Create Something Awesome Today

Noah Kagan Teaches Us How To Have a Million Dollar Weekend

Episode Summary

In this episode, we explore Noah Kagan's remarkable journey from tech employee to entrepreneurial success. Noah, the mastermind behind AppSumo and an influential YouTube content creator, shares invaluable insights from his book, "The Million Dollar Weekend," where he details how to generate significant revenue in a short span. His story is a testament to the power of resilience, strategic thinking, and the relentless pursuit of growth. Key takeaways include the importance of real-world business acumen over mere online presence, practical strategies for audience building and product validation, and Noah's unique approach to overcoming challenges and setbacks. This episode is a treasure trove of advice for entrepreneurs and content creators alike, emphasizing the essence of persistence, strategic innovation, and the value of learning from failures to carve out a successful path in the business world.

Episode Notes

Interview with Noah Kagan: The Million Dollar Weekend

EPISODE OVERVIEW:

In this episode, we dive into the entrepreneurial journey of Noah Kagan, an eight-figure founder known for AppSumo and his impactful presence on YouTube. Noah discusses his latest book, "The Million Dollar Weekend," providing insights on generating revenue in less than 48 hours. The conversation covers his origin story, real business versus online facade, the importance of real-world experiences, and strategies for aspiring entrepreneurs and content creators.
 

Time Stamps:


Brief Guest Bio:

Noah Kagan is a renowned entrepreneur and content creator, best known for founding AppSumo, a leading software deal site for solopreneurs and startups. Starting his career at Facebook and Mint.com, Noah faced setbacks that led him to embrace entrepreneurship. His journey includes creating a successful business from scratch with just $50 and growing it into an $80 million revenue company. Noah is also a prolific YouTuber, where he shares business insights and motivates the 'underdogs' of the entrepreneurial world.
 

Resources Mentioned:


Sponsors of the Podcast:

Streamyard - https://geni.us/getstreamyard
StreamYard makes live streaming simple, giving you easy to use tools and no complicated software to download. Multi Stream to all of your favorite platforms and you can also use this to bring on guests with one simple click.

OpusClip -https://geni.us/getopusclip
Repurposing your content to every platform possible, is one of the fastest ways to grow your reach, reputation and revenue. OpusClip uses AI tools for nearly perfect repurposing for short form vertical videos, wide screen clips and can help you with scheduling your content across your platforms, making it automated and easy.

Streamable -https://geni.us/getsteamable
If you want a better and affordable alternative to Dropbox then I recommend Streamable. Their solution is perfect if you need a convenient way to host and share high quality video or want to share videos privately with your team or clients.

Kajabi -https://kajabi.com/robertoblake
The perfect all-in-one solution for your online business is Kajabi, offering Courses, Cohorts, Coaching and Community all with no-code tools, unlimited video hosting and built-in email marketing! 

Episode Transcription

Noah (00:03):

Hello.

Roberto (00:06):

Hey everybody. Today my guest is Noah Kagan. He is an eight figure founder. You probably are familiar with him from AppSumo and also he is a 1 million subscribed YouTuber who has been crushing it with unique content interviewing millionaires and billionaires, and I'm really glad to talk to him today about his new book, the Million Dollar Weekend. No one's going to teach us how to make money in 48 hours or less. How's it going today?

Noah (00:36):

It's going great. I mean, it's cold as heck in Austin. My pipes are frozen and I've been running around a lot, but I'm also excited. I like what I get to talk about. I love sharing this message and helping people change their lives in 48 hours or less.

Roberto (00:50):

I love talking to people who've actually done it and people who are the real deal. So for the people in my audience who actually don't know your origin story, give us basically that 30 to 62nd Marvel. Recap that intro, tell it hero or villain origin story.

Noah (01:12):

Totally cue that montage music, man. Yeah, number 30 at Facebook was early there. Help start and then mint.com went on to sell for a few hundred million dollars. I got fired from both Realized that entrepreneurship is the only way to survive and really thrive, and whether the reality that someone could just take away your job. And I was like, that's never happening again. And so I went on this entrepreneurship journey for 10 years, starting so many different businesses. Some work, some did not work. That led me to app suma.com, which I started in a weekend for about 50 bucks, and today it's a software deal site for solopreneurs. So freelancers, agencies, startups.

Roberto (01:50):

Oh, Mike creators.

Noah (01:52):

Yeah, online people like myself that want good deals on software, pay once, get it forever, no subscriptions. And today AppSumo is around an $80 million a year revenue business. Then I also do a YouTube channel where I inspire other people on their business journey. I call 'em the underdogs and then I have a book. So the book is for people that are interested in copying my playbook and having their own success and want to see exactly how I did it.

Roberto (02:15):

So the goal here is that we're going to start an idea that can lead to millions of dollars versus us making seven figures in 48 hours or less.

Noah (02:29):

Yes, yes. You'll not, there will be someone I would promise you in a decade someone will make a million in the 48 hours, but the reval there will be. And to be clear, you don't need a big following already because a lot of people will have that excuse. You don't need funding. You don't even have to have an idea, but you do have to have the attitude, and I love that we talked earlier before the show about optimism and then you have to put in a little bit of effort and ideally all of that should be fun.

Roberto (02:56):

So you don't need followers, you don't need funding. What's third thing that we can tie into an F so that we could You don't need followers. You don't need funding. What would be another F? You don't need

Noah (03:08):

Followers, funding, and fun. The three Fs of becoming a millionaire. I think the problem that I have with a lot of the YouTube and content creation world is none of them actually operate real businesses

Roberto (03:21):

Or they have any

Noah (03:22):

Of these people that they have really good titles, they have really good titles, and the information's okay, but you ask anybody who's teaching online or sharing online, tell me about your business. Oh yeah, it's this thing. Do you have any customers? Can I see the, oh no, you can't see it.

Roberto (03:36):

Can you define what a real business is or what a real business looks like?

Noah (03:41):

Yeah, let's just even say, can I go visit your business? Let's take Alex EY for instance, acquisition.com. Name one company they've acquired no one can.

Roberto (03:53):

Interesting I would

Noah (03:55):

Jim launch thing, whatever his thing in the past. Name one gym. I've never met one gym owner in my, I ask a lot of people name a gym. No one ever can.

Roberto (04:03):

That's interesting.

Noah (04:04):

My point though is that what's a real business to me is that anytime that someone has gotten one customer that I can see or touch fill, and I'm not the decider of all business, but in terms of who I want to learn from, I like learning from Zuckerberg who I worked for. My marketing advisor is Moody Glasgow. He was the CMO of Zapier in Glassdoor in electronic arts. Those are the people I'm learning from. And then I've also, in the ways that I teach stuff, I'm confident in myself. I think for many years I doubted myself and I felt insecure and I couldn't do this. But after doing it so many times over and again and then doing it on YouTube or doing an app Sumo or doing with the book, I feel excited to then like, all right, let's help. I feel very excited that I can help people do that for themselves.

