Each week Dan talks to entrepreneurs, creators, and other inspiring guests about how they became high performers in their fields. In these conversations you'll discover stories, insights, and advice that will help you better pursue the goals that genuinely matter to you and learn how to grow in all the buckets of your life: personal fulfillment, business, relationships, health & wellness, finances, and so much more. So tune in and let's grow together!
E16: How To Invest In Real Estate, Alternative Assets, & Yourself: Billy Keels
Billy Keels is the founder of KeePon Cashflow and the host of the Going Long Podcast. He's on a mission to educate six-figure corporate employees how to gain more control over their finances by investing in real assets.
As a former corporate employee, Billy felt the constriction his work put on his time. So he decided to begin investing his money in alternative assets to generate revenue and gain more control on how he was spending his time.
In this episode, Billy shares the importance of stretching your perspective in order to attain success, how making intentional decisions leads to more control over how we spend our time, and the importance of compounding and consistent effort over long periods of time in generating extraordinary results.
23 May 2022TRANSCRIPT
E15: The Secret To Prioritize Your Mental Health While Building A Business: Michael Stern
Michael Stern is the CEO and co-founder of HeadStart (http://www.weareheadstart.com), a PR agency that is sticking up for startups and helping them share their stories with the right people for an affordable price.
In this conversation, Michael shares his advice for anyone with idea to get started, a detailed recap of how he grew his business from a side hustle to hiring 15 employees in just 1 year, and why it’s okay to not be okay with your mental health.
Michael's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelsstern/
17 May 2022TRANSCRIPT
E14: How To Grow Your Career & Business (without the stress): Curt Mercadante
Curt Mercadante is the founder of Merc Enterprises, a business helping entrepreneurs and executives grow their companies and careers without the pressure of the grind. At an early age Curt learned from his father that we can all reinvent ourselves and create the lives we envision with intention and hard work. Curt took that lesson to heart, when he found himself riddled with anxiety running his marketing agency in Washington D.C. He decided to fire all of his clients and create a business that would help himself and others leave the stress of the hustle behind. In this episode, we talk about how to unlock your creative potential, how to shift your mentality internally in order to achieve what you want, and why you have to change your thoughts before your actions to foster lasting personal growth.
2 May 2022
E13: The Power of Mental Models, Technology, & Web3: Rob Neal
Rob Neal's mission is to help people improve their lives through technology. And as a software engineer at Mem Protocol, a company pioneering tools for the social layer of Web3, he’s well on his way to doing this in a deeply impactful way.
As a refugee from Liberia, Rob’s mother raised him and his three siblings as a single mother on a thin budget, working constantly in order to provide. Inspired by his mother’s work ethic and the struggles she went through to provide, Rob chose to better his own life using technology as his tool to do it.
Now on the forefront on Web3, Rob believes the blockchain can be the key to helping many people build wealth and create better lives.
In this episode we talk about how Rob’s upbringing as an immigrant from Liberia shaped his relationship with wealth building, the importance of stepping into other people’s perspectives, and a crash course on the blockchain and its implementations in our everyday lives.
25 Apr 2022
E12: How To Show Up Consistently & Prioritize Yourself Before Your Work: Ryan Rouse
Ryan Rouse is the Chief Digital Officer of HighKey, a healthy alternative snacks company, and has been leading digital growth for consumer brands for a decade.
But wrapped in his ultra successful career are low points that you and I can’t imagine. In 2013, Ryan co-founded a company that would go on to sell for hundreds of millions of dollars. But he didn’t receive a dime.
In this conversation, Ryan reveals how he rebuilt himself after burning out as an entrepreneur, why he believes showing up everyday is the key to creating outsized outcomes for yourself, and how to channel failure into learning opportunities.
20 Apr 2022
E11: Skip The Line & Accelerate Your Financial Freedom: John Marty
John Marty is a LinkedIn influencer and the co- founder of Freedom Fund, an online platform aimed at helping others accelerate financial freedom through real estate.
What’s so amazing about John’s mission is that he’s on the same journey toward financial freedom as the people he’s trying to help achieve it.
But the road to get where he is today has been a bumpy one. After daring to become an entrepreneur early in his career, John went bankrupt and nearly lost everything. After that humbling moment, he replenished himself financially working from an hourly employee at Best Buy to high paying corporate roles.
But as he climbed the ladder John felt constricted by the limits corporate life had put on his time, the amount of money he could make, and his overall freedom. So he decided to break those chains by becoming a creator, building a community of like minded individuals, and investing with that community in real estate to create the money and time freedom he so craved.
