Welcome to the “Making of a DM.” The biggest lie in “Magician vs. Mule”, I’ve never shared this with you before, but with that said, let's get started.
Mark: What's up, what's up, everybody? It's a long day, up early, a lot of cool stuff going on. I'm going to share some thoughts and share this big lie about Magician vs. Mule. I'm getting a lot of people. Guys, first of all, thank you so much for all the shares, and sharing them with your tribe and your folks, and a lot of you guys buying the book for your friends and family, and people you care about. It's really cool to see. [01:01.8]
So, if you have an entrepreneur friend or a business-owner buddy, whatever, and this book could help them, just so you guys know, a hundred percent of those proceeds go to charity. I'll be sharing a story here later in the future, not today, but in the future with what we're doing and who we're doing it with.
Today, the real thing is I was thinking today on my walk when I was working out this morning about all these messages I'm getting about the magician and the mule, and some guy was being a smart aleck saying, Dude, why can't you be both? and all this. You guys know we're mules. That's what we are. There's no way to take that out of us, period. It's actually progress. We're all mules in the brain. We've been taught, we've been built as a mule.
The goal with the book was simply to bring awareness to what we are, so we can start working on becoming a magician. I'm a mule. Like I said, I’m muling it out right now, shooting this live video to you. I'm a mule. I'm a mule. When I get off this thing, I'm going to have a call with my team members at 10:30 for an hour. I'm a mule. But what I'm doing inside of those, think like Michael Jordan, think like Kobe Bryant. At 3:00 a.m., they're in the gym, for hours. That's what mules do. They're muling. [02:14.5]
The difference with the mule that's thinking about being a magician is we're doing it. One, we want to win. I'm not saying you should not work hard. It's never been in my thought process in any way, shape or form, but what are we working hard towards?
See, it's not like Michael Jordan was sitting there going to the gym at 3:00 a.m., hanging out eating Doritos, drinking beer, watching TV on the big screen, while everyone else was working out around him. No, he's actually the only one in there doing the work to become a better magician when he gets on the court. When the curtain comes up, it’s showtime. That's what magicians do. See, you have to mule it out to learn the tricks, to do the work to get what you want your magician-like efforts to be.
Michael Jordan spending all that time shooting, how many free throws? This guy shot millions and millions and millions of free throws to look like he's a magician when he's on the court. When he's shooting these three pointers to win the games, he looks like a magician because he has taken that shot 10,000 times in the last 30 days. [03:15.6]
These are what mules look like. There's nothing wrong with being a mule, but let me give you an example. Not all mule efforts are created equal. I used to do seamless gutters, siding and windows and all that stuff. I used to do the work myself. I'd go to the house, get there at 6:00 a.m. if it's a new construction and I'd get my project set up, saw horses and everything set up, get my shears, get my hammer, nails, all that stuff ready, and I’d hang siding.
But the problem is with that mule effort, I can only hang so many squares of siding myself. That's it. I can work harder hanging siding to maybe, let's say, I hang 10-square a day by myself, maybe if I'm [unclear 03:56.9], take no lunch break and work hard, maybe do 11 square to 10% increase, but that's it. Tomorrow I’ve got to do the same shit over. [04:06.2]
With magician-like thoughts, how do I learn how to do it, hire people to help me grow it, me step back, get on top of it and go get more projects, hire more people, hire layers of people and then have a massive organization? Now we're doing 10,000 squares a day. That's what magicians were thinking about. I remember being on these projects and I'm like, I can only work so hard. I can only do so much. My revenue was capped by my mule mentality. I couldn't break free.
I remember when I had to make this transition, this conversation with myself. I had to make this transition. I literally was driving down the freeway crying because I had to let go of my past identity of who I was to get where I wanted to go. I loved going to the projects. I love outworking you. I love it. I love everything about it. I love the young guy on the field that's trying to outdo me and work me on the project, and I want to show him that I can still outwork him and I'm 20 years older than him or whatever at that point. [05:09.8]
That's what I love. I love that. It's competition to me. It's fun. It's exciting. That pushes me. It keeps it interesting. It keeps it exciting. But I knew I could only get so far. I had to become a different person drastically. See, the mule in me was so ingrained, work hard, work, hard, work hard. I'm not opposed to working hard, but there's another part of that equation where it's like work hard and smart at the same time, work hard and something that has a compounding effect with effort.