Roberto (04:43):

The imposter syndrome thing is real. I want to touch on something you said about people who teach online who have never built real businesses. What I love about your journey is you worked at real businesses and real companies and I think one of the issues I have with a lot of the online space myself, even being in education and creator education is that a lot of people don't have the experience of even working for a company. I think there's a lot to be learned by doing your earning your stripes, doing the drudgery of working at a company. And so you have creators now, young creators, they barely want to go and do the retail job, which I think teaches you some of one of the most important skills. I think every teenager should work a retail job instead of going, I never want to have a real job. It's a badge of honor. I want to work and make money online for my whole life. Now, I think you should actually go into retail, learn to talk to strangers, do some kind of commission sales job, learn the gift of gab, learn how to do customer service, learn the importance of it, learn putting numbers on the board at your office. Politics,

Noah (05:43):

Learn. Yeah, I mean, learn how good you have it. You can literally, what's blows my mind. You could be in India, you could be in South America and you could sit at a computer and become a millionaire, which is unbelievable for me. I did that, all that shitty jobs. I worked at OfficeMax selling lab printers. I worked at Macy's selling bedsheets.

Roberto (06:03):

I worked at Macy's selling shoes. Al Bundy,

Noah (06:06):

Dude, I worked at Intel. God knows what, I didn't even do anything. And those realizations was like, this is definitely what I don't want to do. And so it made me very grateful that I could sit in a warm office or I go to Spain to work from there in two weeks. And what an amazing life that's available for everyone.

Roberto (06:25):

I would agree with that. When it comes to online business, for example, and we talked about this, oh, do you have customers? Can people name your customers of the belief that more creators, I mean, we talked about the fact you have a million YouTube subscribers, and that's how I think a lot of people come to know you today is you're following on social media. In the book you talk about some of the value building an audience, but I believe that everyone should build an audience. That audience should be transferable from the social media platforms to your own email list and to your own customer database. And I see a lot of content creators outrightly refuse to do this. They don't want to feel like a sellout, they don't want to feel salesy. I think that these are people pleasers instead, business owners. I think that they are being very adamant and rebellious about this idea of they feel more legitimate doing things that you and I as business people feel are illegitimate and they refuse to do things that would legitimize them, which I think is, in my opinion, even if you don't have a physical business, just because we're living in the modern world, AI is coming for everybody.

(07:27):

Is the terminator's not going to kill you in the battlefield. He's going to kill you in the job market. I feel like today, the real business of today at a minimum has an email list and a customer database and offers a product or service that there are public available reviews from people that you can verify exist. Does that sound about right to you and what thoughts on creators resisting this?

Noah (07:52):

I never realized that the separation, which doesn't have to be separate, but between a creative and a business operator. And I think there's times where people can be both, but I think there's people who are I just making stuff and there's people I like making money and I've seen a lot of people not be as successful as they could have been if they were actually to marry both of those skills or provide some complimentary person to do it. I got to share that I have a million subscribers on YouTube, but that doesn't super excite me. And I think that's a whole separate discussion. But what's even more interesting is I put out a video two weeks ago that got 9,000 views.

Roberto (08:28):

I saw that.

Noah (08:29):

Yeah, right. That's really interesting. Most of my videos get about a million and it was such a great reminder. Same thing with my podcast. You have a show as well. My podcast only gets 10,000 downloads an episode, now it's getting seven and it's a reminder that What's

Roberto (08:45):

That? You mean 7,000? Yeah. Okay. I thought you meant seven for minute. I'm like, wait, wait.

Noah (08:50):

No, no. That would be, but all that to say is that I'm not control of my fate. These platforms who I'm working for, my real boss control my business and control my destiny. And so how do you hedge against that? And I love that you're talking about email list. That is the only way that you can basically have insurance so that when Million Dollar Weekend comes out or if I have a new product or if I just want to talk to the audience, which I do every week on no kagan.com, I can email them and I'm not at the mercy. I'm only at the mercy of Gmail, which as of now seems to be pretty friendly and I don't have to create new content necessarily to be able to communicate with them. And just a great reminder for all the creators out there. And I've, me and you very been doing this for a long time. I've been doing it since 2000. And I would say frankly, I love it. I love creating content. I like blogging, I like making videos. I like tweeting. I like TikTok I don't like, but I like all this stuff and I like

Roberto (09:43):

We're on the same page there,

Noah (09:45):

But I love being out there and I love how it puts me in touch with people like you and I get be creative. And then the other thing is for people who want a business, you could either use it one day for business or you can just use it as a great outlet to meet interesting people and improve your skills.

Roberto (09:58):

I'd agree with that. You and I are actually old school blogging royalty in a way, as in where people who've owned domain names for over a decade and we're domain squatters. You and I are domain squatters. We love that stuff. And we're old school bloggers. We remember doing those old school blogs. You and I probably might be some of the last bashing the people who remember Angel Fire, Lycos and GeoCities. Well, I

Noah (10:21):

Would say we were in the era that you had a wait, there was a wait list to get your Gmail, if you know what I'm talking about. You're part of our genre.

Roberto (10:29):

Yeah, no, I'm 39. I'm turning 40 this year, so you and me. Oh yeah, no, we are from that era. We were member a world before Google.

Noah (10:38):

Yeah. I mean I think the beauty out there though is that chasing relevance and popularity is never ending, right? There's never a satisfaction point. And I really admire people like Tim Ferriss who has a lot of influence, a lot of clout, and is also exploring how he wants that to be today. And I think for everyone out there, they think what they they need is maybe not what they actually need. You could probably build, not even probably you can build the success without a huge million person following. You can also do it the other way too. And I think it's finding out how you want it to be. I've liked being a creator and I think it's benefited my life and especially my businesses a lot. It also doesn't mean you have to even beat in front of the camera. There's so many businesses now behind the camera, producers, thumbnail people, script writers, researchers, everything that's been happening in traditional media is now bringing into social media.

