Learn Sales First to Build a Business That Scales with Steve Larsen | 016

Unknown: 00:00:00

Today's guest is a guy who made it his mission to turn funnels from confusing spaghetti into precision instruments of profit.

Steve Larsen: 00:00:07

Nice. I like it.

Unknown: 00:00:09

Steve, aka Capitalist Pig, helps entrepreneurs automate sales, online, scale offers, build lead machines, not just in theory, but with real, measurable numbers. Founder of capitalist pig, here's some interesting stuff about him. He's got that daily lead flow flywheel. He created that a framework for seven and eight figure business owners to get steady, predictable leads. Published nearly 700 episodes, a lot that's amazing. Built a huge following among seven eight figure entrepreneurs. Co authored a book with Russell called dramatic demonstrations, but you didn't start off with smooth content or viral content, there were dozens of product failures before you cracked the code. You got yourself a side hustle. Nobody know. Sorry, you've got a side of yourself that loves the theatrical, the swag, the shirts, the branding of capitalist pig also treats marketing like a systems game, metrics, lead, flow, flywheels, you get nerdy in a way that actually pays buried barley. Jax, she said, Yes, yeah, let's

Steve Larsen: 00:01:06

power couple crap. Yeah, we were having so much fun. So we were

Unknown: 00:01:09

just talking about ticket, Alex, but before that, so I want to the promise land, the idea the promised land, and what I want to do with this, is where you take your clients to like, it's a journey, yeah, and that ultimate destination, if they stick with you, if they show up, if they do the work, if they get through their fear, all of that, and you're the coach you're meant to be. You take a little promise land. Yeah, and each coaching program has their own promised land. So to get to the promise land, to me, it takes three things. One is to magnetize people to you, getting clients. Two is to set up methodology that works, and three is to be the mentor they'll follow. So when you think about those, which one really speaks to you? Probably all three, but which one like catches your heart the most.

Steve Larsen: 00:01:48

It's funny, you know, when I first started out, I felt what most people feel, which is imposter syndrome, you know, like, How can I go out and do what I want to if I haven't had the rags to riches story yet or anything like that? Yeah, and so I made it my theme, and all those 700 episodes to instead become like a almost like a reporter, where it's like, this is what I'm doing, and you're documenting the journey of the rise, rather than saying I'm there, and that's why you should follow me. Yeah. So I was very public about my failures and the successes that came. And so it was very vulnerable, and it was very uncomfortable.

Unknown: 00:02:23

Certainly brought you to that, if I could ask, because, yeah, from your stories, when you first got on, you're like, This young guy, full ego, like, I guess you were almost angry on stage.

Steve Larsen: 00:02:35

Did you know me back then? No, we told stories.

Unknown: 00:02:37

So we're actually filming in Steve's beautiful studio today, and on the other side, there's a picture of you, yeah? Just like

Steve Larsen: 00:02:44

Just scream it, yeah. You know, it's funny. There was a time when I first started out, I got an entrepreneurship kind of not on accident, but it was necessity. Yeah, I was in college, and the jobs there were 350 an hour, like you just there more. There's so many students they don't need to pay a lot. Like, I can't work four of these jobs and make it and still be in school. And so I called my dad and I asked him for a loan. I said, Could you float me some cash? I was newly married, like, a couple weeks into my ex wife, and I could not feed us, and we were really struggling, and had no idea we were going to make it. And so I called my dad and I said I got student loans coming on the way because you sold me some money, which is super uncharacteristic, like I worked a lot of labor jobs. My dad grew up on a farm. My first job was an ejection mold plastic factory. I stood on heat lines and got the parts off and all that huge key calluses from my hands. I was a sprinkler tech. I was a tire buster. Like, I worked a lot of labor jobs, yeah, so when I got to school, like, I know how to work hard to ask for money. We weren't, we weren't freaky rich, but we were, you know, we were middle class. We never asked for money. She wanted to go to the movies. He mowed a lawn, right? And so to go ask for money, was this weird thing. And I was like, Dad, could you float me some money? And he paused. I'm the oldest of six kids. He always told me, like, the first kid sets the tone, so I'm gonna expect a lot of you. I'm like, All right, you know, he said that a lot of as a kid growing up, I said, Could you fold me some cash? And he goes, this story's become, like, internet famous now, and I love my dad. Y'all get a little embarrassed I never say this, but I'm so, like, so glad he did this. Could you fill me three grand? I got student loans coming, but not for six weeks. I don't know how we're gonna make it even just another three weeks. And he goes, son, no, if I give

Steve Larsen: 00:04:32

you this money now, you will not exhaust the resources you didn't know you had click. And I was like, okay, and I'd respect for it. I didn't feel like he was just cutting me off. Yeah, you know, but I had respect for it. I understood what he was saying, so I just rolled up my sleeves, and I started trying to do anything entrepreneurially that I could, because I had to sell to eat, and I went through 34 product failures over the next five years before one worked. And I think the student loan money showed up a little. Early, and that's because nothing was working. I didn't know what I was doing, but I was just taking shots, and I was like, I'm gonna go make products, and I'm gonna go put them out there. And my first attempt was in real estate, and I was learning how to do real estate with a double escrow. And I put up, really, yeah, I put those bandit signs up all over the street, and I bought, like, inherent tease lists. We were doing yellow letters and stuff like that, like, hey, we'll buy your house. I got 300 phone calls that first month. So I was learning how to put Yeah, I was learning how to put together in the middle school, and I was putting together the buyers and the sellers. Learned how to evaluate properties, learn how to write contracts. Went out, and I remember that first, like, two months, I got five properties under contract that were residential and two commercial. And so as long as I could flip them, we'd make, like a spread of, like 10 grand. I didn't know how to sell, so I lost all of them. And then I went to the next thing, and the next thing the next thing, and ended up joining the army. One, because I was wanted to, but two, we had to eat, like, you know, and I joined the military and found myself in the middle of basic training, I was, like, literally pitching dudes while I was doing push ups next to him, like, getting in trouble. Everyone's sneaking in, like, drugs and porn and women. And I was sneaking in finance books and getting

Steve Larsen: 00:06:17

in trouble for it. Larson, what are you doing? He got to do. More fortunately go they was getting punished. More drugs important to women, largely. So I was like, marking to death. You know, these books up to hurry, hurry up and wait game there, you know? So when I got back out and I went back to school, I was like, I think I'm an entrepreneur. I've always wondered what I should be doing with my life, like I could never answer that question growing up. And so I was started going into business and marketing in school, which is different. I initially went to be a programmer, yeah. And I understood it bored to death, though. I just, oh, sitting there looking at code all day, just I was so bored, so I'm gonna go learn how to like, sell. And so then I heard Kiyosaki say, He's like, he's like, you, you're never gonna be an entrepreneur if you don't know how to sell. It's like, my gosh, I don't know how to sell. I thought being an entrepreneur was sales. I thought the same thing.

