Episode #135 – Dan Lok on Achieving True Wealth and Leaving A Legacy

by John McIntyre

Technically, Dan Lok mentored under Gary Halbert.

Enough said.

Well he actually mentored under someone who mentored under Gary Halbert.

This was before he became a best selling author, online marketer, real estate investor and owner of 21 companies.

It was before he elevated his life’s goal from a “lifestyle business” to shooting for the moon.

Dan believes that one day along your entrepreneurial timeline you will be faced with a defining choice between plateauing and settling with a lifestyle business or shifting into an all-out Elon Musk gear.

Dan Lok came to North America from Hong Kong unwillingly when he was 16.

He didn’t know a lick of English.

Today, he will impress you with his knowledge, and with his quotes.

Meaning, he drops so many note-worthy quotes you’ll be forced to open up Evernote:

  • “Wealth is gratitude, that’s all that is. Wealth is a feeling, no matter how much money you have.”
  • “Whatever you do, it cannot be about yourself, I can just tell you that flat out.”
  • “Most people have not tried enough things to know what their purpose is.”
  • “Life is not about finding yourself, its about creating yourself.”
  • “The mother of passion is contribution, the father of passion is growth”
  • “Your inner world effects your outer world, and this is not foo foo tree hugging shit I’m talking about.”

Dan knows that success is not long lasting if you’re out there chasing money.

It needs to be about others.

And it needs to make an impact on the world.

“If you’re gonna look, look there.”

Listen in as he teaches from his experiences,

And watch out for his best quote of all towards the end.

 

In this episode, you’ll discover:

  • how the gauntlet stage of foundational skill development must be gone through (and how to achieve the next step)
  • that using information product models to grow other types of businesses works
  • why repeatable and scalable high profit margins are essential
  • Dan’s signature Attitude of Gratitude Excercise, a guided meditation that fills your days with joy
  • what Dan thinks about the 4 Hour Workweek & how it leads (or misdirects) people on their paths to success

Email Marketing Podcast Episode 1

Mentioned:

Intro and outro backing music: Forever More by CREO

 

Raw transcript:

Download PDF transcript here.

It’s John McIntyre here, The Autoresponder Guy, I’m here with The McMethod Email Podcast. I’m with Dan Lok today. Now Dan is quite an impressive — he has quite an impressive story actually. True immigrant success story which we’re gonna get into today. He used to be a copywriter I’ve just found out. He’s a very, very successful serial entrepreneur. He’s a bestselling author. And when he was doing the copywriting in his 20s he mentored under someone else — he mentored under Gary Halbert. So he’s — I guess you do that’s technically mentored by Harry Halbert which is pretty cool.

So anyways we’re gonna get into his story today, what he’s up to, his mission in life right now which I think it’s all very, very exciting. I’m excited to get into it. So we’ll jump into that in a second. First so Dan, how are you today man?

Dan Lok: Fantastic John and thank you for having me and I’m looking forward to share my journey and story with your listener.

John McIntyre: Me too, me too. So before we get into the — well I was gonna say before we get into the meat and potatoes — the tactics, we can talk about the story, but the story’s really the — this episode. So let’s start off. Just — can you give the listener a little bit more — just sort of the surface level information. A bit about who you are and what you’re doing right now and then we’ll dig into the story and see what we come up with.

Dan Lok: Sure well right now nowadays I do — if you’ve seen the show “Shark Tank” or “Dragons’ Den” that’s pretty much what I do in real life.

I’m an investor. I invest in companies, I partner with companies and I help them grow. When people ask me what I do for a living it’s kinda difficult to answer because I do so many things. And in — and it’s — I — it takes a long time to answer that question. So now I just say — I just tell people I’m an entrepreneur and I grow companies for — to — for a living.

John McIntyre: Okay, okay. Now I know where we’re you know this is sort of a copywriting oriented podcast so a lot of people think that I you know when we talk about copywriting or companies we’re talking about information and eBooks and you know that sort of thing.

So I’m curious — growing up or sort of getting started as a copywriter and then to where you are now, are you talking about growing you know small information businesses on the internet or are you talking about bigger you know what some people might call a real businesses? You know give me an idea of what sort of businesses you’re getting into.