Roberto (11:26):

I agree with that. The creator economy, A lot of people think it's only the forward facing public figure. They think it's the social media celebrity. They think it's the internet influencer. They forget that the creator economy is also all of the platforms, all the subsequent apps and tools that support content creation itself. And then the service people behind that. It's every video editor, every audio engineer, every music producer, every thumbnail designer, everybody making infographics, whether they're photo based or whether they're animation based and everything. It's every after effects person. It is all of those people that make up the creator economy. And I'm interested in your thought on this one key point of that, because we talked about this dichotomy between the people who think they need this big audience. Can you talk a little bit more about your thoughts on not needing a big audience to be successful and how you've talked about that in the book

Noah (12:23):

For everyone who has a job and they could get fired today. What's your backup plan? And you're like, oh, well I'd probably get another job. Yeah, you'd have to take some time. And so when I was fired from Facebook, when I was fired from Mint because I was blogging and emailing at my website, it at least gave me an opportunity and said, Hey, I'm consulting and this site called Scanner, it was a site that you could send a photo to and they scanned your image for you. This is 2007. It provided a backup plan. And so whether you're a marketer, whether you're doing C admin, I think it's good to have some level of backup on your career. And for me, entrepreneurship is always that. And I think being a creator, if you're creating email or social media, whatever that is, is a great opportunity to learn how to write for everyone. Now, in terms of the size of your social media, I'll just tell you a story. A guy named Jake, he doesn't have social media. I don't know if he's on Twitter or any of these platforms, but he's wanted to have his own business. He has a day job, three kids, a wife lives in north Texas and he's like, yeah, I've always wanted to do it, but I've been sitting waiting to be ready for two years. I was like, okay, well let's go through the book. And one of his ideas was golf trips

(13:44):

To do golf trips. Great. I don't golf. I don't care about golf. And I think when you're starting a business, think about stuff you're excited about. I like promoting things. That's why I have absolute.com. We promote software deals. And so for him, he's super excited about golf and so we went through all this process, but really without social media, without any following, he was able to call people within his network, within his zone of influence, what I like to call it, and find five paying customers to commit to going on a golf trip with him in August or sometime I think August or September. And that's a business. He doesn't have an Instagram, he doesn't influence anyone.

Roberto (14:19):

So do you think people are undervaluing even just that level of in-person networking in terms of using that to start a business today?

Noah (14:30):

People are waiting. They're thinking that they don't have enough experience. They think that there's some internet guru who knows more than them. They think that they have to build maybe an audience to be able to do this stuff. I need to do tons of stuff for free and maybe you could do a little for free and I can give you some examples of that, but maybe you also have everything you need already. And I think people are surprised that they can actually, the book starts with really about how do you get started now and then how do you get better at asking and then how do you leverage that in business, which really all that's all it is is getting started in asking you just do that over and over.

Roberto (15:00):

I feel from you, I feel like your friend Jake from you was looking for permission and you were able to give him that they're looking for. I think people are looking for something to give them permission. Do you think there's something to that?

Noah (15:15):

It could be permission. I think people are looking also for excuses because then I could blame someone else for my pitfall. And what I think, especially from YouTube, there's this belief that this guru person, let's say a Grant Cardone or homo, one of these guys has some secrets

Roberto (15:31):

That

Noah (15:31):

I need from their book. You may or may not to actually get the success I want. And the reality for Jake was that I think permission is one of 'em, but I don't think he created time for himself to really say, Hey, maybe there's a different way I can finally do this thing instead of the fear that's been really holding me back from it. And he was afraid. He was afraid of failure. He was afraid of rejection, he was afraid of what if it doesn't work and I have to stay in this job that I don't really care for. And then looking at it the other way, Hey, maybe it's not so scary. Maybe it can be fun. Maybe I can actually get this going. Maybe I can quit my job and live my dream life. There could be something great on the other side. And so by him getting started, which he just did in a very little bit amount of time without any special ability, and maybe that's something that a lot of people think, they're like, oh, I don't have this Harvard skill. I didn't get the certificate. It's like we're out of the certificate culture unless you want to be a doctor.

Roberto (16:22):

Didn't you teach yourself code?

Noah (16:25):

I did. Yeah,

Roberto (16:26):

I did too. I think that we have a society where a lot of these excuses are things like permission and credentialing and also thinking you need secret, sacred knowledge. I think differently. I think gurus are one thing, and then I think educators are another thing. And then I think aspirational figures or heroes are yet another thing. And I think there's this weird nuance, but I think there's intersectionality and overlap between them. I think that a lot of people who say, well, I have no skills. I think that they could go to their public library and not only read books. I think they could get the free Libby app, get on LinkedIn learning, and they could get a skill in 12 weeks that could provide for them for the rest of their life if they did that. And there's not some credential bear to entry because the skill is in itself enough of a credential.

(17:19):

You don't need the sign off of the alumni network of the college to be able to provide value to a local small business owner. You might need it to get into a Fortune 500 maybe in 10 years, you probably don't even need it five years. You may not need it for a Fortune 500. Now I think they're all throwing away that Credentialism found it to inflate payroll instead of actually serve a purpose, I think with all these layoffs. But I think there's something to that. I think people are either one, they might be looking for permission from someone they respect or a credential that gives them the confidence. Or if they don't know where to start, they think that that knowledge is possessed by a guru. Whereas it might be as something as simple as a just go to this tutorial and learn a process or read this book and understand a principle or for all you know, have the skills that you need and you're just not applying yourself and you just are refusing to start. What do you think about that?

Noah (18:18):

There's a lot in there. There's two people. I've talked to this woman named Mackenzie and I talked to this guy named Nick, and there's definitely experience that you can shortcut so you can get 10,000 hours for cheap by paying someone who's done it. So everyone we hired at AppSumo, every leader gets their own executive coach. And the coaches we hire are people who've done it. So our people officer is from Duolingo, shout out Christine, she coaches Anna, our chief revenue officer. This guy ran outdoorsy, which was a hundred million dollars RV sharing site. He coaches Sean. And so there is experience that you can shortcut by people who've done these things. But what I've noticed from McKinsey and another guy named Nick was them thinking that these other people have something. They don't have them thinking, oh, I need to talk to Noah and Noah knows something I don't know. And I definitely have a lot more experience that can guide them. But realizing that most people are better than they realize and they could do the things that they think are hard for themselves. They have to start and face it. And it doesn't have to be so scary, but just getting started and facing it. Then they start also just building their own confidence, which that then will lead to more confidence. They keep facing these things.

(19:26):

And I've seen it in Nick and Mackenzie,

Roberto (19:28):

What made them feel less than what caused the imposter syndrome? I think that's part of what we're describing here, what made them believe that they were less than and that they don't have what these other people they look to have.

Noah (19:42):

So even my own experience, I stepped out of running APPO for a few years and Amen was running it. And I came back, amen, quit. One day. I was on a bike trip and he quit and I was like, can you just wait until I finish my bike trip? He was like, dude, I'm quitting. That was my own avoidance. That's something I have to work on. And so when I came back I said, oh, I should hire a CEO E because they know they'll know definitely what to do better than I will. And I think that's just maybe an assumed belief of ours. Like, oh, these people are definitely better than us. And then when you actually focus on the problems you're interested in, you can also get better at things. You're like, oh wow, I can do it. And so the other part of it is it doesn't have to be such a big thing. How do you do it in maybe a small way? I'm not trying to fix AppSumo overnight, but okay, can I work on one and then can I get feedback and then I do it again and I get more feedback and I do it again and get more feedback. And three years later I'm feeling excited and I love being the leader of AppSumo, but at first I would say it definitely seemed daunting. And courage is really being afraid of something and doing it anyways. I love that thought.