Steve Larsen: 00:07:10

So I said, What's the big entrepreneur is sales? It is the same thing. But, but, like, I didn't know, I didn't know that. I thought just making a product, you were done,

Jase Souder: 00:07:18

Everything's just gonna sell itself,

Steve Larsen: 00:07:20

Yeah, and that's part of that I know. One of the reasons those first 34 failures happened is I kept making good stuff. I don't know why. It never hit me like you should learn how to sell. So I went and deliberately signed up for the boot camp of sales door to door and I started doing door to door sales, and I sucked the first year. The second year, I got good at it, and then I was like, got addicted to it. So between classes, I took telemarketing jobs and so be like, ringing B to B for this new tech called texting. Yeah. I was like, way back in the day, yeah. I think when I hear you say, like, the Promised Land piece, I think sometimes the challenge with it can be that it feels like a moving target. So what I learned how to do early was, I call it a problems whiteboard, and I just would list all the problems that I could see in the business. And I wasn't trying to solve them. I was trying to just identify them, and I would start to rank them, and I would be like, if I solve this problem, that's a money problem. That's a broke person problem I could solve. It makes no money. This problem right here could make money, but in the long term, so I shouldn't do it today, and it started helping me prioritize the skills that I knew I needed next to bring cash faster. Yeah, that's that's kind of how it happened. I looked in the mirror one day and I was like, my marketing degree is a dime a dozen, like, I'm studying extra books that none of these other kids, you know, I just I was hungry. Literally, I would read books while walking between classes. I absolutely ran into people and like, but I just a thirst, like, I can't describe. And the one day, I looked in the mirror and I realized that my marketing career was a dime a dozen, that I was not gonna really do anything with it, and nothing that I wanted to do is corporate analyst is basically what it's gonna turn into. And so I looked at myself in the mirror, and I just heard of this dude

Steve Larsen: 00:09:15

and this funnel stuff, you know, Russell Brunson and all this. And I was like, I'm gonna be the best funnel builder in the world. And I assessed all of my time, how spending it, turned off Netflix studio, and just from midnight to 2am every day for about three years, I studied funnels. That's the only time I can figure it out. I was in the army. I had kids, I was family college. I mean, it's so busy, I should have no empathy for someone who has like, I have no time. I'm like, yeah, yeah, you do.

Jase Souder: 00:09:39

You were the army and college.

Steve Larsen: 00:09:43

Well, I was back between basic and I was in the Reserves, yeah, but being sent out to trainings and helping other people deploy,

Jase Souder: 00:09:52

Yeah, and your kids and a family, yeah,

Steve Larsen: 00:09:55

it is a lot, you know, and so, but I grew. So fast because that environment, I wanted to go to this event called funnel hiking live. But I was broke. We were getting from student loans, I think $5,500 every three months. I mean, there was no sesame seeds on the bun. You know, the donut was not glazed. We were so freaking poor, like it was, it was it was bad.

Steve Larsen: 00:10:15

How'd you get through that first three months? When you called your dad, you said the check came earlier, so

Steve Larsen: 00:10:18

I think it just showed up early,

Jase Souder: 00:10:26

But somehow you paid for it. Somehow, one of the things, like, when you shared that, I was like, Whoa, my reaction was not, wow. I can't believe you said that. My your action was, how badass that your dad said that to you. Isn't it cool? Because he was right, because, yeah, because we were talking about you and I were chatting earlier about how people that will be on payment plans, they'll reach a rough spot, then they want to quit

Steve Larsen: 00:10:48

For this right now

Unknown: 00:10:49

That's the gift. Yes, that is the moment destiny is formed. Yeah, and it's your dad said, It's so perfect. It's not until you get put in a situation where you have to that you will, yeah. And too many people are afraid to put themselves in that situation. And it's yeah, like, the problem is part of the reason we have this name, the promised land, the tribe of Israel, when they left, they were literally in slavery. They get set free, and all these miracles happen in the Red Sea parts and all these bright and then they're free. And then they're like, have anything eat. We should go back and be slaves. And they're like, Oh, we just have bread. We don't have meat. We should go back and be sleep. And then they get there, and they could have been there in a 10 days journey, but they didn't have the courage to trust that God had their back 40 years and not to the journey of our coaching clients. Yes, it's going to be a 10 day journey, yeah, or it's going to be a 40 year journey, if they ever get there. Because, actually, I believe that an entire generation had to die off, yeah, the ones of disbelief. And for our clients, hoses himself, yeah, yeah, you get to see it but not go in it, yeah. And that's a lot of our coaching clients. They get to see it, but not go to show your dad gave you such a freaking gift.

Steve Larsen: 00:11:59

I'm very grateful for what it taught me. And this is gonna sound slightly masochist. I'm hard to kill.

Jase Souder: 00:12:05

That's great

Steve Larsen: 00:12:07

It's what I learned. And so I learned that environments do. That's where I learned it. Environments grow as faster than our willpower ever will. And the problem is, is that people have too many. I'll have a plan B. Don't don't even have one, it's this or death, yes. And if you go that far into it, and your schedule and your time management starts to actually reflect that, yes, it is nuts how the universe and God begins to conspire for your sake, and you will feel a wind at your back and a pull through the chest and stuff starts to fall in your path, yeah. And when I started learning that, and I told myself, I'm going to be the best funnel builder in the world. I have no idea if I am, but the commitment and I was dead serious. There was not a smirk on my I was absolutely serious about that the next environment, and I recognized it this time. It was that I wanted to go to this event, Funnel Hacking live. But I was broke, broke, broke, broke, broke, no money for even a taxi when I got there. So I was like, instead of, I can't afford it, it's what Kiyosaki says. How can I afford it? And I started trading funnels for plane tickets for the event and funnels for hotel nights and funnels for the event ticket itself and and I bartered my way there. Literally rented a bike because I didn't have money for a taxi, with my luggage over my shoulder, rode it through the city, hid the bike in a bush because I needed it after I checked in. And I was such a funnel nerd by that point, like the constraint of not having money is what made me really freaking good at building funnels. When I walked into the event, they said, We know who you are. Can you work here? And so they said, What's your name? I said, Steve Larsen, the dude shot up. He's like, he actually said, he goes, You're that guy pulling off all the Star Wars ninja crap on our software. I was like, What are you talking about? I was taking on clients in the middle of college so that I could learn.

Steve Larsen: 00:14:00

Yeah. I said, don't pay me, but if it works, let's talk about me getting paid. And that's how I got clients. And so cool. When I came in to that event, I ended up getting five job offers from five different departments at this new little company called Click Funnels. And I think I was employee 12, and I just was like, I just want to be in the environment. So when they gave me a job offer, I thought, I thought, and what they said was, we want you to come be support. I said, it's kind of weird. You guys want me to meet with Russell personally for that. So I left my I left all of my exams the final semester of college. In the middle of exams, got in a car and drove over to Boise, Idaho, and met with Russell for an hour and a half face to face, and he and I clicked so much, and I was such a nerd in his stuff. After an hour and a half, his assistant had to pull us apart. Basically, he was like, he's got other stuff to do. But I got back in my car, started driving. 20 minutes after driving back, they called me like, can you be Russell brunson's Personal. Funnel builder. And I was like, what? It's graduating in three days. And I was like, I have this terrible negotiation strategy. But I was like, I would do that for free. Are you kidding me? Yeah, man, let's go, baby. I just lost my voice on the car ride home. Just, just like, so psyched out of my mind. But what was it? What I was so cool, the hyper to go super full circle on that, the yelling persona that, you see, I was a when I graduated, I became an officer in the army, and I misunderstood. I thought aggression meant to get that's how you get goals. And so that's the only persona I knew to show up with, and showing up literally out of a pain body. So that's really the next journey that I started. He and I built funnels for two years, many times 24/7 we would literally build through the night as we were building up click funnels. And then, I mean, we just we just burned, we just went so hard.

