Episode 60: How to Build a Business – with US Marine Corps Veteran Daryl Hill

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

What's going on guys? And welcome to episode number 60 of the Warrior Soul podcast. This is Chris Albert, and today we're gonna be having a conversation about entrepreneurship with veteran entrepreneur Daryl Hill. Daryl is a United States Naval Academy graduate. He is a retired Marine Corps officer.

And after his service, he decided that he was gonna go out and become an entrepreneur. But a lot of you might think that, you know, this guy graduated from the Naval Academy, played Navy football, he had all his ducks in a row. But Daryl actually has a story of a lot of failure, where he fell flat on his face, He ended up living out of his car just like I did. And there's a story there of resilience, of the ability to keep going despite the fact that he fell flat on his face. And there's a lot to learn in this podcast, Not just about the techniques of ecommerce, or whether or not, you know, your website looks good or anything like that, but about the idea of keeping going no matter what.

And that's the true thing that I think separates successful entrepreneurs from those who wish they were entrepreneurs. And I know there's a lot of you out there in the veteran community, and outside the veteran community, who are interested in opening up your businesses. And you're gonna get a lot out of that show. Out of this show. Man, I'm all over the place.

Either way, let's get into this conversation with my buddy, my friend, Daryl Hill, in episode number 60 of the Warrior Soul Podcast.

Chris Albert 00:01:46 (link to this point)

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. Now that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

We need to be reminded of this as much as possible for one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul Podcast.

Chris Albert 00:02:23 (link to this point)

What's going on everybody? This is Chris Albert with the Warrior Soul Podcast. I am here today with my friend, my brother, Daryl Hill. And we're gonna get into who Daryl Hill is in a second, but I just wanna do a quick announcement about our sponsors, F bomb nutrition. F bomb, they create these amazing portable packets of fat.

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And now it's time to talk to my friend, Daryl Hill. Daryl is a graduate of The United States Naval Academy. He is a marine officer and he helps people to start online businesses. And he's an expert in the online business space. Daryl, how are you doing today, man?

Daryl Hill 00:03:53 (link to this point)

I'm really hungry after you talked about all that fat bombs.

Chris Albert 00:03:57 (link to this point)

Dude, seriously awesome. They're seriously

Daryl Hill 00:04:00 (link to this point)

I'm gonna order some.

Chris Albert 00:04:01 (link to this point)

Dude, definitely get some. Use that code. You'll get a 20% discount.

Daryl Hill 00:04:05 (link to this point)

I'll definitely do that.

Chris Albert 00:04:07 (link to this point)

Daryl, so you've been in the online space for a while. We were talking just before we hit record here that about what you're doing right now in the e commerce space. Before we get into that, I just want to get a little bit of your background for the audience. I've been on your show before and talk to you, but tell us about where you come from. How did you end up going to the Naval Academy and what was life like for you back then that made you want to get into the online business space?

Daryl Hill 00:04:40 (link to this point)

First, I just want to say thanks Chris for having me on today. If it wouldn't have been for Chris, I wouldn't be on a ketogenic diet myself. So I want to thanks him to the pythons that are coming out here. Chris is like a stud guys. If you guys ever seen him with a shirt off, he's pretty scary looking.

No, no, man. For me, I honestly owed a lot to my mom. My mom back in the day really pushed me hard kind of growing up and about even looking into like the Naval Academy and stuff like that. I mean, like I was kind of in high school at the time. Was the real small, I was a cross between a wrestler and a football player, which means that I was constantly gaining weight and losing weight, trying to gain it back.

I was playing with a This is down in South Florida I grew up in. Can you imagine going and playing against guys who were going to NFL, like on a regular basis? I mean, like we had a guy on my team that went on to the NFL. We had several guys. I mean, was talking with a friend of mine the other day and there was three out of the four defensive linemen, maybe one of them that got a chance to get a scholarship to even get into college to play football.

So we had like 40 kids, 40 plus kids, over a 100 in my area get division one scholarships to go play football. So I mean, like when you say like a powerhouse, I mean, like there's some states out there that don't even have that many kids go division one football. So for me, was a little bit of right timing, right place. I was at the right place and the right timing side of things with meeting with the coach from the Naval Academy. He was interested in me.

I had some other schools kind of look at me. They were smart on the academic side of things. That was the one at the end of the day that I really was always drawn to. I grew up playing, we caught it me and my buddy from across the street playing army in the woods. We would go out and paint our faces to Vietnam era.

