Welcome to the “Making of a DM.” Success and hard times, are they your friends or are they not? We're about to find out. So, with that said, let's get started.
Mark: Hey there, it’s your host, Mark Evans DM. Hope you’re having an amazing day, and as you're listening to this, I'm recording today from Mentor, Ohio, down here in the cigar bar area. It's getting cold here, a little bit of floorage recently, but the treehouse update, it’s almost done. [01:02.5]
Actually, today, I believe they will be done, Day 11. This thing costs more than a car, so it's exciting. I'm excited to spend and create a lot of cool memories up there with my son and my daughter, and my family, in general, and just hope you guys have been following along on the journey. It's been fun to do and Mark is out there every day, helping them. It's raining. It's snowing. There’s mud everywhere. We just got the electricity and internet cable up there yesterday, so they're finishing up on the exterior today.
I appreciate you guys following along on that. It's always fun to me. I like to share real life stuff with you. That's my life, and that's part of today's show, about the success trap. I see so many, so many people fall for it, and I want to kind of share my thoughts and insights on it, and through the journey of almost 25 and a half years of being in business and wanting to be the most successful person and all that good stuff. We'll talk about that here in a second. [01:59.7]
I also want to take a minute and tell you guys, thank you very much. Last week, I asked for help on five-star reviews over on iTunes, absolutely free for you to do, helps us a ton, helps me, helps the audience, helps us all win more and create some great relationships through this powerful thing we have access to. It's pretty neat, isn't it? It’s pretty wild. You're listening to my voice, maybe in your car, maybe in your headsets, maybe on the treadmill, maybe you're working, whatever you're doing, and isn't it amazing. I'm shooting this from a little handheld recorder, pacing around here and talking to you.
There's a reason you're listening to the show today. There's always a reason. I don't believe that things happen by accident. There is a hundred percent a reason you're here at this moment, and I take this very seriously. I take this shit ultra-seriously. I don't want to be here just to waste your time, let alone my time, to be honest. I have something to say today, and I hope and I believe, if you hear the message, I think it could resonate with you and maybe help you on the journey to the next level. [03:04.3]
Again, appreciate all the five-star reviews. Keep sending. Keep doing them. It's amazing, so thank you, guys, for that.
Today's show is I was talking with a buddy actually from the tree house yesterday, and he's worth about a quarter of a billion dollars, 250 million. He has three young children, young, I mean, 16 to I think seven-ish. I was talking to him and I was like, Dude, what's up, man?
He was like, Man, I love that treehouse. It's awesome. He said some stuff interesting. Here's what he said. He said, “Man, I wish I had the time to do something like that with my kids,” and I'm like, just newsflash, I'm not worth 250 million yet and I started thinking, and I didn't think, I said this. I'm like, Dude, what do you mean you wish you had time to do that?
He's like, Dude, right now, it's the biggest opportunity in our business. We're crushing it. We're traveling all over the world, meeting new partners and blah, blah, blah. [04:02.5]
I'm like, You have your priorities absolutely fucked up if you believe, if you've bought your own bullshit that you think that's success to you. To me, it's not.
He's like, What do you mean?
I'm like, Dude, your children, when you die, they're not going to say, Man, I wish my dad acquired another company or built his company bigger to make more money. Your kids are going to remember the memories that you created with them and for them.
I'm a family man first. Got to be honest, guys. I'm not out here … I know a lot of people are saying hustling hard and all this shit. I'm not saying I don't work. I work, but my goal today is to help give a different framework, maybe a little bit different perspective of what success in our brain looks like. Anyway, he and I kept talking, and literally he has created this thing in his head that the more successful he is, the better provider he is to his family. [05:07.4]
Now, again, I believe you should be a great provider. I'm not judging that, but the guy is worth a minimum $250 million. If you can't provide at 250, you sure in hell can't provide at a billion, you know what I mean? I know some people listening to this are like, Oh my god, if I could only get to 5 million or 25 million, or whatever your number is, it would be different, and that's what I want to challenge you today. It's not different.
I've generated a decent amount of money. I'm nowhere where I'm going, but where I come from, it's a hell of a lot, and I have many, many, many investments generating seven figures a year without ever having to work, and I’ve realized I just stepped back. You guys have got to keep in mind, I've been literally virtual, not in companies in the day-to-day, since 2005. This is not a new rodeo for me to like, oh, I just woke up, read a book and now I'm going to teach you and share this shit with you. [06:08.4]
I've been doing business, shit, I was doing business when I was five years old, let alone, I didn't know it was business back then, but I was hustling. I was creating money through thoughts, right? My thoughts. Get out my sister's toys, do the rain dance, hope it rains, and sell toys during a rain recess inside. True story, I did that all the time. I did bracelets. I did necklaces. I did all kinds of shit.