Steve Larsen: 00:15:54

Oh, I would have given anything to be that funnel building assistant. Reality is, I don't think most people would hate those people could handle it. It was so extreme. And as I started building all these programs and one photo away, and the first two comic book coaching program, and I wrote the funnel hacker cookbook and all this stuff over there, I was like, my personal growth required me to leave. It was a very uncomfortable truth. I kept trying to not look at and that was the next environment inviting. And I was like, who I don't think I'm tall enough to ride that ride, you know, be my own. And then I decided that I would. That's when I started the podcast. So like, I'm going to document the psycho of the leave. And that's what really grew the following. So the side story in that is that risk published becomes an asset. So if someone's published, becomes an asset. When you go after your promised land and you start moving towards it, it's scary, but it's no longer a risk if you start to publish it, because now you're followable. That's how I drew my following.

Unknown: 00:16:59

That gives that helps me. People have been telling me for a while I had to document my journey to, like, fill up an event. Yeah, I want to get 500 people there. Yeah, I didn't get it, but hearing what you saying that so we have an event almost literally a month from now. Yeah, I could start publishing every day. Here's how many monitors we have. Here's where we're going. Yeah?

Steve Larsen: 00:17:16

And people like, what do I publish with my marketing material? And it's like, funny enough. One of the narrative one. There's so many narratives you can follow in marketing, but one of them is your journey of doing the thing. But it only works if you're clear on the promised land, you call the shot and you're public about it. So I was like, leave my I'm gonna leave my job, and I'm going to do it publicly, not burn any bridges, but follow me as I make my first million and literally 13 months to the day after I left, is when I made my first million and then after that, it was in seven months. And then after that, like in a month, and it just kept stacking.

Unknown: 00:17:48

That's so cool. Yeah, I wanna go back for a little bit. Yeah, that first little hiking live you went to because I've always heard stories about these, these kids. It's always a kid, this kid, no money, can't pay whatever. What shows up? What inspired you to do that? What inspired you to say, I'm in a I'm going, and I'm in a part of my way there, or I'm gonna actually go there, and I don't know how I'm gonna pay for lunch, but I'm going, like, what

Steve Larsen: 00:18:13

I actually didn't eat during that event? I don't have any money.

Unknown: 00:18:17

Yeah? Yeah. Well, Kai, what had you say yes to that, like, what clicked in you, the feel for like, who that person was, and what actually catalyzed that person, as opposed to the 1000s of others who would have just quit,

Steve Larsen: 00:18:32

You know, the at the time of my life, I don't I didn't know that. Then I know now I was fiercely lonely. I did not know another person on the planet that was trying to do this funnel thing, except for Russell Brunson himself. And I was devouring his books while in military training, holding my M 16 laying in the dirt for five days. I would keep his book in a plastic baggie, in my uniform, in my pocket, and when no one was looking at pull back out, and I'd keep studying with a pencil. Someone else would come, oh crap, and pull my gun back up, sit there. I just was really lonely, and I I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. For my entire childhood, I knew I was good at solving problems, yeah, but I was like, how do you equate that? And it was, it was a it was a professor that I had who he kind of became my first one, one mentor. This dude was a legit marketer. He helped to launch Star Wars Episode One. He has this previous SEMO of Denny's in a Pizza Hut. This guy was awesome, and I spent time with him. I just told him, like, I do not know what I want to be. He's like, I think you're an entrepreneur, like a marketer. And I literally said to him, that's what you do, and you have no skills. Like, I keep thinking, foot in the mouth thing to say. And he was like, he's like, Huh? I was like, Well, you know, like, because at the time, I was gonna go into finance, a supply chain or programmer, I was very left brain, and I.

Jase Souder: 00:20:00

Do you do good?

Steve Larsen: 00:20:02

I told him, and he's like,

Jase Souder: 00:20:05

Where he needs professor, yeah.

Steve Larsen: 00:20:10

And we had enough of a relationship. He's just like, teach you an idiot. I was like, enlighten me. Then he goes, you solve problems every day like he's like, you if you like waking up every day and solving a new problem, you should be a marketer. You get to be an entrepreneur. And I was like, this will really gave me permission to go do it intentionally, because I was always building these little side things. One of the fastest ways I've found to hack gaining the promised land as fast as possible is to I learned this in college. Also, I this other professor. He was super freaking smart. This guy, you know, the two towers burnt down. He's the one that invented a new kind of concrete for the New Freedom Tower, and that's what they use. And He came in and he taught us, and he raised his hand, and he goes, Can you guys raise your hands if you're like, This is an entrepreneurship class. How many guys like doing a business? Me and another dude raised their hand out of the entire class. And he goes, you want to know the biggest pattern of the people who fail? What's the pattern of the worst student on the planet? We all sat there. And he goes, the pattern of the worst student on the planet is student that thinks that I am at all responsible for your education, because if you don't, you're not doing a business. You're in business classes, in school, idiots. I mean, he was really forceful, but I was like, students, right? I got to be if I'm being business, I gotta be taking shots. So I walked into my very first internet marketing class. And I already, because of that, been so into studying internet marketing on my own between classes, trying back to studying it. I was doing it trying to make money. And this professor stood up on day one, and he's like, Guys, I got a doozy here for you. Welcome to internet marketing 101, who can define SEO. And I was like, kill me. I was so bored. So I raised my hand, and I was like, I am learning about myself,

Steve Larsen: 00:22:11

that I can make my own path. So I raised my hand and I said, I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to come back to this class. No offense, but I've just been doing this already, and to my complete shock, the professor agreed, and he said, leave, but just hold your own class every day and try to make as much money as you can on the internet. So I grabbed another kid out of the class and for every day, for three hours, we with affiliate marketing, went out and tried, that's how I made my first dollar on the internet. And because of that, Paul Mitchell came to the school and said, We don't know how to fix our websites. And all the professors were like, we don't really know how to do it. But those two kids over there seemed like they had to do and so we got Paul Mitchell as one of our clients in the middle school, and I started running internet traffic for like, Paul Mitchell. Paul Mitchell, then, yes, yeah. Started running for six locations in California and two in Idaho, in the middle of classes and driving traffic and meeting with all these CEOs and stuff. And that's part of my point, though, is like we are often when we're going towards the promised land, in our own mind, trying to wait for someone to give us the curriculum. It doesn't work that way. You make your own you have to sit down and say, That's what I want. And I think the way to get there is one, two and three, and just do it, and there's going to be doors that open. I wouldn't have been ready for Paul Mitchell if someone said, here's the curriculum, go study affiliate marketing. You know what I mean. And so there's people always get surprised at how fast doors start to open when they actually start moving. But they get stuck on paralysis because of, like, I don't see point A to point B. And I'm like, You never see point A to point B. It's like, welcome to the game. You know, it's business. Is a faith based game. You see, you see the next three steps. You see the peak and everything the

Steve Larsen: 00:23:51

middle is dark. And so as you move, a new third step starts to appear, yeah. And then a new third step, and where people trip themselves up is they're like, they start learning for step 47 Yeah. Like, now it's like, are you on step 46 and they're like, No, I didn't put the books down. Stop learning all this stuff. Only study for the single next problem that you're trying to solve, which means you have to be able to name it, and that's hyper gross, and then all these doors unlocked. I feel like I'm rambling, but that though I love this topic.