Oh yeah. It's tough. It's like you had to light on fire to get on your face and we had the old deuce gear from back in the day, the Vietnam era stuff and we had all that stuff. We used to spray paint our rifles and carry them around the woods chasing people and stuff. So I always loved it and I was always that guy that could always hide for hours and hours and hours and then nobody could find me.

I'd be like, the front yard. So then I'd hear them, they're like, We're still looking, but you can't find them. And then eventually would pop up and like, All right, you're all dead. I shot you 15 times already.

Chris Albert 00:07:09 (link to this point)

Was kind of my childhood. All that stuff?

Daryl Hill 00:07:12 (link to this point)

So that was kind of my childhood and it was already doing marine training. Already had my first e tool when I was probably eight years old and digging trenches out there. Literally legitimate trenches you can actually get in. And it was during that time, honestly, as a kid that I didn't realize it was really preparing me for a lot of life. There were some entrepreneurship lessons that I learned.

One of which I was at a toy store with my mom. And she looks at me because I asked for this toy, it was like a $100. And at the time, that's a lot of money. It's like a thousand dollars to a kid today. And I look up and mom looks at me and she says, You're not getting it.

It's not your birthday. It's not a holiday. I'm not buying this or whatever. So I'm like, Okay, well, how do I get it? And that was a key question.

So if you're an entrepreneur right now and you're thinking yourself, you're constantly looking at ways on how you can't do it. Just ask yourself this one question of how can you do whatever it is? If you could just put that down on paper right now, how do I get X, Y, Z, whatever it is? And I asked my mom that question. She said, ask your father.

So my dad's an entrepreneur turns out, didn't know any better, went home and asked him. He said, Yeah, well, let's see how much money you got to start with. And I got some weeds to pull this weekend. If you want to earn some money, you can pull some weeds. I'm like, okay, I don't even know how much you're going to pay me and stuff like that.

I'm just excited. And he's like, it'll be a penny a week. I'm like, all right, cool. And so he turned around and he started giving me a penny a week and ended up getting two twelve weeds. So I got $2.12 and I added that to like $7 and change I actually had at that point.

I was on my way. I was on my entrepreneur dream. I had a goal, which is number two thing. I said, you have to set with an end in mind about where you're going to end up, which is having that goal or whatever it is. So, at the end of the day, as I kind of look back on it, I realized it was that lesson that eventually I was able to earn enough money to basically get that toy.

It was that same lesson that got me into the Naval Academy. It was that same lesson that helped me become an all star in sports. Both in like three different sports, I was an all star in track and football and wrestling. It was that same thing when I was going to the Naval Academy when I was a freshman and other kids, upperclassmen were like, dude, you'll never graduate. That I was hell bent to determine that I was gonna graduate.

Because it was every hour at that place is like a battle. Like literally, going from one class to the next class to that class. I mean, I back on it now and like, you look at the going up to like calculus three, and engineering mathematics, and we're even working with numbers anymore. It's just like letters and symbols and stuff. And it's pretty crazy to think about that.

And I look back on it now and it's just like, it's still a battle. It'd still be a battle to go back and do it all over again. And now the kids and the class are even more advanced than we're back then. So, I mean, the kids are going.

Chris Albert 00:10:05 (link to this point)

I got a friend who's a marine officer over at Twenty Nine Palms right now. He graduated from the Naval Academy about a year and a half ago and hear about the schedule there. It seems like absolutely brutal between the academics and and and everything else you got going on there. But, you know, it it also kinda carries that mystique with it, you know, where where graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis. So And it seems like it's an amazing life for a young man or young woman to go through, and it seems like it's a really, really awesome experience.

When you were there, because I've heard different stories about marines coming out of the Naval Academy, What what made you decide to go with the Marine Corps over over, you know, surface warfare or trying out for special, you know, Navy SEALs or anything like that? What made you decide to go with the Marine Corps?

Daryl Hill 00:11:01 (link to this point)

That's a really great question. So at the Naval Academy, you actually put in for what you want, whether it's Marines, whether it's the surface warfare community, whether it's a submarine, whether it's going Navy SEALs. They do have a small, like maybe five billets are available for doctors every year. So basically what came down to for me was the Marines, every time I got in trouble while was at school, which was a good amount, the Marines always had my back. It was a funny thing and I hated being cold in the water.

I always did. And I was like, I thought about thinking about the SEALs and stuff like that. And one of my buddies I was just hanging out with last week and he's a SEAL and he's like, Man, you would have loved to be in a SEAL and stuff. Was like, Yeah, you guys are always cold wet. I can stand being cold wet on the ground, but you guys go out in the ocean and do that stuff.

