whatever you want. I will tell you that I'm fortunate to be along that spectrum. I made more money after I did all of that because I then started doing the thing that I want and my day-to-day work didn't stress me out anymore. But the problem is nobody gives people the steps. So, I tell people, "What is the first step? You need your active income to be greater than your monthly expenses." That means you need a job with good skills. Let's go do that first. Once you have that, cool, then we can can next step. And that I think gives people um courage to do things along the way as opposed to saying, "Man, I have to do this for 10 years."

26:56>> Well, and this is one of the questions I wanted to ask you about. And I think even just what you just did there, how you broke down that it it's it reminds me of all the things you taught me over the years, which is like, everyone is like, "Oh, I want financial freedom." I'm like, "Okay, cool. I'm $100,000 in debt. I want to be financially free." And you just you just broke that down so well. Um one of the things I wanted to ask you is like, "Why do you work? Like, what what do you want?" Um clearly you're far beyond that and you have been for a very long time. Prob like why why what's it for you what's it for you? Why why do you work?

27:24>> Entrepreneurship for me is a vehicle for personal growth. And I get to be a better version of myself every day. I get to figure out how I can do better, be better, give better, become a more enlightened version of myself. To me, it's that is all that I care about. And the new challenges at work are just a requirement for me to grow.

27:51And the more I grow, the easier I can handle the thing. Well, take a take an easy example. Um let's take an entrepreneur that will take a Jeff Bezos. Well, would Jeff Bezos of today, if he got the same problem and I got the same problem, would he be stressed out or I be stressed out more? You know, he would I would be stressed out more. Why? Because he's already seen that not because of any other reasons, because he's grown. His capacity has grown, his maturity has grown. And I today Maria today is less stressed about a certain set of problems that she would have been stressed out about 7 years ago. Yeah, I was calling you for some of my problems. You were

28:32>> But but you're you're better off because you've you've grown. You know, you've grown and you're you you have the ability to manage that stress well. And uh to me, running a business is and doing entrepreneurship is just a is a hack for personal growth. >> Do you believe that a business can only grow to the extent the founder can grow? >> Oh, there is no question. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Cuz otherwise, you can't see past what is possible.

28:57Therefore, you will self-sabotage. You'll be like, "Oh, this is the cap." You just can't see past what's possible. >> Yeah, I've noticed that, too. I I I notice even like cuz I mostly work with like this little six and seven, you know, and so I'm like, I can see so clearly this issue, this it's even like little character things, like the fact that you gossip. That's Like you see little character issues that I I think really holds them down. Um you you know, you've you've had such a journey of evolution from, you know, coming over from India, I think when you were 17, right? And you you share about that on social media and how you, you know, had such a time of it in college and then you started so many different businesses. What's been the most like what during what period have you grown the most? The biggest jump from point one to point two.

29:39>> Um as I look back, the the growth has not been linear. >> Mhm. >> It's not been a Hey, this is how you normally grow. It's been very uh step functiony. So, you grow and you like plateau for a little bit and then you have this something happens and you grow again and then you plateau for a little bit and then something happens that you grow again. I have not found it to be a nice, clean,

30:06>> [laughter] >> smooth curve. Um and I've also found that the growth has generally come from pain. >> Mhm. >> Um I'll tell you a crazy story. For a while, I never talked about this, but I lost a million dollars making an investment. And I never even talked to people about that at all because then that means I would be telling the world that I had a million dollars to lose, which would then give them a window into how much money I had and then that would just cause a lot of pain, which is not my personality.

30:39But we state the facts and tell the truth, so it was important for me to tell tell people what happened. So, a company approached me for a potential investment. I did not know them. And so, I said to them, I was like, "Hey, I don't we don't have a relationship, so I will consult with you. You will pay me a consulting fee. I will consult with you. We'll do it for a 6-month period. And at that end of the period, one of two things happen. I I choose to make an investment at that time, which means I write a check and I will roll my entire consulting fee back into the business, or we go our separate ways." And they said that was good. So, for the 6-month period, I worked very closely with this business, went to their offices, met their teams, saw their books. Business grew, they took my advice.

31:21And at the end of 6-month mark, I was like, "All right, cool. I feel good about this business. I'm willing to write the check." So, I wrote the check, rolled my consulting fee in. That's the first check, by the way. I was going to write a bigger check. And within 2-3 day period, the founder just disappeared. Like, gone off the face of the earth. Could not find him. Realized that the he had kept two sets of accounting books. The people that I met were not even were actors.