Unknown: 00:24:27

Yeah, you were really driven in college, very so for people listening, I didn't really start on my journey until 32 like college, looking back now, I know I was just so wounded, you know, sure, just so hurting, and I was partying my ass off and stuff, sure, what had you be so determined, though, and I will say this, though, guys, look at how early he got on the path, and look at the success he's having now, right, which is huge. So what? What got you. To be that person, then

Steve Larsen: 00:25:02

I've reflected on that a lot now that I have three daughters of my own life was my parents, all my siblings do different things. We're literally around the world. I mean, a sibling in Peru, one just came back from living in Fiji or no, oh my gosh. Anyway, I got another brother in Germany. Another one in England. Got another brother. We're literally around the world, and part of the thing that they would always instill in us is, hey, us as parents, our job is not to coddle you. Our purpose is to make you a self sufficient adult. And so I've talked to my dad about this since all that that was like, holy crap like 15 years ago, he would create these little scenarios for me to grow against. One day, he walked into the I love this example, but I think it tees it up. Well, he walked into the living room, where we all just sitting around. I was probably 1314, and he goes, Steven, I want you to be the yard manager. And I was like, No. And he goes, here's the deal. I can pay you. Are you going to do it for free as a chore? I was like, all right. I was like, what does it mean to be a yard manager? He's like, you're going to manage all the aspects of the yard to make sure it's green and clean. I was like, what does that mean? He goes, Yeah, what does that mean? And he would always just turn it get me thinking, yeah. And so what I did is I held interviews with all my siblings, and I learned how to write a contract, and I literally hired each of my siblings for different roles in the yard. So I said, I said, Dad, what's the budget? And he's like, yeah, why don't you go ahead and write for me a proposal on what you think it will cost to make the yard green go the yard Green Clean every week. How do you write a proposal? Don't know, but this thing called Google's out. And so he would go, I'd google it, and, yeah, wrote a contract and figure out how to write, do an interview, and figured out how, you know. So I sat down and I would contract. These are

Steve Larsen: 00:26:58

my siblings. You're gonna be the one that mows front yard. You're gonna be the one that weeds the backyard. You're gonna be what does the trimming on the outside. I'm the oldest of six kids. There's 17 years between me and the youngest. A lot of money been around yet and touch the little kids, but I was the one who's held responsible, and he's like, Hey, Dad, we need some more money for the lawnmower. Crazy. Could you send me, like, a, like, a invoice proposal? Like, sure, what's an invoice? He goes, don't know what Google's a thing. Wow. So I had to go learn how to invoice, and I hated him the invoice. And he goes, sounds good. I'll expect to pay us on net 30 terms, basically, net 30 terms the whole freaking summer, man, like I had racked up this big bill from him, but I never got the money. So all my friends are going to like movies and stuff like that. I'm having to do other side jobs because I can't get paid for my dad, because he wants to pay a net 30 term because I invoice too late. Yeah, we need fertilizer. Awesome. Why don't you send me? Like we ran it like a business, but he did that stuff to me all the time. I walked in the house one day and there was a big stack of drywall, a 17. By this time, maybe 16. I need you to insulate drywall, mud, spackle and paint the garage. And that's that material sat there for probably five months. But he didn't care. That wasn't the point. And I know people would ask him, like, why don't you just help him do that? He's like, I'm raising kids, not getting a garage done. You know, one day he walked in, he's like, I need you to dig a new sprinkler line, because that area of the lawn isn't and I literally hand dug a sprinkler line and manually and follow the sprinkler line. It's like, so it's this, it's the skill set of being able to know that there's a problem. But problems don't mean No, and I think that's the problem. That's the real issue that people have. Problems aren't the problem. The problem is, when you make the

Steve Larsen: 00:28:50

problem problem, the problem is an invitation to learn, grow and move forward. And all you need to do is spot check the relationship with problems. So when a problem arises, it's yeah, how could we solve that, rather than I'm disqualified, and that's why so many people never go to don't do anything with the promise land. They're like, I'm not gonna go do my thing, because I have a question. I have an issue. It's like, idiot. Obstacle is the way.

Unknown: 00:29:14

I've been learning that lately. So you've done a lot of personal growth. Now, what kicked you into it? Was there a moment in time? Was there an event, a conversation, What? What? How'd you start to do? And by personal growth, there's a lot of people who relate to personal growth as, oh, learning how to build the funnel. Sure, that's personal growth I am referring to, dredging up and discovering what our subconscious programming is, and then dealing with it like that kind of stuff.

Steve Larsen: 00:29:41

Yeah, I actually would make fun of personal development and mindset next to Russell to tell you my backstory on it, because I just it's so funny, man, I was literally I'd sit by literally back. I mean, my shoulder would touch his, and I'd hear him coaching his inner circle members all the time. And I remember his. Just all these people are talking about mindset, and just, I just rolling my eyes, freaking, mindset. Are you kidding? Russell, like, turned his camera off and muted, and I turned around and I go, don't you just wish you could just tell people the formula, like, it's a one plus one formula. That's it. Mindset, just freaking do it. And he was like, so you think mindset is not important? I was like, Yeah, who cares? Just do the thing. And he laughed so hard. So, like, it wasn't something I I was more like to, like a buck up and shut up and do it kind of a thing.

Unknown: 00:30:30

Well, it's kind of like, teenagers, right? They're right, and they know everything. Yeah, yeah. I've looked at teenagers many times, and I've thought, if we could actually release them right now into a position where they have to do, like, entrepreneurial stuff while they're super right and super full of themselves and think they know everything, yeah, they would actually do pretty well, yeah, until they had some failures, then it would go off the rails. But yeah, like in a way that they don't know all the stuff that could go wrong, yeah? And so in a way it would be easier, yeah? But that doesn't work. You get what I'm saying.

Steve Larsen: 00:31:04

Yeah, it did for me, absolutely. I it probably, probably the largest catalyst was when I was going through my divorce, six, seven years ago. And it was respectful, you know, but I was growing very rapidly, just hyper growth, and I knew that just meaning as a person. I just because I was like, saying yes to scary stuff, because I know I won't die quick side thing on that, one of the things my dad was really big on, my parents really big on is that, in the Bible, it's important to remember that Lucifer also volunteered to come down.

Jase Souder: 00:31:39

No, I didn't know that. I thought it was cast out.