Dan Lok: Very, very good questions. So I’m involved with a lot of different business in different industries. Digital marketing, ecommerce, real estate and even supplements so, not necessary — I nowadays I prefer a real products. You could say John that not just necessary information, but we can definitely use the information marketing model to market certain types of businesses that’s very effective. And we can definitely talk a little bit about that — dive into it in this podcast. So yeah all types of industries.

I prefer industries that is — has high profit margin and that’s repeatable, that is scalable as well. And that’s nice. So some of the things that I’m working on and some of the new things I’m working on they’re even — even on a bigger scale that will require additional skill sets such as raising capital and actually building a team and then building something a little bit bigger, coz a lot of people who are in the information marketing business they’re what I call lifestyle entrepreneur that you know they want to make enough money, maybe I don’t know 10,15,20 gran even up to a million bucks a month — a year working from home and they kind of be their own boss and that type of thing.

I was — that’s what I was interested in and when I got there then my goal has changed and evolved. And we all do that you know how you — how it is John you set a goal you get there and then set a bigger goal. And so now I’ve evolved and so being a lifestyle entrepreneur no longer interests me. I’m just interested being an entrepreneur — all I can be and maximize my potential of what I can do in this lifetime.

John McIntyre: Hmm so that — I mean there’s a few directions we can take there. So it’s funny because you know I find for me when I first — you know 5 years ago when I left Australia to go and do my you know — so my journey took me to the Philippines. That you know at the time it’s like I wanna go have the 4 hour work week and a lifestyle business so I can travel around and do nothing. And you’re right it absolutely changes over time when you kinda realise like, “Well this is fun,” and it’s — the freedoms good, but there’s more to what like — that’s not the path to a fulfilling life. It’s actually like living in a really — I don’t know what you call it like a deep, deep fulfilling — deeply satisfying life — living that sort of life. It’s not as simple as just getting to the point where you have a lot of freedom and autonomy. That’s a part of a puzzle, but it’s not the whole piece.

Dan Lok: No and …

John McIntyre: It’s not the whole angle.

Dan Lok: … if you think about it John the people who are — I mean you know I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like Timothy Ferriss. I mean you know I read the book and it’s fine, but I think the book itself — content is good, but the title is — it poison a lot of people. I think it’s the …

John McIntyre: How so?

Dan Lok: … because with — you look at the 4 hour work week, personally I don’t know any super successful high performance entrepreneur who works 4 hour week. I just don’t. I — they don’t even work 4 hour a day so, when you think about life it’s about more. It is about living up your potential if you — okay if — think about it John if such a great idea that you know because I’ve been through that — we’ve all been — I want to make enough money, I want to retire by the age of 30.

I made enough money I can retire by the age 27 and when I retired for 3 months I was bored out of my freakin mind. And so then I know that’s not, like you said, that’s not what life is about. When you want to live a purposeful life it’s not about — coz when you think about it it’s about the whole concept of the book.

Yes it’s about efficiency, systems, and everything, but it’s about doing the least, for most people, that I think they misunderstood. It’s how can I get a — what can I get away with? How can I have the least amount of input to get what I want? That’s not a path to fulfilling life. If you think, in terms to — the wealthiest people in the planet, the Michael Dell, the Bill Gates, anyone on the Forbes 500 all of them could retire, but they don’t. They actually have retired, but they retire to the company. They love what they do. You ask Warren Buffett, he loves what he does. Does he only work 4 hours a week? Hell no.

So if it’s such a great idea why don’t the 500 richest people in the world do it? They don’t even talk about financial freedom or retirement it’s — none of them even use those kind of verbiage because they love what they do.

John McIntyre: I think — the — I mean this is the issue, right? Is that like — coz I think when people have jobs and they have a more of a middle class so they’re more into that sort of middle class thing. The first thing is to try and escape that and you’re going for freedom or you know that sort of thing, but at a certain point you know whether you call it self actualization or something…

Dan Lok: Yes.