I was like, I don't feel like dealing with that. So I love the ocean, but just being cold and wet in the ocean is a different story than cold wet out in the bush. So for me, it was like, Marines always had my back and it was that camaraderie that you get that you don't get anywhere else. Outside of the football locker room and outside of being, I was the middle linebacker in college. I started there three years playing football.

That's an adrenaline rush, I'm not going to lie. To be out there and have brothers you go into combat with every weekend, that you're like, you know, it's there's And I can say this because I'm a Marine, I have been to combat, I've done all this stuff. I can say that there's outside of going and being in a platoon and outside of leading a platoon into combat, there's nothing gets close to it except being like a middle linebacker out there and it's fourth and two and you're playing Notre Dame and everything's right on your back. To have that kind of pressure to make sure you're making the right calls and making sure everything actually happens accordingly. And I also My colonel at the time, who was a mentor of mine, Colonel Blose, B L O S E, he was amazing.

And when I was a senior there, he really mentored me a lot. And that was a big turning point for me where I was like, man, I looked up to him and he was always there, always helping me out, always kind of giving me that stutter correction. Also that firm hand when I needed it, you know? And having a guy like that and give me that course cutter direction was big. I had Michael Davis, he was a captain at the time, big big old Marine.

Mean, was a big old strong Marine. Mean, guys, he could shake your hand, your hand disappeared. Used to play offensive tackle at Navy, was back there. And he was a big mentor of mine and listened to him. Was actually Captain Renforth at the time, Major Renforth, now General Renforth was there, having him around to give me guidance and I needed it was huge.

And I gravitated towards that camaraderie, I gravitated towards the honor courage commitment side of things and I gravitated towards the Marine ethos and everything it stands for. And it pisses me off to no ends when people don't respect that. But I also have to appreciate that other people don't understand where we've been and how we've actually become Marines. And that's one of those things that's out there of like, I have to respect that they might not have the work ethic that we do, or they might not have the tenacity that we do, or they might not have the integrity that we do. And that's one of those things where it's like, they didn't grow up around it.

Maybe it wasn't in their household or maybe they didn't get a chance to go to a service academy. Luckily they didn't. Maybe didn't get a chance to join the Marines. They just maybe medically they weren't even able. So I have to also monitor myself.

Talking to you like another Marine, can kind of talk like this, but I also have to monitor myself when other people don't follow through on things and they don't do things in business. This is business guys. When you hire somebody to do something and all of a sudden they just drop the ball. And I'm not talking about just like, hey, it's a little kid, 15 year old kid you're hiring. I'm talking about a grown ass adult who's 45, 50 years old and you hire them to do a job and turn around, don't follow through on what they actually say.

So that's one of those things where if I could just give one piece of advice on that and learn this from my sergeant, it's always inspect what you expect. And that's one of those things where you're working with somebody, it doesn't matter whatever it is. You don't have to inspect it all the time, but you got to make sure you spot check and you got to make sure you inspect on what's going on and have those confirmations on hard deadlines and when things actually aren't. And guess what guys, I remember I was hiring this guy to do a contracting job and this was years ago. And the guy shows up and he's forty five minutes late.

He comes in with some song and dance story and this and that or whatever. And I'm like, yeah, okay. I hear your story and stuff like that. Then the guy turned around and said he was going to do something else. Now he missed that deadline again.

And at that point, was like, you know what? I was like, I haven't even hired this guy and he's already been late twice on something. There's no way in hell I'm going to work with this person. And that was it. So that was one of those things that just like, you got to look yourself in the mirror, mirror check what I call it real quick. And if that's you out there listening to this right now, then you got to realize that if you're not a man of integrity, if you're not a man of your word, then that's not somebody I'm going to work with. I would say that's one of my hard ass rules that I have, where it's like, if people aren't showing up when they're supposed to, people aren't following through And I get it, life happens. I got family, I got kids, stuff happens.

But if you don't let somebody know ahead of time and you make that a consistent thing in business or in your life, then you got to check yourself and ask yourself, are you better off just go get a job? And I'll just let you know right now, just go get a job because you can do that for somebody else that's out there and make some minimum wage effort type deal. Because if you're going to go out and be an entrepreneur, you got to hold yourself to a higher standard. And that's one thing that somebody is out there. They think that, Hey, I'm just going to start a business out of my house and I'll watch the videos and everything will be great.