Roberto (20:41):

Agree,

Noah (20:42):

That's out there for everyone.

Roberto (20:44):

I hundred percent agree with that. I want to get super practical for a minute. If people could have five skills that you think will make them successful in the 21st century, if people could have five skills that will make them successful in the 21st century, what would those five skills be?

Noah (21:12):

I'm writing it down. I got three, but I want,

Roberto (21:14):

We can go with the three

Noah (21:26):

Skills I would say to be successful for frankly your whole life. And this is what I've observed working for Zuckerberg, working with elite people, working with ordinary people who are doing really well. I would say a skill is optimism and your attitude. That's a learned skill. I think we think of it as fixed, but it's actually, and most of my twenties I would say I was pretty pessimistic or cynical and kind of angry and resentful. Like, oh, I got fired, why am I? And that was really my attitude. What's that?

Roberto (21:50):

You sound like I was in my twenties. That's how I was. Yeah, I

Noah (21:52):

Think a lot of us are, some people figured out sooner, but in my forties I'm so much more calm. I'm so much more positive. So I would say work on your own attitude because there's a book called Learned Optimism and it's an amazing book. And the short of it, the book is that you can work on being more optimistic. And I think that's a huge one. I'd say the next skill, and I talk about it, chapter two of the book is really about communication. So how do you improve your asking? Because if you think about literally the whole thing, we're on earth communicating with other people, whether it's text, whether it's with words, whether it's an email, whether it's with trying to get a husband or a wife, whether it's a sale. That is all about communication specifically you're asking. And so how do you develop?

(22:33):

And I'm still afraid to ask, but we have the coffee challenge, which is pretty famous. And you talked about practical, which is, and going to Starbucks and asking for 10% off or anywhere you buy anything frankly. And that's an ask. And you get rejected and you realize it's okay and you go forward and say, you just keep working on that, your communication and you're asking and do the coffee challenge, face some fear and discomfort and realize you're stronger than you think. And the last one I would say in terms of skill, I'm going to give a really simple one that most people miss. I'd say 99%, maybe a hundred percent of people miss it almost, which is follow up. I think the majority of people don't follow through with things. They're excited. They maybe do one thing or they say something but they don't follow through. And even to make it simpler for people, follow through with yourself. You said you were going to do something, build confidence in yourself by committing maybe to less or simpler things and then executing on it just for you and then start thinking about it for others. I promised Roberto I would show up at two o'clock today I showed up at two.

Roberto (23:33):

You did.

Noah (23:34):

I was on time. That's a little trusting. That's a skill I find highly lacking from most people. And the people that I've observed being frankly the richest, the wealthiest people I know, not all, but a lot follow through with the things they say they're going to do for themselves and for others.

Roberto (23:51):

I would add to round out to our five, I would add the ability to, I would say I like what you said about optimism, which actually solves for three things I would say could basically be reduced down the optimism, which is great. But I would say beyond that, in terms of the practical, I'd say the ability to have pattern recognition is a huge one because you need to be able to see your own faults for one thing. You can see that with pattern recognition. Then you could stop duplicating failures or learn better from those things and say, well, those were all flags that didn't get me what I want, so I'll discontinue those habits that didn't get me what they want and produce results. And hey, this is what's producing results. Or even understanding some things through pattern recognition, learning to people who like you back, that's a big one.

(24:47):

Recognizing who feeds you, who feeds your soul and what feeds your soul and what is it that you're passionate about. That comes down to a lot of pattern recognition. And so I would say that when you combine pattern recognition with optimism, oh my Lord, you're going to take the world by storm. That's going to be a big one. And I would say if we add to all of this, I would say the ability to be organized. I think if you have the ability to be organized, you have pattern recognition, you have the optimism, you have the ability to communicate very well, and then you have the ability to do follow-up to be reliable and consistent. I think if you have those five things, I don't know what stops you.

Noah (25:26):

Yeah, one thing I'll even be hypocritical to myself, you could also be none of those things and still live a great life. I just think you can also make it a hell of a lot easier. And I had dinner with Peter Thiel two years ago and he's super organiz. Yeah, the founder of PayPal, first investor, Facebook Palantir, very bright, successful guy. And he doesn't dress well, he doesn't have good discipline. He is like, yeah, there's a cake around me. I eat it. And this is a guy, he is a billionaire. He is probably worth 10, 20 billion. And you're like, oh no, he must be half super disciplined and no, but he creates environments where he can have better discipline. So his assistant calls, whenever he goes to a hotel, they make sure they remove any candy from the mini bar. I was like, oh, that's kind of funny. And so you can also not be everything and be successful. I think a lot of times you'll watch content and they'll be like, here's my morning routine of a seven figure founder. It's like you could also, yeah,

Roberto (26:23):

It's about those.

Noah (26:24):

Yeah, you could also sleep all morning and get super rested, have a Bud Light and still be a millionaire. It is more likely that you'll have a more consistent, successful life with following some of these behaviors that we're highlighting. But it's not the only way

Roberto (26:38):

I would agree with that. I think that that's something that's said by online creators or even gurus. I think that they take the extreme position as if some of them don't outrightly say this, but they present as if their way is the only way versus I would say it's the optimal way that they've found for people of similar temperament.

Noah (26:59):

Yeah, Chris Williams said, I like this guy. And he said, there's a success bias where once you have success, you're just like, well, here's where I'm at now. And it is hard to always remember what it was like in the beginning, and it's not always pretty and it's not always clean. It could be pretty messy to finally figure out the right balance. I've tried it where I went to India for a month and walked around and then I tried meditating a lot and I tried journaling a lot. And then eventually you start recognizing, bless you, the things that seem to provide the best outcomes. For instance, here's a stupid ass one. I like going to this golf course. I don't play golf, but they have a good bar and I keep drinking these frozen margaritas and it always gives me a headache. So guess what? I stopped drinking them.

Roberto (27:39):

Pattern recognition.

Noah (27:42):

And so just being self-aware around these things. And one of the best ways you can improve anything in your life is feedback. And so looking at your YouTube videos or looking at your behavior with your partner or at work every single month, I ask my leadership team to do a survey and we track the data and then I asked for specific suggestions about how do you feel like you trust the team? Do you like our direction and do you feel safe to speak your mind one through five and why? And they just tell me what I'm doing wrong and then I get to just fix it. And then every month it gets, well, not every month, it's not always easy, but over time it gets better.