John McIntyre: … you get into this thing where you go, “Well what’s the —” and you know I think for some people it is gonna be entrepreneurship. It is they love running a company, but for a lot of people it’s not. They’d be miserable doing that they’d — you know even operations people who you know they’re not big thinkers, they’re not visionaries, it’s just not how their brain works. It’s not bad or anything and it’s not they…

Dan Lok: No it’s not bad, it’s not bad at all. It’s just — it’s different that — to me then I mean nothing wrong. I mean — to me if they say they are a dad or they want to work from home and they want to spend more time with their family that’s great coz that’s — in the beginning how I got into business it’s because my mum and dad got divorced and I just wanted to provide for my mum. That’s what kinda got me — push me into entrepreneurship so, I can make more money and that’s all — that’s perfectly fine, but I think once if you get there then you have a choice. It’s a transition, it’s a stage, it’s a phase that you can think, “Well do I want to stay here or is there more to life?” and, “How could I utilize my talents and skills and actually do something greater?”

To me that’s a different issue of entrepreneur, not just — coz when you think about it the 4 hour work week or lifestyle entrepreneur it’s all about me. It’s me focused, you know? How many hours I work, how much I get paid? It’s not so much about the world and it’s a lot into the marketers I know it’s all focused on, “Oh yeah I want some parts of income coming in,” or, “I want to set something up. I don’t give a shit about the product just sell some shit online and do some email thing and you know —” I bet John you met some of those people too, “Oh set up some autorespondents for me John and they’ll make money and then I’m on my beach.” That’s okay…

John McIntyre: So…

Dan Lok: … you know it’s a phase.

John McIntyre: Coz I think that we’re — I mean I think the challenge here though is that everyone’s crying out for meeting, everyone. I mean this is — I’m very passionate about that like you know this whole topic because I think that a lot of people who you know we get so distracted by TV and just mindless bullshit basically in life.

Dan Lok: Yes.

John McIntyre: But these stuff doesn’t matter because all of us are you know I think we’re craving — we’ve got enough — we’ve got a roof — most of us you know we might not be rich, but necessarily, but you know you’re not flying a private jets, but everyone’s got a roof over their head, for the most part, everyone’s got enough food to it.

So we’re well off enough that now we’re starting to ask questions about meaning, but we’re not — everyone’s missing this piece — this like, “Oh what’s life about? What the purpose of life? What do I do with my destiny?” and I think that’s the struggle? Coz people that — no one really knows what the — how to answer this question coz it’s different for everyone.

Dan Lok: It was — I always say sometimes I get those questions too. You know, “Dan how do I find my purpose?” and I say, “Well you know, dude, life is not about you know finding yourself. It’s about creating yourself so, for most people, they haven’t tried enough things to know what their purpose is. And it’s different for everybody, but I could tell you chances are if you wanna be fulfilled, you want to be truly happy, have that deep sense of purpose or fulfilment whatever you do it could not be about yourself. I could just tell you that flat out. If it’s about yourself it’s very, very limited.

John McIntyre: Right.

Dan Lok: But if it’s about others and make an impact on the world that’s a different story.

John McIntyre: Right.

Dan Lok: That’s where — like look — like if you’re gonna look, look there.

John McIntyre: Well the — I mean the interesting thing — I — I’m actually testing a new routine at the moment which is waking up at 4:30 which is the earliest I’ve ever woken up. I notice some people do this you know 3:30 and 3. I’m gonna stick with 4:30 for a little while and see how that goes, but what I’ve noticed in doing it is you know I certainly — I know we all have, but we spend time when we, “You know what’s the purpose of life? Oh I’m so you know bored,” or whatever and I was doing that a little bit over Christmas just with the you know — I was family I wasn’t working too much, I was just getting stuck up in my head and everything and then getting back onto this new routine and waking up and being extremely productive, getting so much stuff done by lunch time I’ve got more done in one day than I usually get done in a week.

And the fascinating thing about it is that by taking all of this action, by executing it — just a crack ton of stuff I feel like life feels — it’s very hard to describe. Life feels extremely meaning — like much more meaningful than it did…

Dan Lok: Yes.

John McIntyre: … a month ago when I …

Dan Lok: Yes.

John McIntyre: … wasn’t doing much. So it’s almost like…

Dan Lok: Exactly.

John McIntyre: … it actually comes before the meaning not the other way around.