Steve Larsen: 00:31:41

Well, God comes forward and says, I need a savior, Jehovah and Lucifer volunteered, right? They both did lucifer's job with his plan was to come in and say, I'm going to make everyone come back, which is to destroy free agency and frankly, with dethrone God, God saw it and said, you're gone, right? But Jehovah comes forward and says, we'll give them a choice. We know they'll mess up, and I understand that means what I'm gonna have to be as a savior, and it's like so they were very big on the fact that the order of the volunteering matters. So when someone walks in the room and says, I need a volunteer before you even know what it is, you should have your hand in the air Yes, and say, Here am I send me. I hated that as a teenager, because my dad would come home on Sundays a lot, be like, Hey, someone so needs some help over here. Let's, let's go and be like, I just wanna watch TV. I just wanna teenager vibe, you know. But what it taught me. And this is true. And in the army, you know, they come and they would say, I need a volunteer. Just put my hand up and sure you clean some latrines. But eventually, start doing the cool jobs, and eventually they learn that about you. So when you're you're presented with an opportunity in your life that feels like it's taller than you. You raise your hand here, my son, just do it and you'll you will free. Of course, you don't know the way otherwise you'd already be there. You, of course, you don't qualify. You're gonna get qualified on the path. You don't qualify, and then walk, you're qualified on the walk. You know, they were really big on that. So that, like, coming back to that, like, what got me on that personal growth thing when I was going through the divorce, that's when I started realizing that my fuel source was wrong. I was super motivated by pain. I only know to show up by aggression. I only know how to show up by acting like the environment was a challenger, yeah, and so because it was a challenger, is

Steve Larsen: 00:33:36

like, well, let's go. How, how bad can I be baby? Like, let's go. You know fire with fire. And it was in the middle of the divorce when I started realizing that I had accidentally. It's totally an accident, but I totally was doing it 100% my fault, which was that pain was my only fuel source. I built my relationships out of pain. I showed up out of pain. Built the business by pain. I built and I didn't know I was doing that, and it was anger and pain and fear are very energetically cost costly. They cost more energetically than peace and hope and joy and love. And so the literal longevity of what I was on was impossible. And that's when I started realizing that I had kind of an addiction to pain bodies, and is the only way I could show up. And that's when I started getting into psychedelic therapy. And I literally went with the intention. With the intention of realizing that I was addicted to pain as a fuel source, and I didn't know my purpose was,

Jase Souder: 00:34:27

But you knew that you were you knew the addiction

Steve Larsen: 00:34:30

Right before going in, starting to do that stuff. Yeah, I was working with a therapist who pointed it out.

Unknown: 00:34:35

I think so many people get into personal growth, because, like me, they reach a point where the negative subconscious stuff really starts to make life break down, and like, I have to do something that's always happened. Lucky we get into personal growth. It'd be really nice if we can get people into it before that. But I think part of the challenges and the reason, like teenagers and stuff, it's the rare one. Well, listen, is they think they're okay or or that, you know, fish doesn't know what's in water. The pain they're in is so the way life is, they don't know there's a different life outside of that, and they haven't enough pattern of experience to see that like it's one of the things I think about a lot, is, how do we kick people into this before they have that breakdown? Or is that breakdown just necessary? And it's part of the journey, thanks, part of the self discovery of life. Yeah, talk about self discovery. I want to take a left turn in this conversation. Yeah, you were sharing with me earlier. You had a vision for where you guys are going, yeah. And I know you can't share all of it, because you got some secrets, but how much? What can you share with us? What can you tell us? Yeah, yeah. And I do want to ask you some questions about coaches after that, sure.

Steve Larsen: 00:35:40

Yeah. I was thinking, you know, when I went to those first 34 failures, I was so excited when the 35th finally worked that it made millions. And I was like, Well, how does Cray worked? You know, I was like, I figured out how to make and sell a product. And I kind of, I kind of, got addicted to building products, and I went completely the other way. I had 55 products live at the same time, which is terrible, like, unless you're Walmart and you're trying to have, like, you start getting this. What do you have that many products live people, certainly. What do you what do you do? Well, you have no market message anymore. It dilutes you, and people don't know what to show up for you to help them with. So then I started doing the opposite, and I was like, what's the top two or three? In route of deleting like crazy. That's when the next piece of self discovery came up, which is, like, what I want to be known for in the next 10 years? Let's fast forward. In 10 years. I've never been only you know, back then, I was like, I couldn't answer that question, what do I be known for? You know, what is it that? Where am I going to plant the flag? Yeah, and with Clickfunnels. I mean, I was there at the hockey stick, you know, I was like, how I want that? What am I going to go, grow and scale to a billion dollars, you know, just like that. Like, what am I going to go? And that's when I started asking God, right? Which I think is good, everyone should make God your business partner, very which really influences how you live your life, because God's the richest. God sees I'm not doing my part and be like, You're being a bad business partner. Of course, I'm not gonna send more resources. You know it's like and that really dictates my my day to day. But I also learned something about prayer that was really important, which is that I believe half of our reasoning for being on this earth is to learn how to make decisions, right? So if I'm constantly only asking God

Steve Larsen: 00:37:36

what to do, I'm not actually practicing having agency. At some point, I need to come up with a plan on my own and then bring it to God and say, here's my plan, and I did the work. What do you think about it? It was only at that period where I started asking, what would I do? Because I kept just saying, What should I do? But that's literally outsourcing my agency. So instead of, like, what, what would I do? And then, as I made the plan and then presented it, that's when things started moving like crazy again, until that moment, from like, 2020 the beginning of 2020, to 2023, I'll say, like, professionally, I definitely felt lost. I was like, I did not have an anchor, or I didn't know where I was going. I was doing stuff, yeah, a lot of value, but I just didn't know the end game was or anything. And part of it was because I couldn't, I don't think I was able to be I wasn't ready for it. I couldn't handle what we're going after now, anyway, personally. So anyway, yeah, I was, I love psychedelic therapy, because I failed to save my life. Changed my life, reassess the relationship with God in it. I got to understand spirituality outside the context of religion, which it really was a good training wheels for Ayahuasca specifically, was amazing for that.

Unknown: 00:38:49

That's awesome. You mentioned, by the way, that story about Jesus, and is that like, lbs,

Steve Larsen: 00:38:54

I think it was out in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Okay. Yeah, cool. All right. So psychedelic therapy, should I go onto it? Yeah, I don't do it that frequently, but I do want to feel like I need guidance and help and to really ponder for a long time. It's like a shortcut into the subconscious, you know. So I went, and I won't share all of it, but I, I wouldn't. I it's always was a facilitator and a coach. I do with I'm very intentional with it, not just partying with it or whatever, you know. So I went and I took it, and I'm with this coach, and this gentleman was facilitating it, and as soon as I dropped into it, I always went to work on my own crap, like, where am I messed up? And instead, I was taught for eight hours on finally, where I can now get to, like, now, now you're in a spot where you can still have to grow your face off, but man, now, now you can actually go to this here, here's what it is. And it was like, AI. I was like, what? I was like, blown away. I was like, No, this huge disbelief. Pushing back on it. Like, no, not. Ai. Like, say, I shut up. Guy. That's like, No. And in 2020 I was coming off a stage speaking at some shoot. I can't remember what event it was. I called my dad, and he speared the AI division at Gartner now, which is like a huge review companies, the review company of the biggest tech companies. And he's been running the AI division there for a while now. And I was like, Dad, these huge companies make marketing decisions differently than we do. They're analyzing billions of lines of data, customer data, with data scientists, and they go with this degree of probability we should be selling this product. They're not talking to subconscious like you and I, you know. They're not coming up with story that breaks false beliefs and building offers. They're not direct response marketers. They don't know this stuff. Yeah. And I said, How cool would be if we could take the power of tower data and shove it into the