31:46The office space was not his actual office space. It was all a sham. >> Wow. >> And I even hired a private eye to go find the guy because you can't serve somebody a notice if you can't find the person. >> It rocked me for one reason. Now, whether it's a million-dollar investment or a hundred-thousand-dollar investment or ten-thousand-dollar investment, the whichever level you're in, it rocked my ability as an investor to say, "Wow, I I I missed so many pieces of this. I am I didn't get the person, I didn't get the problem, I couldn't read the situation, I couldn't read the investment. I was like, am I even good at any of this?"

32:25And a lot of therapy, by the way. Uh and then one day I finally I had the courage to tell my wife, and I told her, I was like, "Hey, this is what happened." And her question was, "What did you learn?" Right? So, I said, "Well, I learned that I will never make these mistakes again." And I came up with a framework for making new investment. I told her the framework. I said, "It's good people, good intentions, good rationale, good contract." Good people as in, you know, who are they? Do you know them? Good intentions as in, if this goes under, what would they do? Good rationale is like, does it work on a spreadsheet? Good contracts is, do you actually have a have a deal term? A lot of people are just show me the contract first.

32:58>> Yeah. >> Right? And the contracts are irrelevant when you can't find the dude. Like, you can't even serve him, you know? >> Yeah. >> And so, she said to me, she's like, "Hey, that was it it was probably the best million-dollar investment that you could have made to learn that lesson. Just think about it as tuition." And that that's hard. >> Well, and I'm sitting here thinking like, the most thing I got from that is your wife is amazing. Like like I kind of want to talk about relationships for a minute just in the family. You have, you know, you speak so highly of your wife, you speak so highly of your kids. And a lot of the girls in in my space were, you know, maybe looking for partners and were were kind of trying to find like, how do you find someone like that? What do you think you did right? Or what do you see a lot of entrepreneurs who are dating? What do they do wrong?

33:43>> This is a very lopsided view of the world because just I only know what works for me. The single most important thing to a great relationship is to not think of it as 50/50, but think of it as 100/0. And if you can't find a way where you take full responsibility for everything that happens in the relationship, then it gets very difficult. Because you're like, "Wow, Maria didn't show up." And I'm like, "What do you mean? It's everything is my fault. Everything is my responsibility. Everything is my job."

34:13So, that's the first thing. The second is most partners don't have a communication rubric on what on how to actually communicate with each other. They will use arbitrary words like, "Well, it'd be nicer if you were just kinder to me. It'd be nicer if you like If you want me to change, just tell me politely. Well, what does that mean? And so, Alex and I have this conversation, you know, cuz he's a He communicates differently, I communicate differently.

34:42So, when he gives me feedback on something, he goes, "Hey Sharon, can you help me with something?" And then he says, "When you do X, I feel this way. Would you do Y instead? It will make me feel better." I go, "Awesome." Right? But, the framing of that is "Hey, could you help me with something?" So, now you have simple communication protocol protocol that allow for a better relationship. The third is most most partners don't understand the best ways to communicate with each other. For example, one partner likes to talk, the other partner doesn't like to talk. One partner likes to text, the other partner doesn't like to text. So, the sooner you can find a way to communicate with each other, the easier it is The incompatibility comes when you don't have a way to communicate, and that's where things start to break. Like my wife and I will sit next to each other on the couch and we'll text back and forth.

35:30Right? Because it's it's words, there's no fear on paper. The words are easier cuz you just take a minute and you write and you like figure it out. But, when we talk, sometimes we can get heated, right? And things can You don't get the right words to come out. So, when you're typing it, you have to like think and make sure it works. So, if you take full responsibility and you define terms, so you are good with each other, and the third is if you find a simple communication mechanism that both of you can communicate the same way, all 80 to 90% of it gets gets easier.

35:58>> And with your kids, I want to know like things you're like from an entrepreneur's perspective, a business owner's perspective. Obviously, I mean, when you're an entrepreneur, it your entire world is seen through that lens. Um, your kids are still work in progress, but I'm kind of curious to know what are some What's something that you're doing as a parent that you're proud of?

36:24>> This one thing broke my heart, which led to a lot of important things. So, let me tell you what happened. I was with a friend recently and he said, and and the kids were there. So, I was with my friend and he said, "Oh, kids, you don't you don't understand how hard like we had it when we were growing up. We didn't have the Xbox that you do. We didn't have the money that you have. We didn't have a pool to jump into. We didn't live in Orange County, California. We didn't you know, we didn't have to walk, you know, uh to school. No one dropped us off in in carpool, etc."