See, if you're the best siding cutter in the world, you can only go so far. If you're the best hairdresser in the world, you can only go so far. By the way, the magician-like effort and a hairdresser, if you love cutting hair, so create your own product lines. Now you're seeing thousands of stores, tens of thousands stores while you're—snip, snip, snip—cutting hair. [06:04.9]
Michael Jordan made a lot of money in basketball, but he really made more money with Nike with endorsements. Same thing with Tiger Woods. He mules it out. Thousands, tens of thousands of hours a year. He's a mule, but now he's got… Once you do this effort, it’s the compound effect that actually grows and develops, and you become someone big and now, boom, magician-like. I know a lot of people are like, Dude, how did he get a $100 million contract? Because he has a lot of eyeballs on him and it's worth a lot of money. He probably got underpaid.
So, what are you doing? What mule things are you doing? You looking at your bank statement for three hours, trying to figure out how to save $12, that's not going to help you grow. It's not. It's impossible. You trying to figure out how not to go to Starbucks for the next 30 days isn't going to make a blip in your future at all. You're muling on the wrong activities, expecting different results. It's going to frustrate you. It's going to overwhelm. You're getting further and further behind the eight ball wondering why, How the hell is Mark getting what he's doing? [07:15.4]
By the way, if you're watching me and you're trying to figure out how to compete with me, don't because I'm competing with myself and I'm not going, and I'm not anywhere to where I'm going. I'm growing businesses, I'm driving this. I'm dropping the ball here. I'm messing up over there. I'm not pushing as hard as I should here. I'm still learning the levers to pull. I'm still constantly paying attention to my thought process that, you guys, I don't just talk about, but I actually do it myself.
As you guys know, I’m getting ready to bounce back to Ohio from Florida and, you guys, we never really had live video back then, but my wife and I, we traveled the world for seven years collectively and it was always interesting because I could be sitting in, let's say, India and I'm like, Okay, I can only work this many hours because I'm going to do all these other things, sightseeing XYZ, but then in two days, we're going to be over in Bangkok and then we're going to be in Phuket Phi Phi Island, Malaysia, blah, blah, all these things. [08:12.8]
What would happen is I would get very anxious, travel anxiety, compartmentalize and just execute with intention, execute with intention, right? You just got so much done. Right now I'm having that feeling. Now today's the fifth, a lot of anxiety in a good way. Yesterday I talked about anxiety, but in a good way now I’ve shifted the momentum because I'm doing the work. I'm not thinking. I'm not plotting. I'm doing. Anytime I get anxious, I’ve got to do. My workout was very strong yesterday, my second one, because it's like, dude, I’ve got to get this energy out of me. Let's go, right? Most people sit around and let it stew and build up where you almost feel like you're having a heart attack. I know because I’ve done it. In all seriousness, we have to focus on the proper mule activities to ultimately get the magician-like effect in your life and in your business. You have to. [09:10.8]
See, getting six-pack abs takes me mule effort, but there's also some magician-type things in there. You doing pushups, right, 10 pushups a day, isn't going to create anything magical in any way, shape or form. It's better than zero, but it's really not doing anything. What we need to do is we need to look at the mule-like activities that's going to create a magician-like effect, meaning you do whatever workouts needed and, plus, you have to not just work out right, but also eat right and combine the two. You're going to get better results and then as you're getting these results, you're going to start looking better, and then you start looking better and people are like, Dude, I want your abs. I want your arms. I want your blah, blah, blah, your legs, whatever is your sweet spot. Then the reason is because they're not realizing that you're putting all this mule effort and you get this magician moment. [10:00.0]
We all have this in some way, shape or form. The thing is I see so many people are focused on the wrong mule efforts and I'd love to talk to you guys about this, but inside of Magician vs. Mule, I have a guy helping me, John actually—you guys met last week on here on the show—he's actually helping me create a very powerful workbook, starting it today, where we're going to take you from mule to magician. We've got to talk about the right mule efforts. You think your learning about philosophy, blah, blah, blah, that's a lot of mule work. You’re reading a lot of books.