In this episode, John talks about how creating consistently creates compound growth, overcoming the shame associated with getting started, and how social media can help you skip the line toward financial freedom.
11 Apr 2022
E10: Creating A Purpose Driven Life & Building Wealth Through Real Estate: Maurice Philogene
Maurice Philogene is perhaps one of the most amazing humans I have had the pleasure to spend an hour speaking with.
Maurice has created a storied life and career. He's been a high level executive at Accenture, served in the military, built a multi-million dollar real estate portfolio, became a police officer in his local community, and is a father to his two kids.
But here’s the kicker … he did all those things simultaneously!
What makes Maurice so incredible, though, is not how many hats he wears, but why he pursued them all. He found a purpose in each of those endeavors that ultimately added up to creating his freedom lifestyle.
In this episode, Maurice talks about talks about the importance of a living a purpose driven life, what stops most people from getting started on their dreams and how to overcome it, and how to build a life that you don’t need a vacation from. If there's only one episode of this podcast you listen to, then this should be it.
5 Apr 2022
E9: How To Be More Of Yourself In Business: Vydia COO Jenna Gaudio
Jenna Gaudio is a COO building a diverse and dynamic team at the award winning video and music tech startup Vydia.
But Jenna hasn’t always felt comfortable in her own shoes in business. She’s had to fight throughout her career to get the roles she’s wanted and on the other side of that climb she’s found confidence in herself professionally and personally.
In this conversation Jenna and I talk about how to create your value inside and outside of the workplace, what her health scare taught her about putting life before work, and how a variety of experience can help you grow your career.
Topics:
Your early years
Getting a variety of career experience
Navigating different career paths
Being yourself
Building great teams
Becoming COO at Vydia
Your health scare
Putting life before work
How to create your value
Your definition of growth
28 Mar 2022
E8: The Cheat Codes For Building Wealth & An Extraordinary Life: Brian Dragotto
Brian Dragotto is a rock star in the finance world. In his early 20s, Brian became one of the youngest Managing Directors in the country with International Planning Alliance, an agency of The Guardian Network™, catapulting him to massive success in the industry.
But Brian’s success isn’t limited to helping his clients build wealth or coaching his team of 10+ financial advisors. He’s also training rigorously to become a professional triathlete and creating a life of intention with his girlfriend. Brian and I have been friends for 4 years and there are ideas and stories he brought to the conversation that were new even to me.
In this episode, he shares his framework for achieving extraordinary results, his principles on building wealth, and his cheat codes for setting a vision for your life and realizing it to the fullest. Below are disclosures required for Brian’s licenses and profession.
The Guardian NetworkTM is a network of independent agencies authorized to offer products of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America (Guardian) and its subsidiaries, and is not an affiliate or subsidiary of Guardian.
IPA is not a registered investment advisor.
Registered Representative of Park Avenue Securities and Financial Representative of Guardian. Securities products and advisory services offered through Park Avenue Securities LLC (PAS), member FINRA, SIPC. 300 Broadacres Drive Suite 175 Bloomfield, NJ 07003. PAS is an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America (Guardian), New York, NY. This firm is not an affiliate or subsidiary of PAS or Guardian.
21 Mar 2022
E7: Creating A Backyard Game That Did $1,000,000 In Revenue: QB54 Co-Founder Mike Silva
Mike Silva is the co-founder and co-inventor of the backyard game QB54 (@playqb54). But more than an entrepreneur, Mike is a dad and husband first.
Mike and his brother created QB54 as kids originally as a way to get out of doing Thanksgiving dishes. I wish I was that clever! Now, the football-inspired game hit $1,000,000 in revenue last year and is continuing to grow at an incredible rate.
Mike is living out a childhood dream, but he almost never took the leap. He waited nearly 30 years before capitalizing on the idea. What held him back?
Passionate and straight to the point, Mike reveals how he has grown a side hustle, the balance he creates and sacrifices he makes with family time to grow his business, and the risk involved in entrepreneurship.
Topics:
The importance of work ethic
How you invented QB54 as a kid
Making the the prototype of the game
Pounding the pavement
Balancing risk with responsibility
How to balance family and entrepreneurship
Why we all need more fun in our lives
Your definition of growth
16 Mar 2022
E6: How I Created A Podcast With 1,000,000 Downloads In 1 Year: Ilana Dunn
Ilana Dunn is the 27-year-old host of Seeking Other People, the dating podcast that has over 1,000,000 downloads in its first year.