Dan Lok: You got it John. It’s your — I think — think of anyone like — think of anyone that’s listening to this. Think of the time when you are the most alive and most fulfilled and the most excited. You’re not sitting on the couch doing nothing and just staring at the beach. You’re doing something. You are either growing or you’re learning, you’re meeting new people or you’re doing something that makes a difference for everybody. That’s how human beings — we are wired. So if you understand psychology contribution your passion, I mean, I always say the mother of contribution — the mother of passion is contribution. The father of passion is growth.

So when you’re growing and you’re contributing you’re passionate about what you do. So then you’re not so concerned about, “Oh yeah I only wanna work 4 hour a week. I wanna work 2 hour week,” it’s not even about that. If you’re so passion about what you do you don’t care how many hours you work. It’s — it — would you rather do this than anything else. It’s like people like I — you know I hear people sometimes they say entrepreneurs, “Oh you know what? You should be broke entrepreneur if you love — you, you know you’re not helping people. You know if you love this you shouldn’t make money doing this.” That’s idiot — that’s stupid.

I say you should love what you do so much is the only way you do — the only thing that you do to make a living and make money.

John McIntyre: I think that there’s this — coz you know I guess part of it is like for me, for example, like I really enjoy, lately, a thing that’s you know becoming a very personal thing for me at the moment is music.

I grew up playing guitar and so, I guess I got musical blood. Family’s very musical. And — but lately I travel a lot so, I’ve been making music on my computer — electronic sort of progressive house and techno and just electronic music. And like it makes me come alive. I can’t describe — I love to dance as well so, like music and creating music and just that sort of…

Dan Lok: Nice.

John McIntyre: … good to be something that makes me — I don’t know. It gives me Goosebumps when I like — there’s those moments and if I — well but I’m not good enough yet where I can make money from it so, it’s not a career — it could be a career in the future. It’s not a career right now and it’s gonna be probably a year — well a year — years before really — realistically so, there’s this I think this is where the catch comes in, is everyone’s got these things that they — some people are really passionate about business, but sometimes it’s like, “I wanna work 4 hours a week,” you know?

Sort of like 4 hours a week’s a check point. What you’re really trying to do is — the real goal is how do I create a life that for me the way everything goes, “How do I create a life that I’m completely in love with?” coz that’s what matters. And if that means building a business that makes tons you know X amount of dollars in 4 hours a week or 2 hours a week or whatever then it better be because I’ve got something else I’m gonna do — like for example if I could you know put the business on autopilot tomorrow and work 4 hours a week then I’d probably wanna be waking up at 4:30 making music every day.

Dan Lok: Hmm yes, yes. So I absolutely agree. So if for — it’s about finding what makes you tick not what you think makes you tick or what other people sold you on the idea of what you want — what you should make you tick. It’s truly knowing what gives you that satisfaction of fulfilment. And it’s different for everybody.

John McIntyre: Well what makes you tick?

Dan Lok: I’ll tell you the first 10 years of my life from my 20 to 30 that I was type A overachiever. It was all about money. And I was good at it. It was about money, I was just working long hours, I still work long hours but it was about how much I can make, how many chips I could grab from the table. Then when I hit 30 somehow I don’t know, as a man, that I looked at my life and say, “You know what? Do I still, for the next 10 years of my life, — I could keep living this way it’s okay. I mean you have all the materialistic things or what’s my legacy?”

So I thought about it and one thing that actually hit me a couple of years ago when my dad passed away and that was a turning point. You know we’re talking about life — we have turning point. When my life — you know my dad which is in hospital just doing a regular check up and he never came out. It was just within a week’s time he was gone. And that had a profound, profound impact on me because I looked at my life and I’m like, “Wow you know what? What’s my legacy?” When I — in my funeral — and when we do come to my funeral and I’m laying down — I somehow have this picture John. I’m laying down in the casket. Do I want people to say, “You know what? That guy’s a great marketer,” or, “That guy’s made some money, made a few dollars,” or do I want people to say, “You know what? That guy — he has made a difference in my life. He’s made a positive difference in my life.”