I always think about the people winning jeopardy. I would never hire those people. They're brainiacs, but it's all pointless shit. What are they doing with that information? Like, Oh, I know that answer. Oh, okay, well, you can't pay your bills. What does it matter? What does that answer have to do with my life anyway? Right? I'm not knocking it. It’s just that's how my brain thinks. I would never hire that individual because they're too busy, they're too addicted to working hard, to learn stuff just to learn stuff. [11:02.6]
Learning general knowledge does not pay the bills. These are just things you should have anyways, basic knowledge. It really comes into the high-level understanding of specialized knowledge. What are you gifted at? What do you excel at? What can you hand off? What can you grow? What can you develop? What is almost effortless to you, and everyone's like, Dude, how did you do all that? To me, oftentimes, people tell me that in business like deal-making. It’s just easy for me because I'm very passionate. I'm listening to the buyer or the seller, whoever. I'm listening and that's not my agenda. My agenda is to help the person, not just close the deal.
I think that's why it's easy for me. I don't really care if I do the deal or not. I just want to help the person. It so happens my path might work, it might not. It is what it is. I’ve got another call, though, next. Let's go. See, but that, again, that's a mule effort, right? I can make a hundred calls a day, but I can only make a hundred calls a day. But if I could make 10 calls a day and train three people in how to make a hundred calls each a day, take 20 minutes to do this, 30 minutes to do that, you just start expanding your efforts. Again, this isn't always easy stuff. [12:11.8]
So, what have you guys got? If you guys are here and you have any questions or comments, that's the secret, guys. The big thing is many of you are focused on the wrong mule effort. You think mule versus magician, you become a magician and that's it. You do nothing all day and wave a wand, and everything gets done. You're going to do mule efforts. The question is which ones are you doing? Which ones are you consciously making a decision to do or not do? And I think you need to be paying attention to that.
How do you qualify which mule efforts you do? First of all, I don't qualify, you know what I mean? Again, I know we're using words, but I'm looking for compounding effects. That's what I'm looking for. But not to say you don't still have to do some of the stuff. I mean, here's the thing. There's no one answer fits all. Where are you at? Where are you going? What's going on? [13:03.5]
By the way, I don't do revenue-per-hour stuff either way. William, hop on this call. I'd love to talk to you here because you get to catch up anyway. Hop on the link that Beacon has given you guys. But I don't do the whole per-hour thing. I already actually know my value. I guess in the beginning, you're sweeping the floor in your garage, trying to figure out how to make a hundred bucks an hour. You're probably go in the wrong activity, you know what I mean? I'm more conscious of that. I don't trade my time for dollars. I don't have a dollar value. I just want to make as much possible revenue for my time.
The truth is my book. Magician vs. Mule. I busted my ass on that book. I've been doing tons of interviews and I made $0. See, I'm not doing it just for the money. I'm actually doing it for my passions, my purpose. It’s my future, and that all that money goes to charity and, hopefully, impacts you guys’ life too.
Cool. You want to bring in William? What's up, William? [14:00.0]
William: What's up, brother? How are you?
Mark: Great, man. How are you?
William: Good, man, good, just dealing with this whole thing, you know?
Mark: Yeah, yeah. Hey, so some of your questions, gauge revenue per hour and all that stuff. Do you have anything in particular?
William: First, what you're talking about, you're going to do mule activities and stuff like that, it's inevitable, right? But choosing the right ones, I think that's what we're trying to say, right? Right now, personally, I'm working with Peter and stuff like that. We work with push buttons [inaudible] and that was one big activity that we got rid of, which is the text messaging and the VA, all that mundane stuff. Another thing, we hired a lead manager, he's really like the qualifier for those leads for us now. That way we can think about or we can focus on higher-level activities.