I was like, No, there's work that actually goes into all this stuff. There's hours and hours and hours. I know Chris, you spent hours and hours developing your course and working on your business and the stuff you've actually been able to accomplish, which is no small task. And people don't see that. And that's one of the things I grew up with in life is I was that guy that stayed extra in the practice field ever since I was seven years old.

Ever since I was a little kid, I'd always run extra wind sprints after everybody else was going home. Ever since in the locker room, always do like double workouts. I would go to my football stuff and I would stay after and I watched the film over and over and over again. And I didn't just start doing that in college. I was doing that in high school.

I was doing that when I was a little kid.

Chris Albert 00:17:53 (link to this point)

That's honestly like when you get into business, especially when you get in an online business and we'll talk about this, but if you expect anybody else to, particularly with web developers I'm finding, and not to down talk web developers, but anybody who's gonna do internet work for you, I've constantly found that they come back without having done the job, without having actually put any effort into it, or without putting the effort in that that I would have put into it. And that's a huge obstacle for somebody who's trying to do this. Very few people know or understand what it's like to be an entrepreneur. And they they they have a lot of dreams about it, but I I find that once the shit hits a fan, a lot of times people who think that they'd be amazing entrepreneurs just can't hack it because it's really one of the toughest gigs in town. It's not just waking up and sitting around in your underwear all day long in front of a computer.

You literally got to get out there, you got to hustle, you got to be your own manager, you got to be your own taskmaster. And there's so many things that go into it. Something you brought up there reminds me, was reading, this book is a book that General Mattis carried around with him the whole time he interacts. Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. Book two paragraph one says wake up every day and know that you're going to be facing the of like the shysters of the world, ignorant, angry and all these types of people.

And he says, it's not their fault, though, because they don't know. They haven't been taught truth or anything. And I'm probably screwing that up like crazy for all you philosophy majors out there, but definitely check out Marcus Aurelius' Meditations Book two paragraph one and and and stoic philosophy in general. But, Daryl, so so you get from the naval academy, you go out to the fleet. Right?

And and I know that is well, I don't know because I've never been an officer. But as an officer, in my mind, you kind of have to have an entrepreneurial streak to you and and and and be able to to be kind of a self starter, particularly when you're getting into some creative types of situations where you've got to get a mission accomplished or or or or your unit to an objective. How did that experience shape and color your your experience now as an entrepreneur?

Daryl Hill 00:20:29 (link to this point)

Well, it had a huge impact on me. And that's actually why there's so many guys who are out there, the CEOs of companies that are marines and a lot of them happen to be officers. I would say that the biggest thing about being an entrepreneur is being able to let go. You have to be able to let go of whatever it is you're working on. Because so many people, they want to be an entrepreneur where it's like, they're always micromanaging everything.

And they're doing everything themselves all the time. And if I could just give you one piece of advice, the faster you're able to let go and get out of that rat race to doing whatever that x y z thing is, the faster you're going move forward on whatever it is. So I'll give you an example of this. Let's say you're starting out and you're like, Oh, well, I'll just create my own website. Okay, great.

So you go out and create your own website. Well, there's a learning curve that goes along with that, right? There's a lot of learning. There's years and years of learning that goes into a make up really good website and a really good logo and all that stuff. And I was like, by the time you got all the way to where you'd have a decent website even for somebody to look at, You spent XYZ time that's now opportunity cost.

Now, it's kind of like in the Marine Corps. I learned how to shoot a machine gun. I love the two forty golf, my favorite weapon, but I'm not a 0331. So here it was, I'm also not technically a squad leader. Have I been a squad leader in TBS and led my fellow lieutenants and stuff like that?

Yes, I've done that. Have I been a staff sergeant and a platoon sergeant equivalent like in TBS and stuff? Yes. But I haven't done this in the operational force. Big difference.

So when you walk out and you stand in front of a bunch of a Marines, very similar, you need to be able to employ them the best way possible. So it's understanding what their capabilities are and getting them to the place where they can win. And your job as an officer is to place yourself in the most highly place that there's going to be friction. Where you know there's going be friction on the battlefield, that's where you need to be. Because you can make those decisions faster and allow those Marines to be able to react faster than anything else.

I was recently And I learned that from a friend of mine who's a retired major as well now at Aimee. Was in the LAR community for a long time. That's light armored reconnaissance vehicles. And he would always put himself out there in the We called it the fence in area where all the LAVs are and stuff like that. He'd always put himself down there because that's where the vehicles were moving.