But the meteoric success of her show didn’t come overnight. Ilana started her career in the music industry interviewing celebrities at events like The Grammy’s pre-show, MTV Movie Awards, and Coachella.
As she entered the music industry full time, Ilana felt her creativity being restricted. So she made her way into a role at the dating app titan Hinge that offered her the chance to become the face of the brand’s social media presence.
In this episode Ilana opens up about how she had to pick herself up when her dream role at Hinge abruptly ended, how she became a full-time podcaster, and how to pave your own way to create the career you want.
Topics:
Your early years
Interviewing A-List talent
Losing your creativity in the music industry
Becoming the face of Hinge's brand
How did you pick yourself up after losing your dream job?
Why did you become a full-time podcaster?
Advice to someone looking to become a full-time content creator
Your definition of growth
7 Mar 2022
E5: Connecting With People More Intentionally, Meaningfully, and Empathetically: Rob Lawless
Rob Lawless is on a mission to connect with 10,000 strangers 1-on-1 for 1 hour each. No strings attached. No qualifications needed to meet. Rob purely wants to create an authentic relationship and meaningful conversation with each person he meets. In his own words, Rob wants to leave each meeting with a new friend.
Six years into his journey and having met with over 5,000 new friends has led Rob to be featured on the Kelly Clarkson Show (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIzbL0p14CY&ab_channel=TheKellyClarksonShow), the TODAY Show (https://www.today.com/video/meet-the-man-who-set-out-to-make-10-000-friends-87590981742https://www.today.com/video/meet-the-man-who-set-out-to-make-10-000-friends-87590981742), On Air with Ryan Seacrest, and many more places. He's also amassed a following of 41K+ on Instagram and speaks at colleges and large corporations. But the followers, speaking engagements, and talk show appearances are merely Rob's vehicle to -- in his own words -- bring more empathy into the world and teach people how build better relationships.
At a time when genuine and deep human connection is needed more than ever, Rob is leading by example. In today's conversation Rob reveals what he's learned on his extraordinary journey thus far, including how's he's turned a passion project into a profitable business, why empathy is the key to building better relationships, and how we can build more intentional and meaningful connections with those around us.
Rob brings a down-to-earth perspective, incredible passion, and wonderful kindness to our conversation. I promise you'll leave this episode with more positivity, energy, and kindness than when you entered it!
Topics:
Your early years
Being the youngest sibling
Finding your passion for connecting with others
Starting Rob's 10K Friends
How to build trust with yourself to take risks
How to be consistent in the face of negativity
Embrace that you don't know what you don't know
Realizing you've already arrived at where you want to be
Why empathy is the key to building better relationships
Why we all need to get better at build intentional and meaningful connections
Everyone's life is a derivative of the people around them
Turning a passion project into a profitable business
Taking inventory of your resources
Finding the trailhead of your mountain
Your definition of growth
28 Feb 2022
E4: Create Your Dream Career: Declassified Media Founder Justin Nguyen
Justin Nguyen is a 25-year-old creator and entrepreneur on a quest to empower young people with the "cheat codes" to build their dream careers, businesses, and lives. He's amassed over 250K+ followers on TikTok and tens of thousands of downloads on the Declassified College Podcast (@declassifiedcollege / TikTok) in pursuit of that mission.
Prior to starting Declassified Media, Justin noticed that there was an information gap in the advice he was receiving about being a successful college student and young professional. He questioned why the all the career advice was coming from people 20 years his senior, who had been long removed from an internship search and working entry level positions.
So, Justin decided to seek wisdom from those who were just a few steps ahead of him. He believed their advice would be more relevant and directly applicable to students' and young professionals' most pressing challenges. Then, Declassified Media was born. In this interview, Justin reveals must-hear tips for anyone building their career or business and where he pulls inspiration from to help catalyze other young people's success.
Topics:
Your early years
Your identity crisis
Getting into entrepreneurship and content creation
Your family fleeing Vietnam as refugees
The moment you realized you wanted more out of your life
Helping students and young professionals be successful
How to seek advice that is relevant to your goals
Why you should seek experienced AND relevant advice
Your best networking advice for young people
How to grow an audience online and monetize it
Tips to grow on TikTok
How to grow you podcast audience
Your definition of growth
21 Feb 2022
E3: How To Grow In All The Buckets Of Your Life: Laurie Wintonick
Laurie Wintonick is the Executive Director of famed entrepreneur Jesse Itzler's Elite 365 coaching program, a life optimization coach, an experienced operations executive, a wife, a mother, and simply an incredible human.