But back to the point. We create this trap in our brain of what success looks like—and I get it, man, I grew up in a trailer court. I just wanted to get out. That was success to me, just getting out, so Success Step 1, get out. Success 2, small town, get out, accomplish to accomplish. Success 3, make more than 100 grand a year. I accomplished that really quickly, but I was chasing more. I wanted more. I still want more, but I also am not willing to trade things to get more, if that makes any sense. There are certain things I will do and not do to accomplish certain things. [07:10.7]
I'm going to talk to you and share those with you today, but my first question to you, and I guess a little bit of thought-auditing, is what does success mean to you? The thing is with success, it's a moving target. As you evolve, it changes. It edits. Ideally, it edits.
When I'm talking to my buddy, I'm devastated for his children. Seriously, I'm devastated. Truth is he's heading down the path of divorce. It's just not a good place to be, but in his mind, again, he's sought out. He's a big dog in his world and he makes a lot of money. That, to me, again, let me just be clear, is not success to me. I'm not judging him, by the way. If that's what he wants, it's all him. [08:03.2]
But we were cool about it. We had a conversation. He knows kind of where I stand on it because I have a family. I'm a family guy first. There's no amount of money you could pay me to come and speak at an event if I'm not rolling with my family. I just don't do it. I realize my kids are young. They're two and a half and six and a half, and I have a very limited amount of time with them at these ages. Actually, when this age has gone, it's never coming back. Not like money, right? I could make and lose money today and get more tomorrow, then lose more tomorrow, too. It's just part of the process. But time, that's the ultimate success for me, buying time to do the things I truly love to do.
I love to come up. It's funny, my contractors and guys I work with and do stuff with at my houses, they're always like, Dude, how the hell do you even think of the shit you have us do? Putting cigar bars and candy bars and all this cool shit in the basement and you're turning it into a cool area, and then the saunas and now the treehouse. I mean, expanding the garden, just doing stuff like that. [09:07.1]
It's because I genuinely have time to think about what makes me happy. I don't give a shit if it makes you happy or mad or sad. I'm not flexing. I'm doing what makes me happy. That's success to me. I enjoy sharing with people I love, not just sharing the thing, but sharing the journey and the experience. Hence, why I’ve been sharing it on social about the process, about each day me and Mark are out there literally. Actually, Mark goes to the gym with me in the morning at 7:00 a.m. We come back. The guys are here working and he's like, Dad, Dad, can we go? Can we go home? Got to throw on the jeans and go out there, get all muddy and check out the treehouse. It's a real part of my life. It's the most important part of my life. There will be a point when these kids don't want to hang out with Dad. There will be a point when the kids are out of the house and Dad is begging them to come and hang out. [10:01.2]
Yet I see great people chasing the wrong thing, and this is my opinion, I think they're going to look back and I know I feel very, very, very ultra-confident that people that are chasing the dollar will one day look back at their have children and feel like there's going to be a lot of devastation. There's going to be a lot of regret. I know we’re always talking about doing things, no regret, no regret. Dude, you're going to regret that because time I can't get back. I cannot do it. No one can, so you have to start building a path.
There's a great book called, and you should read this book by Dan Sullivan called The Gap and The Gain. I know a lot of times because we're in social, we're living in a social environment world, right, where people can see what they think success looks like. Maybe see my cars, I've got all these Rolls-Royces and a Ferrari, and cool cars and cool houses, and flying on jets and yachts and shit or whatever, but that doesn't mean that's success. The truth is I do it because that's what I want and I can get it, right? That to me is success. [11:17.0]
You can't take an outside influence. You can use it as inspiration, but don't think you're not getting successful because you don't have it today. I always talk about my Rolls. It took me 12 years of my business life to get my first high-end car like that. I had a Rover prior, right? I had a G-Wagon. Nothing crazy back then, and it's not because I couldn't afford it. It's because I didn't really necessarily care about it and I didn't care what anybody else thought I drove. It was like, whatever to me.
But I can tell you this. I was driving a shitty car back in the day and I felt like I was driving a Rolls. I was actually putting myself in the position in my brain where I was thinking positive stuff, listening to Tony Robbins on that CD, positive thinking and all this shit, not positive thinking and do nothing, but positive thinking with massive action behind it, and ultimately you get what you want. [12:07.0]
I still pinch myself daily thinking, How the hell did this all happen? I had everybody telling me this could never happen my whole life. No one said, Mark, that's a great idea, you're going to crush it, right? They always said, Mark, go get good grades, go to college, get a good job, and just sit back and enjoy life, and I thought that is exactly not the life I would ever have or want. I don't want to be average. I don't want to be normal. I don't want to settle. It's like I want to create the most out of this life, very short life that we all have. I'm 43. Hopefully, I’ll live to 150. I don't know if that's going to happen, but it could, and let's say half of my life is gone. I want to make the other half count at a whole other level on a compound effect. [13:00.8]
But this book, The Gap and The Gain, will give you some clarity on this once you start discovering what success is to use. They talk about one part in here about a lot of people seeking success, right? “I'll be successful when …”
Like I said, “I’ll be successful when I move out of my small town.”
“I’ll be successful when I make my first 100 grand in a year.”
“I’ll be successful when I buy my first house.”
“I’ll be successful when I buy my high-end car.”
“I’ll be successful when I get married.”
“I’ll be successful when I have a kid.”
“I’ll be successful when I sell 25 companies or by 20.” Whatever, right?