37:00And it really irked me. It was true, but it really irked me because what do we want to do as parents? We turn around on one side and say, "I want my children to have a significantly better life than me. I want them to make sure that they don't go through the same pains that I did." And then we turn around and say that, "Hey, Ellie, you never you you can't believe how good you have it." That's in conflict. That does not work, right? But I think there's a learning there, which will answer your question, which is what we are trying to do is we're trying to tell our children that they're not going through hard things like we went through. But it's not their job to go through the same hard things that we went through. It is their job to go through different hard things. And it's our job as parents to help them learn to do hard things. Well, what are the hard things? Hard thing number one is to uh learn something.

37:57For Neil or Lara or Ellie to learn something, it's very difficult. You can't just give them something. They have to If If she has to learn how to ride a bike, she doesn't know how to ride a bike. And then she has to fall and she has to learn how to ride a bike. You can get her a coach. You can spend time with her. You can hold the back of her bike. You can do whatever. But she has to learn how to ride the bike. That is doing a hard thing. And so, when children learn, they actually realize they're at zero. They learn the thing, they get better, they get confidence, they have confidence do hard things. That's number one. Second is most people in our world in in our generation right now, they have a struggle focusing.

38:34Because of social media, because of Tik Tok, because of you know, quick fast communication, whatever. So, I think focusing for a long time is a hard thing. And I take a deep responsibility in teaching my kids to focus for a long period of time. For example, on weekends my my daughter learns She does like an outside math class. So, we sit down for 3 hours and we work on math together. >> Now, I don't even care if she gets it right, but her sitting down with me and doing one thing for 3 hours shows her that she can do that thing. So, the next time she's like, oh I just have to do this for 20 minutes, she's like, psh, I could do that because again, it shows that she can do the hard thing.

39:10The third way of getting people to do hard things is to separate your feelings from the thing that you're doing. So, Ellie gets You could say, hey, clean your room. She's like, well, can I watch a video first? So, I ask, well, what do you think the right thing to do is? Because now they have a choice. Right? They have to not accept their mood and actually follow the plan. And you have to make that choice, and making the choice is a hard thing. So, I believe that the hardest thing to do for our children is in this modern world of us having means is to create environments of hard things for them to do. Otherwise, they will be raised soft kids.

39:52>> And I don't want that, right? And and I think a lot of entrepreneurs were we appreciate the hard things that we went through as children, the lack of funds or whatever it was, because it made us who we are. >> Exactly. >> And and I feel that with Ellie, right? I I I buy her everything she wants. >> course. >> I but I but I didn't I think it was so good that I didn't get everything I wanted. And so, you said something or it was like giving her that option, I think it's so important because it teaches her that my feelings are different than what I'm going to do, and I observe in my beginner students so often they don't they're not unable to do they to separate like I'm feeling this way, therefore I'm going to do it. It's like, "Oh, I'm discouraged. My Instagram content isn't working, so I'm going to stop posting on Instagram." Right?

40:30That's the pattern. And so, I think that it's not just kids maybe that need to learn that. >> I'll tell you I know a lot of your students spend a spend a lot of time doing media, which I think and you teach them to do that, which is good. Alex is a good example. So, when when I first met Alex, no one knew Alex, right? This was a gym launch days, nobody knew who Alex Hormozi was. And Alex saw, you know, I think Kylie Jenner or somebody, and he's like, "Man, if she can do that with the brand, I should make my brand." So, he started doing the thing. So, I asked him, said, "Well, what if it didn't work?"

41:08And he says, "I mean, it's just content. It's free. I'd just figure it out. I would do more." And I I I thought that was so simple but yet so profound, which essentially tells people that everything that you post is just a test. So, our team right now, which I think every single person should take this approach is before you post something, you should hypothesize how it will perform and why.

41:34>> Yeah. >> So, we say, "Hey, we're going to post this skit. We think that people are going to like this, and it's going to get a million views." And then you post it, and it performs and it gets a million views. Now, it builds the calibration of the team that's saying, "We know what works." >> Works, yeah. >> We post it and it bombs, you're like, "Huh, why did it bomb?" Now, everything becomes a test. So, the team now is in a really good spot of actually posting something and telling you the hypothesis around it to the point where we post things knowing that they're not going to perform to prove that our hypothesis is right.