Well you know what? I want a ladder and I know that’s when I’m the happiest when I am the most alive is when I teach. It’s when I help entrepreneurs, it’s when I get a letter, when get an email from someone watching my video or you know somehow reading one of my books that’s impacted them in some way. That makes me happy. And I say — I said to myself, “You know what? I want more of that.” So somehow I just — in my mind I set a goal to impact a million entrepreneurs worldwide. And that’s just that’s what turns me on. And in order to do that I keep you know building my companies, doing my thing and that’s awesome, but my passion is teaching.

John McIntyre: Hmm what’s your morning routine look like?

Dan Lok: My morning — it’s pretty simple. It’s not — I don’t — a lot of people talk about morning ritual and all of that. Mine is actually pretty simple. I get up in the morning, the first thing that I do is I — rewrite my goals in the morning, rewrite my goals in the evening before I go to bed. So it puts into — you know feed into my subconscious mind, I would plan out what I want to do usually the night before, but I haven’t read — look at what I want to accomplish like for this particular day.

And then also I go through an exercise what I call attitude gratitude. And I actually have an audio on YouTube you go to Dan Lok Gratitude you can find it and I — it’s about 15 minute thing that I’ll listen to it with music. It’s a guided meditation. And I go through that and it fills my day with joy and everything and then that feeling of gratitude. Coz wealth is gratitude that’s all that is. Wealth is a feeling not how much money you have. And then I go through about I would say 15, 20 minutes of yoga that I do and then I pretty much start working.

So about an hour of morning ritual and then, yeah, and then I start working.

John McIntyre: Okay. And then well what does that look like?

Dan Lok: When I — nowadays? Nowadays it’s mostly a lot of thinking — a lot of strategizing, a lot of phone call because of you know I own now 20, 21 companies so, includes basically meeting with business partners, meetings with mostly virtual phone call with people and then after I check my email, usually after lunch, so I spend a few hours on that. And I get a few hundred emails a day so, go through that. Nowadays my routine it’s just mostly my day consist of telling people what to do and making decisions, really.

John McIntyre: That’s cool. That’s very, very cool. Okay and so, I mean we — the funny thing is it — here we are you know intending to go down into the back story and really sort of explore things and do the whole classic story podcast, but we’ve gone off on a big tangent here. So let’s go back.

You mentioned — one thing I’m interested in is on your About Page on your website it does mention that you — let me get back to it. It mentions that you came to Canada as a teenager. Tell me about that.

Dan Lok: Well I came to Canada, Vancouver Canada, when I was 14 years old with my mom and because I was getting into a lot of trouble in Hong Kong. I was born in Hong Kong. And so by the age of 16 then my mom and dad got divorced and that’s how you know I got into business accidentally.

And so, yeah, when I first came to Canada I couldn’t speak a word of English, didn’t know anybody, no contacts, nothing with no money. And so the first couple of years was very difficult because the high school that I was going to in Vancouver, Canada I was one of the only of 3 Chinese in my school so, I got beat up, I got bullied. People talk about you know, “It’s bowling real love,” you bet your ass its real coz I experienced it so…

John McIntyre: So… Okay

Dan Lok: … it’s very much real and I was very…

John McIntyre: You mean like bullying in terms of coz you know when I ask that question — I see stuff in exempt from Australia and I see movies from America where kids get locked in lockers and just stuff like that which I never…

Dan Lok: Yeah.

John McIntyre: … flap in any way.

Dan Lok: Yeah I got beat up. They take my stuff and they put — throw in the garbage can, that kind of stuff, yeah.

John McIntyre: How did that feel?

Dan Lok: Hmm at first I was actually very mad. Not at them, at my mom. And that was wrong.

John McIntyre: Why is that?

Dan Lok: Because I felt like why did you guys move? Like why — I was fine in Hong Kong, I had friends, I had — I thought I had friends and, but because I would get in — always get in too much trouble and so, then I — a lot of resentment towards my parents because you know they got divorced and then I was in a country that I hated — the first few years I hated it in Canada. I hated Canada. I didn’t like it, I couldn’t speak — don’t have — had no friends, getting beat up. I mean think about it John, right?