The problem with that is we need to change that around. We need to change the context of the question to yourself, flip the question. This guy, Dean, did this and it's very powerful, and the thing is he flipped it from, like I said, “I’ll be successful when …” to “I know I'm being successful when …” [14:03.6]
When will you be successful? When will you be successful? I'm going to share some of my things I wrote down for success and these are literally rough-draft success things, and not even a rough draft, it's just shit I live by and I wrote it down, though. “I know I'm successful when I can work with whoever I want,” and what that means is if I don't like you, you're out of my life, period. It sucks sometimes. It's not always easy sometimes.
I’ll talk more about that here later, but remember this, hard times find weak people that say they're your friends. This is a very powerful one, but stay tuned to that one. I'm going to show that in a few minutes here. I kick people out of my life. If I discover you're doing bad things or shitty things, or you're just not a positive, upbeat person, get out of my life. [15:01.1]
By the way, I control that. I control the good, the bad and everything in between, but once I identify, I execute. It sounds cold, but it's true. I do it all the time. Take stock of the people you're rolling with. Look at where they're at and what they're doing, and what they're saying and how they're doing it, and address it accordingly.
“I know I'm successful when I create massive amounts of passive income that massively supersedes my living expenses.” I've done that already today in my life and yet I'm still chasing. I'm still not even chasing. I'm still building, still feel like I’ve not accomplished anything. This is the difference with the gap and the gain, seriously. I talk about it often. It’s like I'm just getting started. Knowing what I know now, I'm just getting started. [15:59.2]
“I know I'm successful when I live anywhere I want.” It's pretty powerful. I don't know if you guys can do that, but I’ve built my life to be able to do that. I've been doing it since ’05. I have two kids now. I still do it. I live part-time in Ohio, part-time in Florida, and we travel a lot of places in between.
My boy calls me up and says, Yo, Evans, do you want to hook up? We're going to the lake tomorrow in Arizona or Utah.
Cool, see at 9:00 a.m.
I’ve created a life to allow me to do that. “I” created it. It sounds fucking crazy to the average person because they don't understand. “Oh my, but how do you organize everything?” Dude, I'm prepared. I'm ready. I've built this life that way. This isn't bragging, by the way. I'm just sharing real shit with you that is real. I mean, it's the truth.
“I invest time in memories, small and big.” What do I mean by that? I'm very, very conscious of time as the fleeting thing that we all want more of, especially with our kids. In the mornings, every morning, “Good morning.” I’ve built my life to be able to wake up and hang out with my kids in the morning, play with them, do whatever. I don't have a packed schedule.
I’ll share that in a second, but wake up, my routine for 4:44, if not earlier, do my thing. Head out to the gym at 6:40, take Mark with me, typically, probably about half the time, because he wants to spend time with Dad, hang out, work out. I love that, by the way, as a dad. I love him wanting to learn and jump, and grow and sweat and, and push through hard times and grow, build his confidence up. [18:03.6]
Then when we get back, I can walk in and take my time, be relaxed, have breakfast with them, play with them and do the things that I love doing. I love being a dad. I could do these podcast shows on my time. I don't have a set schedule to do my podcast show. I do it when I have something to share. I oftentimes hang out and have lunch upstairs with them.
Oftentimes I eat by myself, too, but often, when my kids are here, if I can sit down and just for 10, 20, 30 minutes and talk to them and what Dria is coloring and trying to feed me, and Mark is dropping food all over the new chairs Deena bought, those are the moments. Taking my son to build this treehouse, he’s helping to decorate it. He's got his little red bean bag and “Dad, can we do this? Can we do that?” and it's like, “So tell me what else you want to do? How do we do it? How much does it cost? What does it look like? Why do you want to do it? That's cool, man.” Half the shit I don't want to do, but it's cool to talk about. These are memories for me and him. [19:12.4]
The thing is with children, right, oftentimes this is like a 20-year investment, right? You might not even know the impact that you're making. It's not like financials. This is why a lot of people don't invest a lot of time in relationship capital, I believe, because they don't see an instant payoff. They don't see it like, hey, if I put 100 grand and it gets 10 percent a year, I’ve got a 10 percent ROI. Cool, I'm good with that. I don't look at relationships or money like that, honestly. I look at it as a whole.
“Being able to take my wife on a date once a week.” Memories for us, talk about where we're at, where we're going, be silly, right? Memories. A lot of times you guys see us on a yacht or on the jet with the fam. That's memories. What you don't see is what we're talking about when we're in the jet or on the yacht, talking about life, talking about giving, talking about how blessed we are and how lucky. This is not a normal thing. [20:15.6]
But Mark will never be normal. Dria will never be normal. I don't want you to be normal either. I want you to be extraordinary. I want you to live to your highest capabilities. I want you to dream bigger than your dad. Don't we all want our kids to be better than us? I don't want to give them handouts.