Steve Larsen: 00:40:49

hand of the small company level the playing field, and he's like, I'll be back. So we ended up creating, if it wasn't the first, it was like top one, two or three. It was the first predictive AI on the planet for small companies that could take sales data of past customers. Like imagine if we could take all anyone you've ever sold, we feed it into a predictive AI, and it will, with a certain degree of confidence tell you the next few moves you need to make to make revenue the fastest today. It will tell you that. And so we started doing that in 2020 and we would take people's funnel data, and it was so specific, it was like, increase your ad spend by 14% on Tuesdays, but drop it 13% on Wednesdays, and then seven days before full moon, throttle the ad spend. And whenever there's a market report, the quarterly stock market report, we want you to three extra ad spend. But it was that specific, really. And we worked so well, it started killing companies because it sold too much, and there were so many data issues. No one has clean data, you know, unless, like, a billion dollar company and they have, like, a full time person on it, it was so intense, we shut it down, called it, click, AI, and then it was four months ago in that journey, it was like, it's time to dust it off, really. So that's last weekend we were over there and we redesigned it, and pretty freaking cool. Yeah, that's gonna be cool. Yeah, it was just too early back then chat GPT wasn't out, no, even with generative AI was back then we're talking predictive, which is like, nobody knew what AI was back then. Yeah, I remember that was I Robot, you know, or Terminator, you know, some people still think it is. It's like, not the Boogeyman.

Unknown: 00:42:30

So you're gonna, you're gonna help small, medium, any size.

Steve Larsen: 00:42:33

Business, we use AI analytics to see patterns in their company. The Naked Eye is impossible to see, so they can grow faster.

Unknown: 00:42:42

That's awesome. Yeah, that is a goal. All right, let me do some rapid fire for him, for you today, yeah. All right. Well, talk about coaches. I think we have a lot of coaches, right? That's, that's our main niche. There's brand new. There's probably making 100, 200,000 full time. Look at the scale. There's where we are, like, one to one to 1.5 mil, yeah. And want to get the five to 10, yeah? And then there's the ones who are already, you know, five, 10 million for each four. What did they need to do to get to the next to jump up? Yeah?

Steve Larsen: 00:43:17

Oh, I just recalled the rule of one and 300. Never heard that. Yeah. So the rule of one and three is a way of assessing business structure, stereotypically. And if I was just reading a book couple days ago about this guy's talking about the rule one and three without knowing basically the business structure, you take the same offer and you put into a business structure to go launch it, you're probably going to get to 10 to $30,000 range with that current business structure. But to get to 100,000 right? It says three and 10 and three and 10 and three and 10 to get to the next business, the next revenue, it's actually a full rework of the workflows of the company itself. You have to completely rip out the business structure and elevate it. Then you had 100,000 and then what got you to 100,000 business structure? I'm not talking marketing. That's maybe part of it. But to get to 300 grand a month, you have to have a new business structure, completely wipe it and completely reanalyze it. So what I see that stops people that are stuck in different wrongs, like when I was at like, 300 grand a month, I knew what it would take for us to go to a million a month. I was like, I got to rip out the business structure and rebuild it. And I that's I just like, I don't want to do. I don't want to. I know what it takes to do. I don't want to. I don't do it. My heart is not at the in this offer, at that level, and yeah, so if you take the same offer, and I see like a new coach, they'll go out and they're earning power solo with obvious business structure is usually 30 grand a month, right? Then they start learning a little bit of better marketing and leads. And then. Or 100 grand a month, you know. But when you start getting, like, a 300 and even a million dollar range, you really have to elevate from the mindset of an entrepreneur into a business owner, and people think they're the same thing, wildly different, completely. Entrepreneur is a person who makes the

Steve Larsen: 00:45:16

offer and figures out the market match and figure out people want it and the fulfillment. But a business owner doesn't work in the business at all, and they own systems there they own if there's no documented lead system, it means that the business owner is the system. If there's no documented sales system, it means that someone else is the system. So you never get to pass the hit by a bus test, and when you can't, if something's documented, scale is impossible, that's that's answer is, usually it's a reassessing of four functions, which is lead sales, delivery and then resell slash upsell. And when I'll go in with companies and help them start preparing for scale, they're always we have to, like, redo these things. Like, yeah, you do, and that's actually why you're capped by the systems, not the quality of the offer.

Unknown: 00:46:05

So for any of those four, that's what it is.

Steve Larsen: 00:46:10

Nine times out of 10, sometimes the offer needs a little bit of an upgrade to go wide. But I've seen people think it's the funnel in the offer, but they usually just don't have side story real quick. Yeah, one of my favorite coaches that kind of helped me get out of that three year cycles Tailspin I was in. He helped. He coaches a lot of the a list actors that we all could name, yeah, I know who they are. I'm not legally allowed to say it. They're big names. Watch any blockbuster movie. He's their coach. He flew out one day. He's actually sitting right here one of my events. I didn't know who he was. He didn't know I was I have no idea we got in the room. He walked up to me after I got off stage, and he goes, I know what you're struggling with, which is a weird way to start a conversation with a stranger. So I was like, Oh, great. You know, just kind of shut the door like, sounds good. Over the next six months, he coached me, flew out one on one, and he goes, I was trained by Bruce Lee's top student. And I was like, okay, flew out one day, and he stood face to face with me. He's big dude and tall strong, and he goes, I'm gonna fall forward, and I need you shoulder to shoulder, completely squaring off. Fall forward. Don't move your body. Just try to keep me from toppling you over. What like obvious he's going to and he did. He fell forward. His momentum knocked me over. He goes, now I'm going to teach you how to handle any stress in your life. And he goes, Do you know? How do you he goes, I was once learning how to punch with monks. And I was like, already an interesting way to start a story. Sounds good? And he goes, I was asking the monk how to punch. And the monk turns to me and goes, what is the shape of a punch? And he goes, I don't know. And he goes, that cannot teach you to punch. So he's like, I had to go out and I had to learn the geometry of punching. It turns out it's a triangle. And you punch right there's a triangle right

Steve Larsen: 00:48:03

there, and there's a triangle right here. And the way you step your legs out is a triangle. And then legs out a little bit, it's triangle. You look under a bridge, it's triangles that hold up the geographic. You know, it's argued to be the strongest shape. It's a triangle. It's why they're in all of our construction. And he goes, so now he's standing face to face, and he goes, we're going to create a lot of triangles with your body. You your body. And he had me stand kind of like this, triangles, triangles. And I like 20 triangles that he created with my body. And he goes, now I'm gonna fall forward, even with some speed here, and don't push, just hold the shape. And it was the spookiest feeling on the planet, man, this dude is huge, and his, like, my fingertips were at his sternum, and I was just like, breathing normal. There wasn't, there was no exertion, there was nothing. And he just, he had his arms out and just smiling in my face, yeah. And I was like, What the heck, man. He goes. This is why you're tired. You have any structure. There's no structure in the business, you are the structure. There's no structure in your personal life, you are the structure. Everything's different, and because it's all different, you're muscling. You want to see the proof, move your left elbow out three inches. So I move my left elbow. It's enough to break the structural integrity of the shape, and everything breaks. And I fell. And he then he just looks at me, and he's like, get it. He goes, Stop avoiding structure. Structure is how you build structure. He's like, so and they don't need to be big. I'm not talking routine. He's like, I know you're afraid of the word routine, but you need structure in your life that is consistent. Because business world changes enough, you have to have the consistency, the foundation of your life to build things on. That's true for business, true for personal, true for relationship. And it was what really got me to start sitting back

Steve Larsen: 00:49:47

and go, What is my personal structure? What is my business structure? Because I don't show up in the day at that time the business doesn't run. That means I don't have a business. I am the business. I am the structure. And it changed everything

Unknown: 00:49:58

I've heard you tell that story. Before, and it didn't click till now. Could be because I'm at a place that sure you're speaking to where I am.