42:12>> Wow. >> So, we say "This is not a good hook. This will not perform. This is Shonduras talking on camera. This is not the right message. There's no audience to message match. This will not get even 10,000 views." You post, 4,000 views. We are right. >> Right? That's a really good thing. And a lot of people are like, "Wait, what?" If you actually scroll my feed, you will see a lot of like really low um engagement posts because a team very clearly hypothesized and posted that. >> And they know.

42:38>> And they know. And so, the platform for us is not always a let's do something to make it perform better. The platform for us is just a learning mechanism. And if the team can't be really good about saying, "Hey, I know this will work and why," then we have lost our ability to be instructive in what we actually do. And I think because of that, our team is better. >> You know, it's so interesting because I I some of my students what I a lot of my students what I what I tell them is we have this thing that's called like the um thousand followers in 30 day challenge, right? Because my my people are they were babies. We're just getting started. And every once in a blue moon, usually it works. Usually they post for 30 days, you get a thousand followers.

43:13It's easy. But every once in a blue moon, all of the student come to me and say, "Maria, I posted every day for 30 days and I didn't get a thousand followers." And I asked them, I was like, "Did you audit the posts as you were going along?" And they're like, "Audit?" And so, I think it's it's it's the volume and then it's also like you said, it's really understanding what makes something flop, what makes something um go viral. And I don't see I I notice so much growth come like we we're even doing this as a team. We're every week we're looking at top reels, bottom reels, and then why were the bottom reels bottoms and then we were eliminating them because that's exactly exactly it. You have to know um what's working. And sometimes the algorithm or whatever you want to call it like we're like, "Yeah, this one will go viral." That's the one that gets 2,000 views. And so, that shows that gap between where we still need to learn ourselves. What's working for you hook-wise? Like what what do you what do you what's your hook philosophy? What do you How do you guys write hooks? What works for you guys?

44:02>> Um as long as it's contrarian, >> Mhm. >> it works. Uh and because people are scrolling and they're like oh, three ways to grow your business, two ways to do this. Well, fine. But I think the contrarian hooks work better. For people starting out I have a uh I have a simple framework that people can use. Especially if you're on a podcast and you don't know what you're saying and you're like, "Hey man, I have to like I have to take this and package it." Uh I call it the the one, the best, the worst, the only. So, the one. Hey, the one thing that you need to do is to do blank.

44:40Easy way for the team to cut because you start with the one. The best. Hey, the best thing that you can do to grow your business is to get a dog or get a puppy or whatever, right? Uh the worst. The worst mistake I ever made was doing blank. The only. The only thing that every entrepreneur needs to do right now is to fly a kite, right? Whatever it may be. So, whenever anyone is stuck, so if if you're ans- asking answering questions, if someone's giving you prompts when you're recording videos, if you're unsure of what to do, just go with the one, the best, the worst, the only. At least as a default, it starts to you'll start to make better content. Now, will that hook format work? Maybe, maybe not.

45:17At least it's significantly better than "Hey guys, today I was thinking about, you know, cuz they've already swiped on the hey guys." >> Do you Do you have any like um vanity metric goals? Are you trying to get to a certain number of followers? Like as you're building your personal brand, I mean, even from the time I've known you, it's obviously grown tremendously. Do you have any vanity metrics that you're working towards? >> Yes. Um I have realized that all the adults in the room are on YouTube.

45:42>> Oh, interesting. >> And as soon as So, we uh we actually launched a YouTube channel in January of this year. >> Okay. >> Um we hit 100,000 subscribers in 63 days. >> That's amazing. >> we only posted five videos. So, five videos, 63 days, 100,000 subs. Um we are call it day 100 or something right now and that started to grow. The thing that we saw from our overall impression base was as soon as we posted on YouTube, all our channels lifted.

46:09>> That is interesting. >> So, it is crazy when I say this, I don't log into any of my social platforms anymore. Uh not TikTok, not LinkedIn, not not Twitter, not uh Instagram. Maybe maybe to make some uh general engagement, but the only platform I actually log into is YouTube. >> That's a That is I mean, you beat my record. I thought I was the cuz I did it in like 6 100k in 6 months or something, but 63 days is insane. Did you get your plaque yet?

46:36>> I did get my plaque and so the crazy story on this is my daughter who's nine is uh a she loves media. She wants to be a She wants to be a creator. So, she said to me, so I actually got the plaque. I gave it to her. She was super super happy about it and she said, "Dad, I want to you know, she's like, I want to start a YouTube channel." And I said, "You should." She's like, "Would you get me an editor?" And I said, so I said, "Yes, if." So, in our house, we don't say no, we say yes, if.