I don't create handout children, but a hand up, for sure. Come to me with an idea. Come to me with a plan. Come to me with solutions teaching the kids how to solve problems, deal with it. See, when I was a kid, I was getting in fights with other kids. My dad was like, Dude, you started it. You deal with this shit. Figure it out. Leave us alone. We're trying to drink some beers and play cards. [21:02.5]
I might not talk to my buddy for two days, but then we're best friends three minutes later, right? Figure it out. Solve problems. To me, people and too many kids are so pussified, everything is always upsetting, “You understand? They're very sensitive.” Yeah, they're called pussies because you created it. You've allowed it. I'm not saying I'm insensitive, but, guys, we have a duty to bring amazing children into this world to be great leaders and great people, just great givers and just good human beings all around.
We're on the yacht, seven days out there just dreaming, disconnected, but ultimately really connected, talking, playing. “Dad, let's go in the water.” “Why? There are sharks in there, Mark.” “Let's go jet skiing. Let's get over our fears.” Mark is kind of afraid of jet skis with me because he says I go too fast, but he'll go with a buddy of ours, his kid, because he goes slower. Cool. It's memories, right? [22:06.6]
I love taking trips without scheduling them. The true story is I don't like scheduling stuff. I don't like a packed schedule. I don't like it. I know a lot of people are like, Productivity hacks, every 15 minutes do XYZ. Bullshit. Again, it’s like they're looking for … I know a lot of people are very productive, but have no fucking money, have no life. It makes zero sense to me. I'm not that productive. Truthfully, I'm not that productive at all, but I get sit done and I hire people to help me when I'm weak, you know what I mean? [22:51.7]
“I can stop anytime I want.” That's a big one. This is a big one. I can stop anytime I want. I've genuinely built my life and created a lifestyle where I don't need millions of things. I'm set. But I’ve created an amazing path of cash flow to take care of me and my wife and kids pretty much forever at the age of 43 today, way earlier than that, but where I'm at today. It just keeps growing. Today I made multiple investments, true story. I messaged my buddy. He has 16 different companies invested in. I’m investing side by side with him on some of them, not all of them, but some. There will be singles in there and there will be massive home runs in there.
Recently, I don't know if you guys saw it, but Kobe, before he passed, he actually invested 6 million in a company and they actually just went public or sold and popped him off 400 million. It's a pretty good return. Pretty good return, I would say. So, I like to do that. I like to invest in young guys, gals, great companies, great visionaries, great leaders. [24:09.0]
That's one thing money can do for you, give you an opportunity to help bless other people and make money doing it. It's always a pretty cool thing. Make more money. I can get more money and help them make more money. We can give more money back to charity. But you know what the best part about it all is really? It’s believing in the individual and supporting it with your dollars. Everyone will say they'll support you until money comes in the game. “I'm really busy, man. I can't get to that right now,” right? When you put dollars behind it, it means something.
Like I said, I don't really have a calendar. I have a set call every Wednesday at 10:30 with one of my companies. Another one of our companies got beat up pretty badly recently. It's just part of business growth. It's a massive growing pain issue we had, and so I heightened communications and I talk to them from 10:30 to 11:00 a.m., four days a week. Actually, today it was only 15 minutes. Boom, because when shit hits the fan, over-communication is key. [25:14.0]
I wake up without an alarm. I know I get up early, but I’ve trained myself. I've built my life. It's just what I do. I just get up early. Some people are night owls, I'm not. Last night, I was in bed at 7:40, lying in bed. I wasn't going to sleep because I have two kids going crazy and I'm down on the floor, acting like a horse, they're on my back, flying off, crying, laughing, jumping back on. “Do it again, Dad. Do it again, Dad.” Then by 9:30, 10 o'clock, we're all passed out.
But I don't have a big calendar. People try to hit me up and say, “Man, I know you're so busy. Can you get on my podcast show?”
“When?”
“Seven months later.”
“Sorry, hit me up seven months later then.” I don't schedule like that. Why? Glad you asked. It creates massive anxiety for me. It really does. Guys, I don't work for anybody. I work for myself and that's it. But I take it very seriously. If I have something on my calendar, it really messes with me because I don't want to disappoint and it creates massive anxiety. [26:14.1]
I've bought every productivity hack. I’ve hired productivity coaches back in the day. This works for me. It might not work for you, but it works for me. You look at my schedule, there's one thing on it, 10:30 a.m., that's it. But I have habits. Get up early, work out, have lunch. I have habits. I eat early. I eat like an old man. I eat at 5:30, 6:00 p.m. These are my habits. These habits help me stay on track.
“I know I'm successful when I'm pursuing a better version of me, health and wealth-wise,” right?
“I know I'm successful when I'm impacting others and becoming better and bigger, to make a bigger impact.” That's why I do the podcast show. That's why I write books. That's why I give to charities. I want to impact people. I call it full-circle giving. [27:16.3]
The number one core value in all my companies that I'm a part of, full-circle giving, take care of yourself, take care of others, and keep growing. That's what we do and it's a big deal to me. I genuinely love helping people want to help themselves. There's nothing better than that at any time.