I guess my question is how did you just continually keep moving that needle, and it was a long time ago for you, but when you were doing it in the wholesale business?
Mark: Yeah, man, I think at the end of the day, for me, I'm still conscious. I think it's conscious activity. If someone said everyone would be successful if they did what Michael Jordan did as a mule, the truth is sort of true, but sort of not. Listen, there's a lot of people here that will never be a good basketball player like Michael Jordan. They can be outside for the next 10 hours a day, shooting basketball hoops and not getting anywhere fast at all, but they're working really hard. [15:13.0]
I think for me, it's like I think you’ve got to go through the journey. I think you’ve got to go through the realization that you're a mule and you're trying to get the magician-like things, and you’ve got to say it out, That hurts, out. I could tell you a million ways and, dude, I do this at my one company. I'm like, Don't buy leads. Buy them through us. Here's why. Nope. I can get them cheaper. All right, cool, you'll be back. That's it. I'm not fighting you on it because I know you’ll be back because now you get leads cheaper, yes. But does it mean it's better quality? Does it mean you have to do it yourself? What does that mean? I don't know what it means.
Not only that, now that you're the driver of… We forget that drivers can't be driving 14 cars at the same time. I'm driving my car. Leads are being generated for me and I don’t have to drive that car. Calls are being called for me and I don’t have to drive that car. Okay, accounting is done for me over here and I don't have to drive that car. I'm looking for cars I don't have to drive. I want to drive the big bus where everyone is following me instead of me trying to drive them all at the same time. [16:06.5]
You’ve got to find the ones that are serving you, man. That's the biggest thing. You're going to fight it until you figure it out that everything has a cost associated with it though, right?
William: Yeah. More nowadays for me and something I’ve learned from you even behind the scenes is just I'm not looking for the costs anymore. I'm looking for what is it going to bring me in, not what it's going to cost upfront.
Mark: Yeah. I mean, Joe Evangelisti said it best that cheaper is not always better. Really what we're talking about now is value versus price. I'm looking for value. I don't care if it's cheaper. It's always funny, again, like I said, I grew up and I had Kmart clothes and I can tell you right now, Rustler jeans for $10 is not better than $300 custom jeans, you know what I mean? I promise you. One, the custom jeans were last way longer. They feel better. I feel better. It looks better. It's undeniable value. But if you don't have the $300 mental muscle to buy a pair of jeans, it's pointless to even talk about it. [17:01.8]
Cheaper is definitely not always better. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't, but I found it true very rarely, if ever, because if it's cheap, I can do it for free. I can go do it myself. I just don't think people want the value exchange of what our time is really worth, man.
William: Yeah, I think that's something that over the last year, my brother and I really just came to that realization of we’ve got a runner and stuff like that. That was a huge game changer over a year ago, runs for all over our properties, lockboxes showing you the buyer, shit like that. Just things like that that what the hell are we doing it for? Our time is better served elsewhere or getting another deal, structuring a better deal, etc.
Mark: Yeah, I mean, I see a lot of guys posting checks online, right? Going to title companies and posting checks, which is always interesting to me. It is 2020 and I was busting this one guy's chops. He's a cool guy. I'm just messing with him. But he’s saying a lot of guys are posting checks. You guys don't understand it's because that's what…they're selling a product and they want to see a check. [18:02.2]
I personally wouldn't follow anybody posting checks. Why? I don't want to go get a check. Dude, do you know how many tens of thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of dollars I've never cashed in checks? I lose them. I don't cash them. I don't go to the postbox. I don't go to the bank. It's like, if it's not a wire, ACH or something of that sort, it's probably not happening with me.
So, we don't accept it. I mean, we don't. We had a title issue last week I think my assistant handled where they sent a check, a $120,000 check. I'm like, I'm not collecting it. Have them resend it. They won't cancel. They won't. It's a big mess. I'm like, How the hell don't people know this is 2020?