Roberto (28:17):

I use those feedback loops and it's something that was game-changing for my business. It kept the retention on my membership for my group coaching was all based on feedback loops. I went through the independent reviews that people wrote about my company, awesome Creator Academy. We do coaching for online content creators trying to help them optimize around. Really we focus on three things, reach, reputation and revenue. So we optimize around reach through content, strategy, reputation is building out your brand, especially your personal brand, your zone of genius as you would say, and then optimizing for revenue to the best of your ability. And so one of the things we found was we did this review of every single website they had ever did an independent review of us that we'd never had any affiliation with, and we went through the pros and cons, and then I sorted out the pros and cons. I found out three of them were all repetitive, and then I made it a point in three months to systematically destroy every one of the cons. And it was game changing. And I think that people don't put themselves in a position to get feedback. And then I think they take feedback personally. They're not receptive to it. Something I loved in your book was this idea of being a master, of being able to take rejection

Noah (29:36):

And what if rejection wasn't such a bad thing? What if it's actually a good thing and then you can understand if you can help the person or not, and then the rejection actually can lead you to a yes. I think people don't realize that they're a few nos away from getting a yes. And then the upside of these asking and rejection is really, really high. The upside of getting some positive responses unlimited. And the downside is a moment of some discomfort you can even do, but it's

Roberto (30:00):

Not for you when you get a no.

Noah (30:02):

Oh, it still hurts. Yeah. For instance, I was reading Million Dollar Weekend and I was doing it, we have a video coming out where I did it live for 48 hours and my neighbor rejected me and then I came back later that night, he rejected me and I was just like, dude, you're my neighbor. I bring you cookies all the time. Can you just give me money? He's like, no. And I was like, it's annoying. But then there's other people who I could actually help and they say yes. And I was like, oh yeah, let's not be so focused on the one person who's not liking you. And there's all these other people who are excited that you can actually help 'em with their problems. And the anxiety doesn't go away. When I do these videos where I'm outside of an airport or even for one of this recent video, I'd knocked on doors trying to sell lawn care, like yard work. That was actually pretty awkward selling my neighbors their yard work.

Roberto (30:49):

How do we make ourselves more comfortable in these situations? And would you say that it's good to pursue these awkward situations where we can build a tolerance to rejection?

Noah (31:00):

Yeah, I don't know if the tolerance ever goes away. There's a Jim Roan quote, it doesn't get easier. You just get better where it's still a little uncomfortable.

Roberto (31:08):

Wait, does lighter. You just get bigger muscles.

Noah (31:11):

You do. And it's a skill unlike a sport like football, I'll never be able to be a football player at this point, but anyone could be an entrepreneur at this point, which is amazing, right? There's no bias around it. There's definitely some advantages and disadvantages, but everyone can have that chance. And the skill of asking, that's why I talk about the coffee challenge, even a lighter one is the compliment challenge where you tell someone they have a nice outfit if you like it, and then you ask where they got it from. And you notice by doing it small, in a silly kind of goofy way, that when you do it on things that are maybe a little bit more mattering to you, you're like, oh, cool, I've practiced on this and now I'll do the coffee challenge at a hotel. I asked for free upgrades or I bought towels in Florida two weeks ago and I said, can I get a discount?

(31:57):

Give me a discount. And guess what? If he says no, that's fine too. And then as I move into promoting the book or as I move into promoting AppSu deals, or if I try to get someone to come on my show now, I just am more comfortable asking. And if you get rejected, by the way, a lot of times it's not a no, it's just a not yet. And so then how do you do the follow up? How do you make it exciting for them? I always think of the acronym wt what's in it for them, or when I ask someone, I think when people think of asking and rejection, they think it's such a bad thing, but if we're bur, let's say, Hey, I got a YouTube video, I think you're going to get a million views, but I need you to do this thing. I think that's an ask where maybe if I'm asking something, but I think it's good for you, I'm excited to ask. I actually think it's better.

Roberto (32:37):

No, that's a good one. Do you know what I do? Sometimes I'll ask someone, what would it take to turn this No into a yes.

Noah (32:47):

Oh, I love that.

Roberto (32:48):

Now I know what their stand, you normally

Noah (32:49):

Get responses. What do they normally do? You

Roberto (32:51):

Get, okay, so primary example with this is sponsorship and brand deals. I tell people that they don't always have to lower their rates. Instead of trying to haggle with a brand over rates, say, don't assume that they don't have the budget. Assume that they don't have the budget for the ask. So then shift the goalpost to say for the ask that I'm going for, what would it take to get a yes? What deliverables do you need for that number? Or what standard do you need for that number? What metrics do I have to hit for that? No, to become a yes, because then you know what their standards, requirements and boundaries look like, and they also have to think about it too. And so that's the other cool thing about it is they have to consider what would make me say yes to that. And then when you get that answer, it's like, you know where you stand, where they stand, and now it's all clear.

Noah (33:42):

That's a great point. I mean, people imagine that you go up to the business plate and you take one swing and if you miss, it's over. But think about music artists. How many songs did they put out that you've never heard of? And then the one song, it's like, yeah, I went and looked it up with red Hot Chili Peppers and Drake and just a variety. And I think it was somewhere like 15% or less actually are songs that get millions of views. It's like, but they have all these other songs you've never heard of. And it's like, oh, it does take starting and trying over and over. And the other time with a lot of these people, they're not alone. So go be a part of Roberto's program or yes, go listen to someone and you're like, wow, this person's done the thing I want to do. And be around that type of environment,

Roberto (34:25):

Even find someone only slightly above where you are. But that is okay. If I was there, I at least know that that's progress. I don't think it doesn't have to be someone who's wildly more successful than you. I think even a few steps ahead of you is great. I love this. I want to ask you something. I definitely want to get some specific things for the audience here. Please. I just love talking to you. I could talk to you for hours. The thing that I want to get at is I want to know a couple of things on the YouTube side and your creator journey. You were already successful. What made you want to teach other people through your content creation? That's one thing I want to know. And then another thing I want to know involving that is if you know the answer to this, where were you after your first 100 videos? And if you don't know that answer, I'd love to know how many videos it took for you to get your first 10,000 subscribers.

Noah (35:19):

So I was already probably worth, I don't include app sumos valuation, which is probably give or take around a billion separate of that. I like cash money. I also like cash money records, but I was already worth, I don't know, somewhere in the eight figures, cash liquid when I started doing more YouTube.

Roberto (35:39):

So over 10 mil, you were worth over 10 mil when you started doing YouTube.

Noah (35:44):

And so the two things that I think are kind of surprising and really interesting people for me, I started YouTube because I like it. There's not some I'm trying to get. So I would say I like attention. I like meeting people, I like interviewing people. I like talking. I like people saying, Hey, I've seen your videos. I think I knew you. I'm like, that's good enough. And I'm happy about that, and I have more than enough attention. And I just have always enjoyed it. I really enjoy that you

Roberto (36:11):

Are the first person to actually give the real answer. When people say, well, why would someone successful bother to teach what they know? And you finally came up with the only, or my opinion, the most legitimate answer that's ever been given is I like doing it. I like talking, I like feedback, and I like attention. It's like I'd worked really hard to be where I am and everything like that. It's great when people acknowledge me for it.