But those are some of my “I know I'm successful when …” The reason that's important is because, if you call me up and be like, Mark, I’ll pay you $100,000 to come speak at my event. It's in Alaska. It's during Christmas. I know it sucks, but, dude, it's 100 grand. I'd already have stopped you and said, I'm out, I'm not interested. It's not because I don't like you. It's not because of the money. It's because of my time. My time is worth way more with my kids and family. [27:54.0]
This might change a little bit. Once the kids are 18, 19, 20, 25 years old, whatever, maybe I'm just hanging out at the house and bored and I want to do it. Shit, at that point, it's not even about me doing it for money. It's that I have the time and the flexibility to be able to go and do that kind of stuff. Deena and I would fly in, hang out, do what we do and then roll. Maybe that's in the future, I don't know, but like I said, this stuff edits.
“Mark, I’ve got this most amazing business. You need to have four meetings a year. We meet corporate style, blah, blah, blah.” I'm out. I don't buy businesses like that. I don't participate in businesses like that necessarily. I am an entrepreneur and I like entrepreneur-style businesses. I don't like corporate-style businesses. I have invested in corporate-style businesses, but just strictly as a money ploy, cash flow ploy, right? But if I'm being involved in adding value with knowledge, I’ll do a virtual video to them. Maybe I’ll shoot a live or something, but I'm not picking up and leaving. [28:56.6]
Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it's great to leave and get out of your house and get out of your circle, depending on what situation you're at in life, but, guys, I did that. You’ve got to understand, from 1996 to 2008-ish, I traveled a shit ton. I learned a lot about myself. I traveled for seven years with my wife, literally around the country and the world, so I got really close with myself. What do I like? What am I great at? What do I hate? Why do I hate feeling like this? What does success mean? This is where thought-auditing really kicked in. When you're hanging out in Paris, France, by yourself for three weeks and your wife is kind of going through changes because we're like, Oh my god, we're not home and we don't know anybody, you really start going inner instead of external.
The Gap and The Gain. You should read that book by Dan Sullivan. Those are “I know I'm successful when …” moments for me, and this is a kind of gratitudish style, very grateful to be in this position. It didn't happen by accident, that's for sure. I have sacrificed a lot, time, money, energy, emotions, a lot. [30:17.0]
The bigger picture was more important than the pain in the moment. It's kind of like going to the gym. It sucks lifting sometimes, but you know you're there for the reason and you're there for the results eventually. It never happens as fast as you want, but it will happen if you keep your feet moving.
I hope that helps you a lot, I really do. I have some other stuff to talk to you about today, but I hope [you ask,] success, what does it mean to you? Right? My life wouldn't change if you handed me a billion dollars. My life would not change. Maybe I might buy a jet, a bigger jet or something different, but, guys, I’ve built the life I want. I have everything. [31:03.3]
You know what I want more of? I want more health. I want more energy and I want more longevity in my life. My kids, I want everyone I love to have the same, right? That'd be a great world to live in, right? Right now, everybody is good. That's not the case forever. Parents are getting older. I'm getting older. You just never know when the man upstairs calls your number, truthfully. I think about that shit daily. I did a show about this, how death drives me.
I do work, though. You can ask my wife, I do work. It's not like I'm sitting at home smoking cigars, doing nothing all day. But what is work? Do we ever ask ourselves, What does work mean and why do you have to work? Again, I say I do work, but what does work mean? I’ve got to give you context. [31:54.0]
To me, it means leading people. That's my job every day, to hear, listen, lead, and bring ideas to help grow companies. That's how I get paid. The bigger the problem, the bigger the solve, the bigger the opportunity, the more people we can impact, the more money we can make, the more people we can hire.
I had a really big moment recently where I didn't even think about this because this isn't stuff that I think about a lot because we are all moving and just doing stuff. But I'm invested in a lot of different ventures and I was just calculating some basic math. I don't know the exact number, but it's like 1,400 or 1,500 employees that are impacted through my investments. It's pretty wild. Entrepreneurs truly can change and will change the world. They have. They will. We always will, because we solve problems. That's how we get paid. But it's pretty neat to me to be thinking about that. That's a lot of people. [33:05.3]
Then, I don't talk to all these people, obviously, but I talk to key people and the message gets carried down throughout other stuff, and it's pretty cool. Actually, a lot of people in the teams listen to the show. If you're one of them, thank you. I care about you greatly and I do. I really genuinely think about the team, how to help them, not just make more money, but how to build an amazing life.
I'll talk more about that later one day, maybe on another show, but in your team there's so much opportunity. They're great people really, all of them. Like I said, in my life, if you're a shitty person, business or personal, you are out of my life as soon as I discover you're a shitty person, true story. I don't care how big or how much you make the company, you're out. I just don't like it in my world. [34:00.0]
Moving forward, hard times find weak people that say they're your friends. Like I mentioned earlier, we've had some challenges at one of our companies. It was crushing it and now we're having some growth challenges, which happens in business. That company is growing really, really quick and big, and a lot of people, hundreds of people in motion, and we had a challenge. We had some partners and we addressed the challenge with them, and we have a lot of partners in that one and two of them, unfortunately, went south quickly. It was about money for them, and to us, it was about doing the right thing.