Laurie has a fiery and passionate approach to living her best life that is contagious. She believes that growth is about doing things, creating experiences, and surrounding yourself with people that make you better in every aspect of your life, not simply one.
Having worked with Laurie as my own coach through Jesse Itzler's Build Your Life Resumé program, I can tell you she practices what she preaches. In this conversation, Laurie shares her story in a relatable and immensely impactful way that breaks down how all of us can live and grow more holistically. Thank you Laurie for sharing you wisdom with me and this audience.
Your early years
Our coaching relationship
The importance of recognizing and pivoting away from burnout
The importance of having multiple buckets in your life
Why health is the No. 1 priority in life
How to set work-life boundaries for ambitious people
Meeting Jesse Itzler and his impact on your life
How you're building your life resumé
How compound growth and consistent small actions lead to big results
How do you define growth?
14 Feb 2022
E2: Creating Adventure In Your Everyday Life: Nick Costelloe
Nick Costelloe is an adventurer. But not in the way that you might think. He's climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. He's given 800 soccer balls out to underprivileged children around the world through his organization Universal Dialect. And he's delivered a talk on the TedX stage.
However, Nick believes that we can find adventure in everyday, whether it's playing soccer with friends or spending a weekend with his girlfriend. Nick (@nickcostelloe) is the Head of Content at Demand Curve, a growth marketing agency. While he loves his job he is relentlessly designing his life according to his values and optimizing to be happy as he is right now.
In this episode, you'll learn how to turn everyday events into an adventure, how starting a project or business is the best and fastest way to define your values, and how to design your life according to your values. Nick brings all of himself to this conversation in an authentic and gripping way. So tune in because I promise you won't want to miss this conversation.
What's your definition of adventure?
Your early years
How to find adventure in everyday life
Facing burnout
Work-life integration
Healing from childhood tragedy
Creating community through soccer
Starting Universal Dialect and delivering 800 soccer balls worldwide
Defining your own version of success
Why starting a business or project is the quickest way to define your values
The toxic side of entrepreneurship
Building a freedom lifestyle
Using self awareness and practicality to design your life
Pairing groundedness with excitement
Being happy as you are
Starting a project or business is the fastest way to design your life
Nick's definition of growth
7 Feb 2022
E1: How to Overcome Adversity & Choose A Positive Mindset: Joe Rinaldi
Joe Rinaldi (@joerinaldi) is a fitness and mindset coach who helps his clients become the best version of themselves. He's also a content creator who spreads a message of inspiration, optimism, and doing hard things. Life has been anything but easy for Joe. He's been going blind since he was 10 years old due to a genetic eye condition called Best Disease.
What amazes me even more is that Joe says he's "grateful to be going blind." He chooses "to view his circumstances as a strength" and says that what he's lost in sight, he's gained in vision. Joe has gone from letting his circumstances dictate his perspective to forging a mindset of gratitude and optimism in the face of extreme adversity and hardship.
To put it simply, Joe chooses the positive mindset with which he approaches every day. And he's using that positivity to pursue his mission to leave the world and the people he's met in it in a better place than he found them. Today, Joe breaks down how he chooses gratitude, and positivity despite the hardships and obstacles in his life and how you can too!
Topics:
Your early years
How you generate your optimism and positive mindset
Waking up blind at 10 years old
The darkest year of your life
When you think you're buried, you've actually been planted
The "And" Mindset
Developing an "even if" mentality instead of a "what if" mentality
How to choose your feelings and reactions
Chasing your wife
Choosing faith, despite logic
How fitness helps you build habits to do hard things
How do you manage, prioritize, and balance your time
Achieving massive goals
Your three truths
How to leave the world a better place than you found it
5 Feb 2022
GROW Trailer
Dan is a 27-year-old obsessed with personal growth. He's on a quest to discover how his guests create meaning and happiness in their lives while pursuing things that genuinely matter to them. Tune in every Monday morning wherever you get your podcasts and let's grow together!
Inside a recent episode
E16: How To Invest In Real Estate, Alternative Assets, & Yourself: Billy Keels
Published 21 Jun 2022 · Transcript excerpt
[…] Like, it's not easy to go from earning 40 grand to earning 200 ,000 dollars a year. It's just not. And anybody that tells you that it's easy, they've never done it. You can get lucky. Don't get me wrong. You can get lucky, right. And that will put you in the maybe net worth and it's really quick. […]
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