Noah (36:35):

And it's not a bad thing. I think I've done it in the past where I said I'm going to impact a million people and then when I wake up in the morning, I'm like, I do not care about that at all. I like metrics, I like money, I like numbers, I like all these things. But I enjoy the process. I enjoy making a video. I enjoy people commenting. I enjoy replying to the comments. I enjoy DMing everyone back. I don't have some virtual assistant. If I do, my virtual assistant's name is Noah Kagan, that's me. And I do the replies

Roberto (37:06):

Almost person. I'm the same way. I'm the same way.

Noah (37:08):

And the other thing I think is really counterintuitive was anyone can copy what I did because I just started with my cell phone and there's a lot of really popular channels. I watch so much YouTube, so that's another part. I didn't just go and I want to be a creator, I want to be rich. I'm going to just go and drink YouTube. It is work. It's some point that it's not, one video is not work, but to do videos to be successful and make it significant in terms of views or revenue or whatever does take time. But I did start in my phone shirtless, just putting a video up and very quickly I got 300 views and that was enough for me. That was enough. That was like, wow, this is cool. I like people being excited. And then I did a YouTube live where I walked 50,000 steps on my treadmill. I don't know, I just thought it was silly during covid and I was feeling good making content and I enjoyed it. And there is a balance. And what I recommend for people is you do have to get started. So my first video was shirtless with the camera, and now the videos cost from salaries and flying and all the people around $20,000 per video, maybe sometimes 30 to make one video. And sometimes

Roberto (38:12):

Do you guys on the YouTube side from the ad revenue, do you guys break even on that?

Noah (38:16):

Last year we lost 200,000.

Roberto (38:20):

Last year you lost 200,000. How much did you guys spend all in on content last year?

Noah (38:27):

And I would actually reframe it. I would say we invested. I actually legit would say more invested. So it helps for the book, it did help for Sumo, it did help with the mailing list. There are external things, but in just straight brand sponsorships, which I almost do none of because I have to use the product to have it to talk about it or ad revenue. I think we made, it was like two 60 or 300 in ad revenue, but then spent, give or take around five 50.

Roberto (38:52):

Okay. So that's where that delta of that 200,000 comes in. And

Noah (38:55):

Because I have app summa.com sponsoring the show, that's the only way I'm able to sustain it that format. But I do believe that maybe I do more direct promotion. It's just also, it's okay for now. It doesn't have to make money in.

Roberto (39:07):

It can be a loss leader because you also have this backend, very successful backend business that it is also a funnel two plus you have a very successful personal brand and then you have things you like to book. So yeah,

Noah (39:17):

So what I'd recommend for people, you ask the second question, I've stopped and started YouTube a few times. So my first video of YouTube was 2006. I met Steven Chad, they came to Facebook to pitch us YouTube. And I was like, okay, we're Facebook, get the fuck out of our way. And that was funny, but I was like, all right, lemme go post a video. So I posted a video then and then posted a video in 2010. And then I posted a video in 2014, and I would say when Covid happened in 2020 is when I first posted a video. I was like, I got to figure out a different way. I'm not sticking with it. I keep quitting too soon. And so I said, I'm going to at least do a hundred videos.

Roberto (39:52):

What was the result of the 100 videos?

Noah (39:55):

One, I did get some traction. I did it my way before. It was like, I should do this because people think I should make videos. Kind of when people that question versus I'm just going to make my own videos, but I will say it is an important point. Who is the audience you're making your video for? Every time we make a video, we ask, does this help an underdog on their business journey? I do not care about being trapped underground. I do not care about bouncy balls in a house. I care about inspiring people in business. That is the only thing our content's for. Is it going to help someone on their business journey? That is what I make content. So you have

Roberto (40:26):

A clear why. You have a clear vision for your, and you have your avatar, you have your audience. Avatar is the underdog.

Noah (40:31):

It is an underdog. Does this help them in their business journey? And a lot of videos that could be really popular, it's just not for that audience. Now, when I got the video started, I said, alright, what do I want to make? Because what I wanted to do is sit behind my computer and do nothing just talking about sumo. But there's also the who has to want to watch it. And I think people miss out on that. They're like, I'm making videos, but I'm not getting views. And I go look at their video and I'm like, yeah, it sucks. No one wants to watch this video. You enjoy making it. I met a guy, he spent $200,000 and he's got, I don't know, maybe 10,000 subs after a few years.

Roberto (41:06):

Oh

Noah (41:06):

My God. So and he's spending a lot of his own savings, his life savings on it. And I'm like, you don't have to do it that way. You do have to do what you want and what an audience is excited to watch. And so I committed to a hundred videos. So I caught the law of 100, which is at least do a hundred. So you don't quit too soon.

Roberto (41:21):

That's the thing. I've been teaching people for years. Make the 100.

Noah (41:24):

Yeah, you've been doing this a long time. It's like a lot of people quit. The irony in the whole situation is it's easy to keep being successful when you're winning. When you're putting a video and you get a million views, you're like, this is awesome. Of course I'm going to do more videos. But when you're getting a few hundred views, you're like, okay, this is good. It's cool, but you get another a hundred views. It's like I did three videos a week for 50 weeks and almost none of those videos got more than 10,000 views.

Roberto (41:50):

How many subscribers did you have after that? A hundred videos.

Noah (41:54):

I think we were give or take, 37,000. I'd have to look.

Roberto (41:58):

That's pretty good.

Noah (41:59):

But it's a real thing that, no, it's good. I was definitely, it's funny, and you always hear this, which is kind of interesting. People are always saying, I said, I had a million subs and I got 9,000 views two years ago. I would've been happy with 9,000 views. So it's also to be grateful. It is really to be grateful. One, I love YouTube so you don't have to, I think that's a key kind of nuance is that I'm not creating content. I should do this. It's like I watch hours. I probably watched six hours of YouTube yesterday on flights. I'm watching a lot of police chases. I don't know why this body cam footage.

Roberto (42:33):

I watch UFO conspiracy theories.

Noah (42:35):

Oh yeah, I like it. And then I'm like, alright. I also making content and being on the other side of it, I like creating as much as I like consuming. Now, while I was doing it, I did notice like, hey, it's not really, the amount of views isn't really, I feel like I am putting in a lot of work relative to the amount of views I'm getting. Around the end of the year, in November of two years ago, Jeremy and I were like, Hey, we're doing these videos, we're putting a lot of effort. We're doing three a week, which is a lot if you've done videos. And it was like, it's not working. We've got to try a 180. We got to try something different. And so that is when we looked for inspiration. We saw some guys on TikTok. And again, look outside your industry, look at females. If you're a male, look at offline if you're online and see what you can replicate.

Roberto (43:15):

Look at entertainment. If you're an educator, if you're an entertainment education, right?