What I’ve discovered through my life and, again, I'm not talking about these guys, they're great guys, it’s just that it just doesn't jive with what I feel and do and act, because I’ve considered these guys, my boys. Truthfully, these are guys that if they called me up at 2:00 a.m. and said, Hey, man, I need 100 gees this Sunday, ASAP, no questions asked, done. No questions asked, for real. [35:13.7]
But that didn't happen and it wasn't even a lot of money, by the way, for the situation. It was more of having a conversation. Then what happened was they came on to the attack as opposed to being your boy and having a solution and having your back saying, I’ve got you, you tell me I'm in this with you for the long haul. And these have made massive six figures, if not, seven figures, each with me just this year alone net and it's very unfortunate.
I'm actually saddened by it. It fucked me up for about three days, for real, when it happened, not about the money and not about things, but the two guys that I thought were my boys. One guy avoided me for three weeks. He avoided the conversation for three weeks. It was kind of a weird thing and, like I said, I consider these guys like my brothers. [36:06.0]
When shit hits the fan, I guess what I'm saying here is if you truly do care about someone, over-communicate with them. They're going through a tough time. You know their heart is in the right place. You know they're not doing anything malicious or negative. They're just dealing with stuff. But when people fight or flight, get them out of your fucking life as fast as humanly possible. It's a massive character flaw, massive. To me, it might be one of the biggest character flaws ever.
Looking back, clearly there weren't my boys, because if you're the boys, you ride and die, right? You don't ride because it's easy and fucking jump off because you hit a bump and take off running. You lean into it, put your arms around it. You let them know, Man, here's the deal. [37:03.0]
But what they really did was they manipulated a situation, calling themselves your boy to be able to get in this, Again, this is my take, by the way. This could be wrong to them and that's fine. I think this is one thing everyone is worried about, fucking being a puss like, Oh, man, I don't want to upset this person. Fuck, I'm not worried about you. I'm worried about me. I'm not trying to go out and maliciously hurt someone ever, but I'm sharing my feelings. If that feeling is not aligned with yours, okay, figure out your feelings. I don't know. Right?
And I’ve discovered this through life, right? My job is not to make you happy. My job is to make me happy, and if you're happy being happy with me, perfect. That works. Get your shit together, not my shit. I’ve got to take care of me. You’ve got to take care of you. Then, hopefully, we come together and we help each other grow, right? That goes for all relationships, right? Family, kids, all this shit. [38:02.8]
But when the times are hard, I don't sit around and pray for hard times, by the way. This is a multimillion-dollar thing that happened, by the way, for real money, not fake money or whatever, but real money I stepped up out of my personal pocket and ponied up and paid for it.
But what is interesting is I'm very thankful that this hard time happened because my team that runs that company are fucking rock stars. They genuinely got punched in the face a thousand times and kept getting up. I was there. They were there. We were all there. We actually brought on more people. Not only was shit hitting the fan, but we were hiring and hiring more people to help handle the influx of what was happening, and so now you’ve got to hire, you’ve got to train, you’ve got to do all that. I mean, this is levels and levels. They're working eight to 10 hours a day, moving it to 14 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week. [39:10.0]
In hard times like this, this team I will roll with and die with, for real. If any one of those team members in the big team would call me and say, Hey, man, I need help on this or that, done, I'm in, because they showed their true colors when things get hard.
See, a lot of people avoid the hard. Avoiding hard will never serve you. Hard conversations, have them with yourself first and then have them with others. You know the people in your life that are full of shit, so, one, why do you keep rolling with them? And, two, why don't you tell them straight up? I've always had a knack for that. I used to get called a dick because of it oftentimes. Probably still do, I just don't listen to it anymore. [39:54.5]
But I'm not being a dick. I actually do care. That's why I'm telling you straight. I do care. If I didn't, I'd lie like all your other fucking friends that don't care about you, because if they did, they wouldn't sit there and watch you ruin your life. I don't need anything from anybody. I don't need your acceptance. I don't need your “Aw, he's a great guy.” I don't need any of that shit. That's not what gets me excited.
What gets me excited to see you grow, seeing you break your boundaries, helping you and being there. Most importantly, I genuinely want to be the best friend ever. I want to be the best husband ever. I genuinely want to be the best father ever, the best son ever, the best brother ever. I'm not saying I’ve succeeded at all this all the time, but I'm very conscious of it.
When that happened, not only were they buddies, my boys, my brothers, but also we had business going on. They flew faster than anything I’ve ever seen before. It turned negative like I’ve never seen it before. “Oh, I'm heartbroken.” Huh? The fuck, I ain't your wife. What do you mean heartbroken? This is a business thing. I'm calling it. Again, shit like that and then you go MIA. They're not bad guys, but that's a bad, massive character flaw for my world. For my world. [41:19.8]
One thing to know about me, I will fucking win. I always do. I could get punched in the face a million times, I'm not stopping. I will stop when you plug my ass in the ground. That's when I stop. But I'm building my life where even when that happens, we're still going to keep fucking shining. We're going to still keep growing. We're going to still keep pushing.