47:02>> Okay. >> And so I said, "Yes, if you post 30 videos in 30 days." And she says, "What do you mean?" I said, "If you post 30 videos in 30 days on your channel, I'll get you an editor." 31 days later, she showed me she posted 30 videos in 30 days. On her own, edited by herself, without me touching it, without me knowing about it, she posted 30 videos in 30 days. Now, when someone does that, you got to she earned the right to asking me for this because now I'm just like, "Hey, >> You want to do something?

47:28>> she will do whatever it takes to do that. But you know, the plaque was really cool. I dedicated the plaque to the team because they they crushed it. But I've just realized that long form is just so hard to disrupt. Uh it's probably the time the journey that I'm in right now, but it also starts to feed a lot of the short form. >> Well, yeah, because you're cutting it up in clips. You know, it's so interesting. I posted so much on YouTube and I took a little break from it, but you are so right and I never put this together.

47:53This is what you do for me, Sharon. That we did see a lift on every platform when I was posting three cuz I would do three videos a week. I'm I'm just volume. Like I'm I'm not super smart, but like I'm a volume girl. Um and we noticed a lift everywhere. And so now we just this is day one of the studio and so now we're getting back into our YouTube videos um and I'm like they're right. Like it it does cuz we're trying to our vanity metric is we want to be at a million on Instagram by the end of the year. And we're like right on track. But you mentioned earlier you know, how many what do I have to do in order that it'll be impossible for it to not work?

48:25>> We kind of did the math on our numbers and we're like, okay. >> We need to post more. Like we're posting a lot, but we need to post more in order for it to be impossible for us not to hit that. >> Yes. >> And so you're right. I got to get back on the YouTube game. >> I there there is a account that is posting 100 videos a day. >> On Instagram? Yeah, it's the Mr. Beast one. >> Yeah. And >> It's our it's everyone's Roman Empire. >> Yeah. >> [laughter] >> I'm like this is crazy. And so it they're all automatically telling you that the plat the platforms are the like they're not supply constrained. Like people will look at your stuff. It'll it'll feed the audience in the right places. But I think there is a um for for your team and those that are thinking about like taking long form and making it short form.

49:06It's actually very difficult to do. And there's a reason for that, right? Because as you deliver a long form script now the team has to work really hard to cut the short form clips out of it. So what we do is um we do the long form script and then every time we do it in sections. And after every section we record three to five short form hooks. Section by section by section. >> Okay, so so give me an example. Yeah.

49:32>> So let's say I'm talking about the five laws of money. >> Okay. >> Right? I say, hey to- today we're going to talk to you about the five laws of money and the first law is and I talk about the law, right? At the end of that section uh I look to camera and I and I actually do five completely different short form hooks. >> For that video. >> For that for that section. >> Okay, interesting. >> And then I do the next section. Hey, number two is retirement is a myth. And then I talk about the whole thing. And then I say, hey, four ways to deal with retirement. The only thing you need to worry about retirement is blank. And I do all of those hooks. Then I go to the next section. So now, when the editors cut, they're like, oh, I got this really good section of Sharan. I don't have the right hook for it. I can go to the end pull the hook.

50:12>> Oh, that's so So it's like what So it's basically four like one sentence hooks that you fill as it relates to that section. And then that becomes the front of the longer clip. >> Cuz you you >> That's so smart. >> Right. So we So that it's hard because what we think is you you think that you're just going to record the whole video together. We don't. That's That's very hard to do. So we record the segment >> And the sound bites. >> And then we do the segment again. We do the hooks. We do the segment and so and we do both long form and short form hooks because on YouTube you have to say, hey, there's four ways to do that.

50:43Here's the first way. But before I tell you the first way, this is this. So I record that hook, too, so that they have enough transition material with B-roll that they can do that. So record the material and then record the long and short form hooks for that section and do it for each section. >> And this is again, this is A how you get to 100,000 subscribers in 63 days, but it just every time I talk to the pros, I just spent a weekend with some amazing eight-figure incredible female founders. And I just was listening to them talk about what they're doing. I'm like, if people who are just getting started knew the amount of work just like I think you would I think you would faint. Like I think you would like it's it's a lot.