No friends, getting beat up, you know and you just don’t like it, but it was the best decision that they’ve ever made because they changed my life completely changed my life. I — sometimes I joke about it if I was still in Hong Kong I probably work at McDonalds something like that. Being in a different environment because the back story, at the time, why they decided to immigrate to here because I was acting — my dad was actually coming to the police station to bail me out coz I was fighting, I was getting into trouble, was hanging around with you know with the wrong people and the officers said to my dad, they said, “You know what? I’ve seen a lot of teenagers. If you’re son kinda keep — stays in this environment he’ll go to jail. It’s only a question of time.” So then my dad made a decision, no you know I cannot — I’m the only child in my family so, he sent me to this place where I didn’t know anybody. Have to kinda start from scratch.

And so the first few years was very, very difficult and — but those are the times that you learn and I learn how to mature and respect my mom and knowing how difficult it is for a mom. So my mom sacrificed a lot for me. That — to taking care of me when I first got here and all these things and being very supportive of everything I do and so, yeah I’m very grateful, very grateful for them.

John McIntyre: Hmm it’s amazing how that works, isn’t it? How you know I mean me getting to the Philippines in I think it was 2011 when I first got there and I’d had a you know I basically — I didn’t be getting into any serious trouble, but I’d be partying very hard in Sydney, wasn’t really doing anything with my life.

And my relationship with my family — parents certainly wasn’t good. They’re divorced as well. And I remembered walking along — got to the Philippines and I think just disconnected you know from everyone in Australia just — I wanted to sort of my own way in the world. I remember walking along the beach there. Because I was working at a resort there doing some marketing for the resort and it was right on the beach. I remember walking along the beach one morning and I don’t know if it was a specific morning or if it — it’s sort of — basically there was a realization and then I yeah I don’t know if it was a specific morning if it sort of grew over. It probably grew over multiple mornings, but I just — the time and the space and all of that, being away a year made me really realize how you know how much my parents had done the exact same thing when you kinda go, “Wow!” It’s just like my parents are just people too like they’ve got the stakes, but they’ve tried so hard to do all these different things and this gratitude just fills you. It’s a really incredible experience.

Dan Lok: Yes and isn’t it amazing sometimes it takes us to go through a different place and have some distance, some space then to realise like wow like how awesome our parents are? That I would I mean I say to people I — one of the biggest — I don’t have a lot of regrets in life, but one of the regrets I have is I wish I had spent more time with my dad. I spent a lot of time with my mom, but I just wish I had spend more time with my dad.

And I would write any check to do that. And so I tell people now, you know? Spend time with your loved ones. Spend time with your parents and just — like this year I plan it — I plan to have a — go to a trip with my mom. Just go on vacation with her and, yeah, I mean those things. That’s what life is about to me.

John McIntyre: Yeah and it sounds one of those sort of things. It’s funny how you know just as you get older you start having these realizations that you know when you’re young it’s very much like, “Let’s go so much money as possible,” or you know it’s those sorts of things, but eventually you have enough good conversations with good friends like you know I like having, for example, like a night out with some really good friends and a couple of bottles of red wine or whatever.

Dan Lok: Yeah.

John McIntyre: You just sit there and you just talk.

Dan Lok: Yeah.

John McIntyre: And at the end of the night  you feel so connected.

Dan Lok: That’s correct, that’s correct and that’s one of the basic human needs, right? So for sure connection with family and friends and, yeah, I mean you have achievements side type A, go get ’em, make it happen whatever it takes. That’s nice. Keep that, we need that, but also the other side is to — on the — at the same time just slow down and kind of cherish the moments and just smell the roses.

John McIntyre: Yeah and it’s — I think that — the last few weeks I’ve been doing an exercise — put an exercise in — I’ll do like a personal mission exercise. I’ve read 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which…

Dan Lok: Nice.

John McIntyre: … I don’t know why it took me so long to get to. And I know it’s a classic, but picked it up, read it, and while I read one of the chapters, one of these habits was to figure out what you’re mission is. I Sit down and so I you know opened up a Google dock and started typing and came up with this — just broke life into various different areas and came up with a couple of bullet points on what I — not so much the goal in a certain area, but almost the person that I wanted to be. So going back to that funeral example, at the end of life you know when I die, when I’m at my funeral, first of all my family’s gonna sort of walk down the aisle, go up the front and then they’re gonna you know give a little speech on who I was as a you know as a brother, as a son, as a husband like that sort of thing. Then there’s gonna be people from work, for example, who are gonna go up. Then there’s gonna be people from you know the different groups that I’m a part of. And that was part of the exercise of you know doing this personal mission stuff. And as I did that it was — it’s been a really amazing exercise in the sense that for a long time I think I’ve been working and I’ve had goals and I guess I’ve had some kind of mission, but I’ve never done an exercise this deep coz I found myself — this is actually what’s been happening over the last week is to the point where I go to bed and I have trouble sleeping coz I’m too excited about getting up in the morning to keep working towards these various visions in various areas of my life.