Do you know why? Because I have the team. I have amazing people in my life, consciously amazing people. I would fucking cut off any limb to make their life better. I would help them do anything. [The people] that are rolling with me like that, I will help them accomplish anything they want to accomplish in their life, even if it means leaving our company. I don't just say this shit. I live it. I'm for real. [42:10.0]
See, that's the difference. There are a lot of people that say a lot of amazing shit out loud, and then you get behind the scenes and you're like, This guy is a fucking liar at all levels. Not to say they can't help you make money, not to say they can't help you do stuff, but, listen, a lot of people that have the same compass I have, I can do the same thing with.
See, the biggest thing I hate about it is I'm invested in these guys. This is me, by the way. I want to always overdeliver, overpromise and overdeliver. I want to be the guy you call at 2:00 a.m. because you need help. That makes me excited. That makes me feel like I'm accomplishing success, for real. I genuinely know in this crazy situation, actually in a real way, I’ve become very crystal clear and calm. [43:11.5]
I've trained myself through reading and coaches and mentorships and doing it, going through real shit of how to assess and address in a calm, cool, collected manner when most people are running around. There's a fire and they're just running in circles, freaking out. I promise you this, when hard times hit, dig in deeper with your relationships. If you look at any long-term relationship you have, you've had hard times that you've addressed and overcome, you've grown closer. I've never met someone that has never had hard times. [43:55.4]
But what sucks is these guys, I'm the type of guy that I want to see you make more, and, again, I don't have any ill will against these guys, none, but I'm going to fucking smoke them. They're going to lose long term because I'm the best fucking friend ever. For real, I am. Some people might disagree, but for me, if they do disagree, they need to come to me and we can talk about it because I want to know how to be a better friend. I don't know everything, clearly. No one does, but I'm very conscious of this effort. I will bend over backwards. I will give you access to anything I have, if you're my boy, I'm in, for real.
I have stories after stories on that. We won't go down that path, but what kind of friend are you? By the way, I'm talking to friends, not just to your boys, but to your team. I know a lot about a lot of my teams. I know a lot of people that don't get close to your team. I don't agree with that. For me, that doesn't work. I like to know what they're up to. I like to know what they're going through. I like to know if they accomplish their goals. I like to know if they're having some struggles and they need help, because I like to help people. [45:07.8]
That’s my daughter coming down here.
But I want you to know, hard times find weak people and I want you to be clear about that. You need to pay attention. You need to take notes of people that are rolling out when there's some resistance, because that's a great opportunity for you to really expand and excel the friendship and relationship very quickly. The guys that are still standing with you, you want them to flourish millions of percent more, millions.
We had one guy, we can't mention his name, but he did something that ninety-nine percent of guys would never do, I promise you. This guy rolls with me. He is rolling with me and he will always roll with me and I’ll always roll with him. We will generate. We will change both parties’ lives forever because he's a doer and he's a great fucking dude. [46:00.0]
What's interesting about that is I’ve only known him for nine months. The other guys I’ve known for years, so it's funny how these friendships work, right? It's funny how life works. But, again, the hard time happened. He and I communicated. We over-communicated and we created a solution, and we both are still in the fight and we're fucking winning.
The other two guys, they'll win in their Mickey Mouse game they're playing. One, they'll never be successfully happy. I hope they are. I wish they are. I absolutely don't want anybody to be unhappy, but they can't with that piece in their life, because anytime there's pain, resistance, they revert. They play it over in their head and they revert and become that person they're trying not to be. They've created this mask. “I'm a great guy. I will do anything for you. Oh, shit, things are happening. Dude, I'm out. I'm out. I'm fucking out.” Right? “I'm out. You didn't tell me that, man. I thought we were boys,” instead of like, Yo, man, Mark, this sucks. I'm here for you. What do we need to do next? [47:06.6]
That moment changed my life and their life, for sure, because it makes me take stock. It makes me pay attention to behaviors. Learning by doing, by the way. I'm learning by doing. I’ve spent great moments with these guys, but now it will never happen again, not in my life because it's a character flaw that you cannot overlook, because this is petty on the grand scheme of things of life. People have real fucking problems. This is a problem, but I'm talking like this is not a life-altering problem.
Unfortunately, one of my buddies, his pops just found out he has brain cancer, very ultra-rare brain cancer. It's disgustingly sad because they're great fucking people, but I pinged him immediately. “I'm here, anything you need.” I hope he texts me and says, Dude … [48:03.5]
He has the finances to do this as well, but I would love to do this for him. I'd get them a private jet for his family and take them anywhere they want in the world to spend time with his pops and his family or whatever. He'll never ask, but I would do that. I’m that type of guy. It's a big deal. I'm there. If you want to cry on my shoulder, I’m there. If you want to hug, I’m there. I'm in the game of relationships forever. Many say it. Very few live it.