51:13>> I made a podcast on how we got 100,000 subscribers in 63 days. And the biggest lesson was that for every hour of filming we do 20 hours of prep. Now, that is hard for people. So when I show up on camera, that is ready. Like that The camera stuff is the easiest stuff. It is what you do before. So it's the What is the packaging? What is the ideation? Am I even talking about this topic? Is someone else actually talking about this topic, too? Is this going viral? If I actually If this actually went viral, like what would happen? Is this what we want associated with our brand? Can we do more with this? If you put this out, can it be turned into a substack? Can it be turned into All of that prep is happening before. And it's we're roughly at 15 to 20 hours of prep for every hour on camera. And I And I told you this, I only shoot roughly 4 hours a month on camera.

51:58>> It's so efficient. I I think that that but it it's in that prep work that makes the better videos. It's it's in that. I mean, I know that for me when I sit and I just yap and I'm not saying anything of value. Um before I let you go, I would love to get you know, I I I shared a couple of pictures that I I just wanted to show you cuz this is kind of fun. >> Oh my gosh, >> Look at Look at Look at us. Um that one is before I was pregnant and then the other one is like when I was pregnant. >> So cool. >> Isn't that so fun? I feel like I look like a baby and I feel like you look like a baby, too.

52:27>> This is crazy. I I don't have any gray hair. >> I know. This is before acquisition.com. But you know, you you've been you know, there for me through so many stages. And I would love if you could just give some advice to that person who's at the very beginning. What would you tell them there? They're you know, all >> share like my people might be a mom who wants to be home with her babies or they might be someone who wants to add you know, just a little bit of revenue. They're not looking to become the next millionaire. They're like, I want to have a really healthy $5,000 a month stream. I'm at zero now and I really want to just get something solidified, something consistent. You've helped so many businesses and you've seen so much growth. What do What do they need to do? What are they missing right now?

53:10>> I would offer three things uh for that aspiring entrepreneur who wants to kind of make that money. The first one is that have a input-output formula. There is a If you have no plan, it's very hard to do the thing cuz you wake up in the morning and don't know what to do that day. So, take Marie's plan, follow that plan. I think that would That's the first step. The second is uh nail it before you scale it. It's very easy to think, well, can I use AI?

53:37Can I get a VA? Can I run a Zapier automation? Can I uh Can I make all Can I make a ChatGPT write my scripts? No, I'd say do the unscalable to work through the process, nail it your way, and then once you have it, you can then figure out how to scale it, because in the nailing it is where the the growth actually happens. And the third is give yourself a little testing budget.

54:05It's very hard for people to do that because you don't know exactly what works. Now, I could take Maria's formula and I could do it, but I may have to make small adjustments to it. I may have to make like a 3% 5% adjustment to it. I don't know what that is, but I will only find out when I do that. And so, when people say "Well, I did it and it didn't work." I'm like, "You You made no small adjustments to your personality, to your life, to You didn't make nothing. That's really hard." So, I think testing is really important. And whenever I test something, I just don't put money behind it. I say, "Can I have weekend mastery?" Which means "Can I spend 2 days of this weekend only learning the skill?" For example, let's say I'm running Facebook ads and I'm going to test.

54:47Well, I should not just say, "Well, I'm going to drop $200 in Facebook ads." I'm going to spend 2 days just learning the terminology, the ideas, the the relationships, etc. So, and you can do all of that just on YouTube, and you spend 2 days learning this, and then you actually have a testing budget. So, if if people just have a plan, they realize that nail it before they scale it, and they have a little bit of a testing budget, it'll make that flywheel happen significantly faster. >> That I think that's it. I agree. I couldn't have said it better. Thank you so Is there anything that I didn't ask that I should have?

55:26>> You started off with this idea of relationships. >> Mhm. >> And I have noticed that as people get successful, they get skeptical about relationships. >> Mhm. >> They're like, "Oh, what does this person want from me? Oh, this this person's not at my level, so I I've already graduated. I don't need to do that anymore. Oh, this is you know, I have more followers than this creator, so I'm not going to hang out with this creator right now. Or this is business owner, I'm a million-dollar business owner, she's a hundred-dollar business owner. Like, what can I learn from them?"

55:56So, I have a I have like one piece of advice that could be really helpful, which is assume that everybody you meet was sent to teach you something. And that one thing that my mom taught me kind of many, many years ago has held true until today, because you have no idea that the universe is sending someone your way to teach you something that you don't know about. And you're not going to be able to discern that by how they look or how successful they are. Only if you accept that everybody you meet was sent to teach you something.

56:30>> What a perfect place to end. Thank you so much, Sean. I couldn't agree more. I really appreciate you taking the time. Hopefully, we can cut this up into some great clips. Thank you for your time. >> Thank you. It's awesome.