And the — this is why I thought it was interesting to go and talk about the family in these types of things because I think that people think success is you know you hack it. You can if you’re motivated enough or if you’re self disciplined enough, but it’s almost like all that will fall into place if you can get the really, really deep stuff right. If you can figure out why you’re doing this and what you personally care about. It’s — the rest is pretty easy. As far as like sitting down and doing the work each day at hustle, that’s  — it’s not that hard. You gotta try a lot of stuff and it takes time, but it’s not terribly difficult, but it’s gonna be impossible if you don’t have the inner strength that really comes from that mission and purpose.

Dan Lok: Yes and people think in terms of making money, it’s a game that they play with — the market players. When they actually get it they truly get it how making money works. It’s actually a game you play within. And it’s all about you know your inner game — your inner world creates your outer world.

And this is not woof woof  you know spiritual tree hugging shit. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about knowing how — coz I know — before never, never believe in this type of stuff. It’s only when I gonna get you know 30 just speaking from experience I went through the journey and I study a lot of this type of work, spiritual laws of success and what makes us you know fulfilled and all these things.

Exactly right, John, with money how — now we all need to develop the foundational skills, I mean you have your copywriting skill, marketing skill, I mean any young people listening to this get there first. That’s the first step. Pick your responsibility you know setting goals, personal development, go through order — the order. We all need to go through that, but once you have those skills and the right self-image, the right mindset that set, let’s say, coz I always — I’m a very big believer in mindset.

When you have those pieces down, the next step is actually to surrender, to let go all of that. Let me give you an example. I’m a very huge — I’m a huge fan of Bruce Lee and I’ve actually study under one of Bruce Lee’s original students Ted Wong in martial art and Bruce Lee used to have a quote that I love and I think it’s same — very applicable to business and to life. He said, “Before I learned how to punch and kick — before I learned the art, a punch is just a punch. A kick is just a kick. After I learned the art, the art of martial art, a kick — a punch is no longer a punch and a kick is no longer a kick. Now I truly understand the art. You know what? A punch is still a punch, a kick is still just a kick.” So think about that.

John McIntyre: I think that’s a good place to wrap it up to be honest. I think that’s a nice tie. Very, very wise and it so — I’ve really enjoyed this. It’s very meandering. I like these conversations that we get into. A bit of tactical stuff, but it’s fascinating to look into you know almost people’s paradigms and the way they see the world especially with this.

You know I think this purpose stuff, for anyone that is listening, I think this is the — that’s some of the highest leverage stuff. You need the skills, but take the time to reflect on the purpose and the mission coz it just goes a long way. So before we go though I know you have a — you know you have your mission of trying to help a million businesses. So if someone’s listening to this and they want to learn more about you and they want to go and watch one of your videos or something — you know just dive into what you — what we’ve talked about here and get more, where would they do that?

Dan Lok: I would say to go to www., my website,danlok D_A_N_L_O_K .com. And if they want to watch my videos I would subscribe — I would suggest subscribing to my YouTube channel. Just go to YouTube and type in Dan Lok D_A_N L_O_K they find my channel, they can subscribe to that.

I have over 300 videos on there and I’ll keep adding videos. That’s probably the main platform where I want to just to build my content and work.

They can also check on my podcast called shouldersoftitans.com where every week I interview a super successful entrepreneur and hear their stories, and kinda what you’re doing John, hear their insights and how — and their journey. How they get to where they are today.

John McIntyre: Fantastic. Well I’ll have links to all of that on the show notes at themcmethod.com, Dan it’s been good mate. Thanks for coming on the show.

Dan Lok: It’s been good and I enjoyed it. Thank you John great job!

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