Noah (43:20):

Yeah. Replicate and innovate. And so we saw someone who faked knocking on doors. It was so obvious they couldn't actually do it because person's like, welcome to my house and I'll tell you I'm knocking on doors. No one's ever said that to me that I did not know. No one ever does that. And so we thought, let's try it. We filmed it. Two days went out, a million views. And it is interesting because it's a 12 minute video, but it took two days of full filming to get that amount of content. But it was also, okay, there's something different here that we're trying. And eventually if you get started, which most people don't ever get started, and then you can stick with it. You can find some way that, okay, finally it is working, but I had to stick with it to get there versus lemme keep planning and be, try to get prepared on the sidelines.

Roberto (44:02):

That pivot. Two years ago, and I think two years ago you guys were at, what about a quarter million subscribers? I think two years ago,

Noah (44:09):

170,000. We got, it was slowly, that year was slow.

Roberto (44:14):

So

Noah (44:15):

That one video did like a hundred thousand subs in a month.

Roberto (44:18):

So in two years, you guys eight x do you almost 10 x to your subscriber account in two years with this pivot with doing content like this, and this is this IRL, high effort content is what I call this because super high

Noah (44:28):

Effort. Yeah, it's harder to copy it. It's much harder to copy getting these billionaires. It's much harder for people to wait outside an airport or buy a first class ticket and bug people in first class or go to Monaco or go to Switzerland or wherever.

Roberto (44:40):

It's non duplicable for literally 99% of creators for

Noah (44:43):

Most. And now it's getting copied. So there's a lot of content. Well, the two things that I found were fascinating about how we're evolving our content. One, we come up with about a thousand ideas to do two a month. So we went from three a week to two a month. So that was a big shift. And it's just like a TV show, just like Netflix. Think about it. Netflix has so many people pitching 'em, and then they use data and some intuition to then ultimately pick very few that they'll then produce and make. And so think about it in that capacity,

Roberto (45:09):

And they do it long term. It's big scale production. How many hours does it take to edit? So it sometimes takes you guys one to three days, I think to film how much to edit, how much hours to edit, do you think?

Noah (45:24):

Two to three weeks.

Roberto (45:26):

Two to three weeks worth of editing. And is what, is that 20 hours a week of the editing or 40 hours a week?

Noah (45:31):

No. So we have full-time video editor.

Roberto (45:35):

Okay. Full-time video editor. It takes three weeks. So every video has about 150 to 200 hours of work behind it.

Noah (45:42):

Yeah, I mean there's a producer, Jeremy, who now we have Dylan. There's also a researcher, and this is not even including titles and thumbnail research.

Roberto (45:51):

It's about 200 hours. So all in 200 hours I would say.

Noah (45:54):

It's a lot. It's a lot. I'd say the other shift we're doing more of, because the in real life is harder now that I'm having a family and just have other obligations. There's other people that can copy it a lot easier too. So how do I have access to certain billionaires that others, one thing we're approaching. So think about what's your unfair advantage. And then the other thing is the video we put out that got 9,000 views. It was a video about myself. And so it's interesting that, oh, people don't know me at all. And so my unfair advantage is I worked at Facebook, which very few people have done, and I run appsu.com, which there's only a few people that work at AppSumo and it's harder to copy that. And so I think for others out there, what is the unique advantage that you have and how do you leverage that?

Roberto (46:33):

And if you don't have one that you can readily say scales to a larger audience, why not build a unique advantage and say, I self-awareness go, you know what? I haven't done anything special yet, so what can I do that's special and then makes me stand out,

Noah (46:46):

Dude, I mean document you learning it. Document being in the kitchen. There's a guy I saw him on, Graham Stephan, his name is Matt Richards or something. He gets out one video a year.

Roberto (46:56):

Oh, I've heard that.

Noah (46:57):

Yeah. This guy's videos though.

Roberto (46:59):

Michael Reeves kid. Yeah,

Noah (47:00):

Michael Reeves. Michael Reeves. Oh my God. You can't not finish the video. And they're so phenomenally done. And so the interesting thing there, and especially for content criers, there's so many ways of making popular, not even popular. You don't need a big audience to be popular. And you could do it in so many different facets. Dustin's fish tanks, there's Matt Offload rv, there's body cam footage, channels, there's so

Roberto (47:23):

Many. I watched a guy narrate the life and journey of his ant farm.

Noah (47:29):

Dude, love it, love it mean. But the difference between him and people and most people is that he started and he stuck with it. And that literally, if you could boil down a lot of success in businesses that you got going, it didn't work, but you kept going and you keep going, and then you start asking for things, you ask for yourself, then maybe you ask for someone to be on your show or you ask someone to maybe come help you with your YouTube channel.

Roberto (47:52):

No, it makes perfect sense to me. Something I have to ask you today, what do you think is the short version summary of your battle tested playbook from Million Dollar Weekend? What's the short version of that?

Noah (48:08):

I'm going to try to use one or two words.

Roberto (48:10):

Okay,

Noah (48:12):

So first it's start right now today. Don't wait till tomorrow. Don't wait till next week, whatever day it is today. Today's the day. Number two, try to solve a problem. Not even try solve a problem that you're personally excited about. Solve something that you are personally interested in. Number three, before you go running really fast in the wrong direction, double check that there's other people who are excited to either watch your content or for a lot of other businesses before if you're not trying to just be a content creator that they're excited to give you money, literal cash for what you're doing. And then lastly, what I would say is stick with it for a long period of time.

Roberto (48:56):

What defines a long period of time,

Noah (48:59):

What I've actually observed is that to be get a million dollars liquid, I'm not talking like your real estate millionaire, where you're actually not worth shit.

Roberto (49:07):

You're talking cash money,

Noah (49:08):

Cash money. It takes 10 years

Roberto (49:11):

Decade of discipline. Yep.

Noah (49:12):

It's about a decade for a million cash, and then it can actually compound. So there's compound business, but I would say you could get it sooner. Maybe you get crypto lucky, which whatever. But I think in terms of creating from zero in terms of cash money in your bank account, if you will, stick with it. That's why I like the law 100, because that gets you through your first year, but you can just stick with it. Think about this. This is a crazy thought. If I would've stayed at my day job at Intel versus App Sumo, I would've been wealthier staying at Intel up until around year seven and from year seven, my Intel salary, which would've been maybe with inflation and raises and promos, let's say one 50 a year. Then finally, Sima was like, alright, million dollars, $2 million, 3 million salary. And it was like, oh, but that did take some time to keep investing and sticking with it to finally get to that point. And most people are quitting. One, they're not even starting, but then they're quitting day two because they're not a millionaire yet. And if you can just be a little patient and enjoy the process of it and the journey of it, the dividends pay off.