Steve Larsen: 00:50:05

So business owners are structure builders. They think that they're offer creators, they're not. And that mentality ascension is what keeps coaches back. We could totally see that, yeah

Jase Souder: 00:50:18

I can see there's a part of me that like, likes freedom.

Steve Larsen: 00:50:20

I know you push against the writing, yeah.

Jase Souder: 00:50:23

And then too, when I say that, though I think about people like, Oh, I just want to speak from the heart. And I'm like, follow the template I created the structure, yeah, when you learn it and you memorize it, then you can be free that there's a triangle when you speak to an audience. I mean, it's the triangle is your audit your audience, you and your material. And when you don't know me your material, you're so focused on material that you leave the audience out. But when you really get your material, that's good. You own it. So thank you. You own it. So deep, you can be more connected to your audience. And so when you're winging, it doesn't work. Know it, get it, and then you can have more interplay and freedom, and you can go off script a little bit, but you know where you're going, and you get to go back.

Steve Larsen: 00:51:06

Yeah, I love that.

Jase Souder: 00:51:07

Thanks. All right, so question for you, then, so rapid fire, some other questions. Yeah, any other hardcore tips? Just like for the for the coach, it's out there. It's like, I need sales, or I want to uplevel one, or whatever. We've talked about some great stuff already, but anything else on speaking sales mindset, marketing or business success, anything else that just comes to your heart?

Steve Larsen: 00:51:26

Yeah, I would say that all these funnels are really cool, but don't get distracted by the tech. You still are the first funnel personally. And that's a blessing, because if I go build a sales funnel and I'm not actually selling in my business. I'm guessing on the copy, I'm guessing on the offer, I'm guessing on the hook and the angle. And so I would actually tell people to not go build a funnel for a little while, and instead just get good at how do you get leads manually? Because when you start to go to the funnel world, it's just the automation of those things.

Unknown: 00:52:02

Love it when you're talking about the four phases of business too. I was thinking it's that first phase when they really are going to have the most, the first and second in their messaging and their offer. And then it's really taking it and just putting different structures to it, the work, the kind of the heavy. And that's why learning to sell and market is so critical as a first stage. Then being an entrepreneur,

Steve Larsen: 00:52:21

I saw him the hardest one.

Unknown: 00:52:23

How does your I think you've answered this already, and I'll answer together. How has your faith carried you through your hard times? How does it guide you and how does it give you a strategic advantage?

Steve Larsen: 00:52:32

I had this blessing from a spiritual leader early in my life of like 14, and he's like you may not know it, but you have the gift of faith that knowing that God is real, and he's like, please recognize that as a gift. And it's true, I just there's no doubt in my mind that when I die, there's gonna be a god, and my job is to not make that meaning with him. When I died, my first meeting with him. You know what I'm saying? Like, this life is a dress rehearsal for that meaning post death. And so I personally believe that the purpose of life really three things. It's to know what it's like to have a body, have a family and just grow. That's it. And growth is messy, which is what required a savior and the relationship with God, dude. I failed out of every single one of my classes, my first semester of school, of college, really, yeah, did not know I got mercy. Graduated from high school all these like 60.01 in all, English, science, math, all the STEM skills, all of them would never guess that. Yeah, all four years of high school, it was the same thing in elementary school, smart just as he applied himself more. And I'm like, when you talk like I didn't get it. I didn't. I didn't.

Jase Souder: 00:53:57

How did your dad

Steve Larsen: 00:53:58

I hid my report card, huh? I hid my report card. I got really good at new ways to hide it every so I did it. And with five younger siblings, it was easy to have all the distractions, but I wasn't dumb. It's not a study, and I did not take tests. I just didn't fit that, you know? So when I failed out of my first semester of college, like straight F's, I had it so bad I had to wait four years before they would reset my GPA. So it was in that time I did all these other things, lot of jobs, learned how to learn, went on a mission, like did all these things, and it was there was a spiritual leader that really opened my mind. He, he goes, God's the smartest of all, right, hopefully, yeah. So he knows trigonometry, interesting. He knows lead gen. He actually knows how to do your algebra, math like. Don't know why I always think of like this misty, floaty thing, you know what I mean. So this weirdest might sound, but this is I was talking to my daughters about this. I just started praying before I did my homework and asking for the Holy Ghost to be my tutor. You know I was like, I need to understand how to do this math and understand how to do this economic stuff, or whatever it was, and I just made it a habit to to ask for help, and I didn't realize I wasn't, and which is why I wasn't there. And the scriptures that say that I can't, there's certain things that God cannot give us until we ask for it, so that it teaches us to ask, and he wants to give, but can't until we ask. I was like, Huh? I don't do this every day, but I often will pray before I start the work day, you know? And it's better, better business builder I am. You know what I mean? And I think it's the admitting that you're flawed and human and you're gonna die, and you don't know we. None of us know what we're doing. I don't think anyone really knows what's going on. So. But if you can anchor to whatever the higher power is and just at least understand and get a relationship with it,

Steve Larsen: 00:56:10

it's funny enough. It's not just for Sundays.

Unknown: 00:56:14

No, all right. Last two questions. First one a little bit heavier. Second one, a lot more fun. How has Charlie Kirk's assassination changed you?

Steve Larsen: 00:56:22

Yeah, I was devastated, just completely gutted, like he's one that I really looked up to. I'll write the names of key people I want to model, and his name like that was up there because of the ability to respectfully disagree. That's a lost skill or a rare one, anyway, and I always saw that if people really misunderstand capitalism. So I always saw it. I was challenged by one of my business coaches a couple of years ago. He's like, You need to be doing what he's doing. Should go on the street and talk about capitalism's people, you know, and educate what it actually is. People think it's just greed, not at all. And so, yeah, when he when he died, when he was killed, I I've had to fight feelings of that being my future also, because I won't shut up, and I'm not gonna, and I've had to, like, reown. Reown it.

Unknown: 00:57:19

That's interesting. You said that. So when I started doing my personal growth seminars, teaching my own back in 2004 20 some years ago, I had that conversation with myself, am I willing to get killed for this? Yeah, because all the people who've created peace or great movements, not all that's I'll reframe that many and you know the biggest names, yeah, especially starting with Jesus, you were killed. And so I had that conversation with myself, and there's a line in the Bible, I'm going to butcher the butcher. It's basically like, He who is willing to lay down his life gets life, and he who tries to hold on to life never has life, uses it. And so now I have a son who's 15 months old, and I really don't want him to grow up without a dad. And I have a wife, but Betsy and I had that conversation, and we made that agreement. Are Are we okay with it if I get killed?