The truth is I get more inspired, William, if you print off a document showing me three wires in today and you didn't do anything. That's more impressive to me than three checks standing in front of Chase Bank, going inside of the bank with a face mask on.
William: Yeah, one of the best things we ever did was get a POA with our attorney. It was a huge time-saver. [18:59.2]
Mark: Yeah. But it's funny how we create these conversations in our head, dude, again, mule work to go to a title company. It takes time. It takes organization because you don't organize your agenda. You and I could sit here and DocuSign everything right now. I could text my assistant. I could text my bookkeeper and say, Hey, wire this money. Do this, do that. It's actually one on the day. I’ve got four deals going on that day. I don't need to schedule it. I don't need to go to the title company. I don't need to shake anybody's hands. I don't need to drive down the freeway. In Florida, as you know, it's always a racetrack, not a freeway. I don't need to do anything, and yet some people are on here bragging about how hard they work, how many houses they go to.
I remember, William, I used to go in houses because this is how I was taught initially and it smelled like cat piss, right? And I'm like, Oh, what's that smell? And I'm like, Cat piss? They're like, No, it smells like money. I'm like, Does not. It smells like cat piss. It is what it is. But that's how they lie to themselves to keep them in the field, you know what I mean? [20:01.8]
William: Yeah, totally.
Mark: True story, these guys are doing this every day and this is how they're training people. That's the issue, man. People are training you guys wrong. They're training you in how to do the wrong activities because they're doing the wrong activities. If they knew the right way, they wouldn't be doing it.
William: I think you'll agree, right? One of the things, I mean, I'm obviously not excited about coronavirus and everything that's going on, all the health things that are happening, but I think this is a nice way to just lift the skirt up on a lot of people, a lot of just idiots that they weren't doing anything to begin with.
Mark: I agree.
William: I think you'll agree with that and I’ve heard you being pretty passionate about it in some of your videos, which I respect a lot because a lot of people aren't talking about it.
Mark: They're hurting a lot of people. I actually don't sell courses and all that stuff. I should be selling courses because I know how to do it, but I just don't have time and it's another business. It's another avenue. It's another mental [effort]. It's a lot of work. We forget when I make this decision, everything else behind it has to follow. There are a lot of variables there. [21:01.5]
But, yeah, man, it's a, that's awesome. How's everything? Everything else is good?
William: Everything else is great, man. Thank God. Just growing it out. We increased marketing because we felt like more people weren't marketing as much, so we felt that that was the right thing to do, especially during this time.
Mark: That's awesome, man. That's awesome, buddy. I'm glad you're here. I appreciate you. If you need anything, let me know.
William: All right, listen, I appreciate the info, man. Take care of yourself.
Mark: Thank you, buddy.
William: Thanks, Mark.
Mark: Cool. Guys, anybody else have any other questions or comments? I said I'm here to help you guys. I really do. I like shooting back and forth with conversations because we're all in different places, different parts of our life, different thought processes, different financial situations, different unique abilities. I mean, it's endless, right? I don't really believe in one size fits all for anything at all. Even my onesie in there, it barely fits me and it says one size fits all. Nah, I’m shitting. But just thinking about you guys.
I do want to say, though, thank you guys again for getting the Magician vs. Mule. It does mean a ton to me. I'm excited to get this workbook out for you guys. I’ve got some cool bonuses. Like I said, I'm going to be doing gifts to everyone that has got it. It's cranking. I'm super excited and honored to be here. [22:11.8]
If you guys haven't got your book, get over to MagicianVsMule.com, or go on Amazon and type in “magician versus mule.” It’ll pop up. I'm working on the audio version, hopefully, to have that done in three months or less. With all the stuff going on, I'm trying to figure out how to do it. But I'm here for you guys.
If you need to and keep me posted. You have questions or comments, feel free to private message me. If I can shoot a show, I will. You guys will make my job a lot easier.
Anyway, stay focused. Become that magician I know you are, you know you are. Work on the things that will get you there quicker, easier, and more impactful. It’s what it’s about. Hope you guys have an amazing day. Stay focused, guys. Peace.
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