Roberto (50:10):

That works with YouTube too. What I've found is a lot of people, they're upset that they can't make banger Mr. Beast style videos after one year. This dude, Mr. Beast, he made a hundred videos. He didn't even get a thousand subscribers after a hundred videos. It took 'em 460 videos to get to 10,000 subscribers. And it was only after that that he was able from there, within a two year period to figure out a hundred thousand subscribers. And then he was able to masterfully pivot enough to then go within a year of a hundred thousand subscribers, he figured out a million. And then within about roughly, I want to say 16 months, 12 months of that, he figured out 10 million subscribers and then he kept going. But the thing is he spent almost half of his YouTube career, which would represent almost because he is so young, that represents a quarter of his life being a small underdog YouTuber who was not making it. He was a small YouTuber for equal number of years to what he's now been successful. And the dude's only 25, and he's been doing this literally half of his entire lifespan. He started this at 13. So that's wild.

Noah (51:17):

It is wild. I think there's something there though about these exceptions, right? So Elon's an exception, Mr. Beast. Oh, he's

Roberto (51:23):

An exception in terms of his radical outcome. I'm saying though, his failure is what's common. And by failure, I mean his

Noah (51:29):

Failure is the common thing. Most people can do the one video, most people don't make it to number two. And if you could just get to number two, and then you just get to number three, and I think the underlying thing that Mr. Beast says, and I'd say for yourself and myself, we enjoy it. So to go number two is not, yeah, maybe my video didn't get a ton of views, but I'm still liking making content. And so I think for everyone out there, think about the things that you haven't quit and what are the elements in those that you can then replicate for your professional life as well.

Roberto (51:57):

This makes total sense. Noah, I love that you've spent so much time with me. I want to be super respectful of your time, but I have to ask one last thing. If you were going to give me any piece of personal advice, what would it be?

Noah (52:11):

Well, I would need to know what you want to work on personally or in your professional life.

Roberto (52:17):

Can you give me one for each? Can you give me one for being the happiest, best healthy human I can be knowing that I admire the life that you've built for yourself, and then one on being more successful in my endeavors.

Noah (52:31):

So this in and of itself is another few hours. So number for the second one, I think we have to be very clear at how you define success. So for me, defining success is the amount of money I make, make a few million bucks a year. I get to live in new cities, I get to spend my day doing the work I want to do. I don't have to do a lot of work I want to do. I can take months off if I want.

Roberto (52:52):

It's the number you talked about in your book. I'm trying to remember how you phrased it, but it's basically my freedom number. Correct. It's like achieving my freedom number.

Noah (53:01):

Do you have a freedom number? And so freedom of the people out there is like, what's the number you need to do to quit your job? But don't you already have your own business?

Roberto (53:06):

I already have my own business. But it's one of those things to where if I wanted to prioritize, for example, I'm still a single guy. If I want to prioritize knowing that when I start a family, I can literally delegate off any and everything and prioritize a hundred percent and that be fully present, all of those things, which leads to the number one. See, there's an interplay between the number one and the number two there. The freedom number says there's no downside consequence, meaning house is paid off, mortgage is paid off retirement fund for me and my wife that God willing is there and everything like that. Whatever I need for the kids that's just there and that if I don't work another day, everything's all right.

Noah (53:46):

Yeah, this is a very bigger thing. I'm trying to simplify it down to simpler answers. Sure. Let's start with the personal life. My advice it sounds like is believing that there's a great partner out there for you, and then aligning your behavior to that priority if that's what it sounds like your priority is. And so the reason I share that is that I never realized there would be a great partner for me, and I didn't think I deserved it, and my actions were about partying and hookups. And so it's like, okay, you say you have this, you want this thing, you don't believe it even really exists, and then all your behavior is not really aligned to it. Then when I finally worked with the coach, I worked with Stephanie Rigg and I've worked with my therapist. Then it was finally being like, yes, I do really want that. And believing it really exists, which I think is hard. That's called faith because you're not seeing it and then aligning the actions to that. And then it was literally after that finally happened, it was two months before I met my current partner who we're having a baby together, and it's like I met a unicorn and they all exist for everyone out there that I a hundred percent believe. But if you had told me this where if I was where you are, and I'm not saying better or worse,

Roberto (54:58):

Yeah, I stage,

Noah (55:00):

Yeah, I just would be like, I don't believe it. I remember my buddy told me that, and I'm like, nah. But if you can just have that optimism and then align your behavior to finding that person, which they're there, they're out there waiting for you, you will get them. And then you have to also to book a million dollar game, you have to ask. You can't just hope. And then in terms of your professional life, the two things I've recognized is being very clear on what amount of money you need to make so that you can live life the way you want to live. Because most of the people, it's less than they realize. And then the second part is what can you do to revisit things that are working so you can get to that place sooner? And then do you have any coaching to support you along the way? So just for context, I have a CEO coach, I have a business coach, I have a marketing coach, and then I have other coaches in other areas in my life depending on the things I'm trying to do. And so I wonder, besides having clear number besides doubling down on what's already working, and then how do you maybe have some accountability or support how from someone or a group that can help you along that path? No one does it alone. Even Drake, Drake's got a team of thousands of writers.

Roberto (56:03):

That is excellent advice, and that gives me a really good foundation to apply that to myself. And I think it's also a good foundation for all of the watchers and listeners out there. I think that this is completely actionable for anybody who's able to listen to this right now. I think everything in this episode is completely actionable. So I want to thank you, Noah. Where can everyone find you and where can they get the book? Million Dollar Weekend?

Noah (56:30):

Yeah, go to million dollar weekend.com. I actually got it from a subscriber. It's this guy named Derek White. I was like, Hey, I got you the domain. I was like, wow. And look, that was a small and thing he did early on to grab and now has created a relationship where I can help him or I'm excited to help him. So it's kind of a nice reminder to help others out there. But yeah, million dollar weekend.com is, you can find everything about me and as well grab the book to change your own life in 48 hours or less.

Roberto (56:53):

All right, everybody. That's it for this episode. Again, thank you so much, Noah. You are like a wealth of knowledge. I can't wait to see you again in person sometime and spend time with you, let alone do this again. Yeah, I'll come to you even. I'll come out to Texas. I love the barbecue.

Noah (57:09):

It is good. I'm going to Spain in two weeks, so we're about to have a baby, so we're going to go.

Roberto (57:14):

Congratulations.

Noah (57:15):

Thank you, man. Yeah, it exists. I think that's such a, it's tough. If I would've heard this today, I'd be like, but you just kind of keep saying it and you keep practicing it and you keep putting yourself out there and you keep trying and trying and trying, and then eventually you're like, oh shit, it's real. Thank you for having me. And this is coming out Jen 30th? Yeah, around then.

Roberto (57:33):

Yeah, around there. Yeah.

Noah (57:34):

Alright man. Thank you for having Good seeing you. That's

Roberto (57:36):

Cool. Alright, thanks so much. All right. Everybody.