Unknown: 00:58:10

Interesting? Yeah, I

Unknown: 00:58:12

think if you're going to really step into being a world changer, ideally, that never happens, sure. And yeah, we made that agreement. But that also means, I think we're to start the way the world's going. No, they have security at church. I think we're start having security at our events. Sure, be smart. I won't say whether or not I, every day, carry a weapon, and I think there's that there's also no way to be the weapon yourself. Yeah, it's interesting. You said that, because that's, that's a conversation we've had to have.

Steve Larsen: 00:58:39

Yeah, I believe, I believe in this. I, you know, I literally think that capitalism is the empowerment to all this is problem solving for profit. I was on capital addition to capitalism, yeah, capitalism is problem solving for profit. That's it. And one of the things I've been teaching in our daughters, I love driving in the school, because it's indoctrinating, you know, doctrine. A little bit. I was trying to tell them, I was like, you know, if I was gonna, like, drive this car like an idiot, what would drive this car like an idiot, what would happen? They'd like, you're gonna crash. Like, yeah, as power, anything that has power, that's true. Capitalism has power. I can use it like an idiot and do a lot of negative things. And many think that that's what it is. I can use capitalism for good and serve my family, serve my community, and also find ways and seek ways to give back, and not just wait to be invited to give back like there's nothing wrong with capitalism itself. It's not a perfect system, but it's the best economic engine we've got. It's a power and it's up to the individual, just like a gun. It's got power, right? It's still the individual choosing to shoot, yeah. It has no conscience of its own. So capitalism has power, and the it's in its purest form. Capitalism is trade. So it's always funny when people like, we should go back to the trade system like this, those freaking capitalism trade. It's like the only difference now. Was that we have this thing called money, which is so grateful, because if you have with no money, and you need tires, but I need a, you know, food, but I don't know how to fix tires, but you have food, we can't trade. So all money does is an intermediary for trade. That's all it is. And people, it's an accelerant, let the economy move. So now you can pay and you can get the food for someone who has food, you know. So it's like it's like, it's all that's all it is, is the ability those people who

Steve Larsen: 01:00:27

learn to be creative have nothing to fear in the new AI world, either creativity and personal confidence to take action, nothing to fear. Left brain activities will continue to be automated. Therefore the future belongs to the right brain, right? And it's like, Are you saying that? You got to start saying that it's from a book I was required to read in school called this Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink. But that's his whole argument, right? Anything that is left brain, we have a historical human pattern of automating or cheapening it. Yeah, right? Code. Yeah. Anyone can code now. That used to be really high end skill. It's not anymore, but it's the future belongs to the creative so. And what makes people uncomfortable at Creative creativity, is it true? Art is a expression of self, so it's vulnerable, and that's what starts to shine the light on your insecurities. Love it, and that's where the parallel journey starts, where it's like, I'm gonna climb, I'm gonna go to the promised land, but on this internal parallel journey I'm on, I'm thinking, Oh crap. And you get all this like, mirror probably like, did you know you suck at talking to people? Do you know you don't have any personal structure? That's all it is. Business is just this mirror that just shows you

Unknown: 01:01:35

What you'll see. I can you don't get a mirror, though, until you commit to where you're going. No, not until then that it shows up,

Steve Larsen: 01:01:43

And it's not at all disqualifying you from the journey. It's actually what makes you qualified for the next step. You get so excited

Unknown: 01:01:49

I spilled my water. Okay. Last question, yeah. Last question. Talk about powerful you just married an amazing, powerful woman, and like the two of you, talk about a power couple. So how has, by the way, guns. We gotta go shoot guns again.

Steve Larsen: 01:02:03

We'll do it. I was just so loud. Shoot gun. Thanks for throwing my bachelor party. Man. It was so fun.

Unknown: 01:02:07

My pleasure was fun, dude. That TV that we shot up. I bought that TV back in 2004 when I launched my seminar. Company started making money. It was my first nice TV. I got this amazing front and I played so much halo on that

Steve Larsen: 01:02:19

That was my game back in the day too.

Unknown: 01:02:21

It was like that also was an addiction for me, and part of the reason I had a crash, yeah, no, I don't know if it's part of the reason I had the crash. It's where I went because I was crashing. I went through that. But anyway, blasting that thing was very symbolic step of freedom. So Wiley, how has getting married again, or for the first time ever, like, and I don't know if it's, if it's the first time. I mean, I know you technically been married before. You know what I'm saying, Yeah, I don't know if you created intentionally a marriage then, or whatever. How is how has this? Steve been changed because of this marriage.

Steve Larsen: 01:02:53

On our honeymoon, we I literally said one of the things, one of one of my intentions for this week of just being together is for us to discuss what the tenants of our marriage will be, what is our marriage structure and relationship structure and and we went and we created very simple. Here's what a week looks like. Here's what a two weeks look like. Here's what I fear, not feeling free. I think it's just a male trait. So we needed to do in a way where I didn't feel any kind of constraint, but there was enough consistency that would let us do the new things in business. You know, we constantly have the need of Tony Robbins talks about it, right? It's like you need variety, but you also need security. So there's two forces are always fighting each other. If you get your needs met in the business, you actually have a failing structure. You have to the business does not exist, to meet the individual entrepreneurs needs. The needs must be met out externally. Shows up how you sell, shows how you hire, shows how you train. Every day if you're not getting your actual needs met outside of the business. So like we need to set up the needs and create that. And it's been really fun man to like to have because we know where we're this is where we're going to be building a relationship. This is we're going to be building a relationship with the kids. This is where we're going to keep relationship building with God this and we just made the decision to keep God in the relationship. We're not perfect at it, but we're trying. And they were like, by having that foundation, it's allowed us to be more aggressive than business. Yeah? So cool, yeah, it's cool. Ah, it's an honor. No, you too, dude,

Jase Souder: 01:04:35

Talk about structure, something Betsy, and I did. We had a big street TV in our family room, and I got this vision on a journey once to turn that into, we call it the theater for Alexa. And so contextually, that's a theater. It's where you go to watch TV, watch movies. And it was no to turn into a playroom, into a connection room with couches and soft stuff to sit on, where people come together, and then you face in, as opposed to facing. A TV. And so we let yesterday, we got home from a trip to Dallas, and we, last night, pulled it and we put it on the porch. And one of our things is we want to be outside more. And so tonight we're gonna go grill wings outside, some football outside in the breezeway. And so there's a structure. Now we've got the TV out of that other room, so that room is going to become a faced in connection, room for us

Steve Larsen: 01:05:21

Fascinating. Yeah, that's cool.

Jase Souder: 01:05:23

Yeah. So how could people read you or follow up, or anything you want to give out for content

Steve Larsen: 01:05:27

Yeah, yeah, what we do is we help people with software scale them. Is really where we've been going. And I never had more clarity in 11 years of doing this, really, yeah, ever. It's just been so fun, endless energy. It's been cool. We have, yeah, and the two places to follow, honestly to Steve larsen.com, but if you're in software or want to grow subscriptions, we have a it's a free program called launchersassoft.com launchersassoft.com but it's the scale math and SaaS math playbook that grows subscription products.

Unknown: 01:06:04

Cool, yeah, awesome. And thanks for letting us film in your beautiful studio, of course. Man, we'd be having an event here the end of next month, dude,

Steve Larsen: 01:06:11

You guys got to go. It's gonna be great.

Jase Souder: 01:06:13

They just so awesome to have you here. Thanks, man, thanks.