I understand why people that are ultra, as they get bigger, their herd is very thin. They're not rolling with 50 people deep. They're rolling with three, four maybe. It's because life is interesting and you start seeing true colors when hard times happen. Like I said, I don't pray for hard times, but hard times are everywhere, and then identify whether it’s a hard time because that becomes now gratitude, perspective and realizing that we're in the biggest, most amazing time of life that we'll ever be today. [49:13.3]
This day will never be replicated. Once this time is gone, it's gone. The minutes, 30, 40, 50 minutes you've been listening to the show, you can never get them back, but I hope it can encourage you to be better, to be stronger, to grow and just keep enjoying the journey. I personally don't think there's any destination. I think we're all checkpoints of the process. We think it's a destination.
When I was 18, I was like, A hundred grand, if I could just make $100,000 a year. I used to dream about it, for real. That was all I thought about. Then you do it and you're like, Oh, shit, I should have said a million. Then you get there and you're like, I should've said 10 million, etc., etc., etc. Then you just start asking yourself, What game am I playing? Whose game am I playing? [50:01.5]
That's a big one. A lot of people are playing other people's games that they see in micro moments. “Dude, Evans just bought a company. Why can't I?” Well, because I probably have 25 years’ experience and I have connections, 25 years of relationship capital, probably got an inside advantage, and you don't even know my goal with the company. Maybe it's not even to make money, right? There are so many variables to all this shit.
Anyway, I do believe there are a lot of amazing people out there in this world and I do believe a lot of people allow shitty people in their life because it's convenient and you don't have to have a hard conversation with yourself and with them. Take stock, write them down and start working the relationships. Become a better friend. Become a better business partner. Become a better husband. [51:02.4]
I need to always get better at all of these things. Everything I'm saying, I need to always be better. But if you're consciously paying attention, I do feel like we're making an honest hard effort. It's in front of me. It's definitely in front of me.
I hope the show is beneficial. I'd love to hear your insights. It's a little bit of a different vibe of a show today, but I want you to be extremely … I don't know, I'm very fortunate and I'd love for everyone to have what I have lifestyle-wise. I know it's not going to be for everyone. Maybe my lifestyle sucks for you, I don't know, but my life is pretty cool with my kids and what we're able to accomplish over here and I’ve built some amazing businesses around me. I guess I shouldn't say that. Not around me. I've built amazing businesses that serve me, not me serve the business, right? [52:02.6]
I know a lot of you guys are trying to have a hundred percent of everything. That means you’ve got to do a hundred percent of everything, by the way. I'd rather have a small piece of something and know my role and part, and let the guy that's driving it or the gal driving it go accomplish that. I want to support them and uplift them. I want to give them resources and people and connections, and grow.
Would you rather have 10 percent of $100 billion? A hundred billion with a “B”, or would you rather have 100 percent of a million-dollar company? I know what I want. I know what I have. I do own companies, some of them 100 percent, but I always am looking for strategic opportunities where I could build bigger by doing less. I know it's crazy, right? You can actually make more doing less. Everyone says it. Very few people, one, even know how to do that, and then, two, they don't even believe it, and, three, how many people are actually doing it? A lot of people say it, but the same guy sitting on stage working 20 hours a day, traveling all over the world while his family life is going downhill, but he's saying all this amazing shit, we’ve got to get bamboozled by it. [53:12.8]
I'm excited, though. Actually, I'm hopping on a jet and a couple of days and flying down to Orlando to hang out with my boys. There are 200 of us hanging out, people in Orlando, but the guys on the jet, 12 guys are rolling down with me on the jet and I know all 12. I know what they’ve got going on and my goal is to help them 100X in the next 12 months their investment, minimum 100X.
If you guys ever see me do a jet trip, this is only the second one I’ve ever done where I bring people with me, it's not cheap. It's 10 grand usually, minimum 10 to 12 grand, depending on where we're going and all that and how many people can go. But even if it's 25 grand, even if it's 100 grand, it’s still worth it. [53:55.4]
I mean, it's literally one of the most impactful things I get to do because we're literally on the jet for five hours talking, connecting, listening, no distractions, and just with great guys and gals in there where, shit, it's impossible for breakthroughs not to happen. It's impossible. Amazing things happen. I've seen it firsthand. It's real.
If you ever want to experience that, shoot me a message on Instagram @MarkEvansDM. Shoot me a private message. Say, “Jet experience, put me on the waitlist,” or something like that and I will get you on a waitlist. But that's a cool thing. That one sold out within hours of us going live with it, so there is a big demand for that. Sometimes it's just a timing thing for people, which I get. Get on there and I hope to be on the jet with you one day. It's a very cool experience and, more importantly, very big breakthroughs, what we can accomplish.
So, that's it. Big day today, getting ready. Once I get done here, actually, I'm taking my wife to go probably do a lunch thing real quick. Come back two o'clock, go out, check out the treehouse status, get to the gym. I'm doing two a day right now, so I'm going to do an hour of cardio, and we're cranking. [55:07.0]
Life isn't always easy, but it sure is hell of a ride. Hope you guys enjoy it. Be thankful for what you have. I’m not saying you're not, but just be overly thankful. Be very grateful we live in this time that we live in, even with all the crazy shit going on. You have your head. You have your body. You have your brain. You’ve got it going. I know it's not always easy, but it's worth it. Keep your feet moving.
With that said, make today count. Peace.
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