Because Marines all the time are getting run over. So he'd always put himself down there where it's like walking around exactly where those vehicles When those vehicles are moving, that's an opportunity to get killed. So he'd always put himself in that situation. If you're in some kind of situation where you're driving in the vehicles and stuff like that, you got to be out there in front to be able to see what's going on. To be able to employ your minds the best possible.

There's no difference when out there being an entrepreneur. If I'm working with my team right now, I've amazing web designer and logo brand and person here, Nikki Pink. And she's amazing at what she does. And she did my whole website for me. If you go on darylhill.com, literally I came up with a text.

I had an amazing photographer, Bobby George, who does amazing photography and videography. He shot my videos and my content for me for the website. I also have amazing tech team behind that, David Arsano. And here's a guy who does $40,000 funnels for people online. And he's helped me with support in the background to do events and to put on a 25 speaker entrepreneur event for fifty hours of content. That's no small task to take on. Email sequences and all that kind of stuff to go in the background.

He's helped me with all that stuff. To turn around and then have another person who's kind of like my platoon sergeant, Andrea Evans Miller. She came in and helped coordinate everybody and coordinate all those different speakers. And I have an event this weekend. I got 25 people coming too.

I have put her in place where she's got their names, contact information. She can contact them directly and deal with all that stuff. That needs to get dealt with. We got about five different coaches and speakers are coming in as well. She's going to help coordinate all that stuff.

I have somebody who's going to come in and actually manage the cook. I got a chef coming in. He's going to manage I'm going out shopping with him tonight. Buy the stuff for that with him, make sure we're all good to go. So the guys, it's no different from being out there running a platoon.

If I got first squad, I'm like, Hey, first squad. I was like, You got this position over here. This is your mission. I've got machine guns attached. I was like, Hey guy, how are best going to employ you and get you out there on the battlefield?

Right? Hey, if I got a section of mortars attached, I'm gonna make sure I coordinate with them on where they should be placed on the battlefield and make sure they got support that they actually need. It's no different running a business.

Chris Albert 00:25:38 (link to this point)

So here's my question for you though. And and it sounds like you got an amazing team and and I I definitely agree that that's how you have to run a business once you have your team set up. But don't you have to scale up to that? What about that, you know, that guy who's getting out in after ten years and maybe he's gone through a divorce, his credit shot, he doesn't have much money to to to bear with him, you know, to to to for startup capital or anything like that. Where can somebody like that start?

And and how can they get to a position where they can have a team for themselves, even if they don't have tons of money for startup capital or anything like that?

Daryl Hill 00:26:22 (link to this point)

Well, that's exactly where I started. I got off active duty at one of the pinnacle times in real estate. I was looking to go into real estate because my family background's done real estate. We have five projects to go into development. I'm not talking about small like just let's flip a house.

I'm like, hey, here's a neighborhood that's gonna be 300 homes. We're gonna go build that. And hey, here's a shopping center we're gonna build that's got Starbucks and Rite Aid and stuff like that. Here's a 35,000 square foot office space we're going to build, three stories high. This is not small projects.

And all of a sudden I leave the Marine Corps in 2007 and I walk into this and the banks are like, no, we're not lending any money to anybody. And all of a sudden it's like froze everything. No real estate is moving whatsoever. So that's what I walked into. And at the time, I had pretty good credit and all that kind of stuff too.

And I'd always learn like the marketing stuff in the background. So as I was going through this time in my life, I kind of had to redevelop myself. And I ended up getting involved with a friend of mine and we became friends and doing marketing for somebody else. So we did marketing for hearing audiologists for a while for doing local business owners. And I learned that skill because I started reading books, like the e books that you see out there.

I started going to courses. I started going to workshops. I started networking with other people that are like minded like myself. I didn't watch TV. I didn't read the newspaper.

I wasn't concerned on myself. Here's one thing, if it doesn't affect my bank account, I really don't want to hear about it. That might sound kind of harsh, but when you're in that time of your life, when you're scratching and itching, how do I get forward in my life? You got to focus on what's important and that's putting money in your pocket. So the second that NFL players or NBA players or any of these players are out there, start putting money in my account, I'll start actually watching what they're doing and give a crap.

Because right now those people are out there doing whatever the hell they want to do and they think they're important, but they're really not. They're only important if you give them value. And I don't see any value in what they actually offer. They throw a ball. I just sit down with my son the other night and we had a discussion at dinner.

And I said, Son, who's a cure? I was like, Oh, a fireman or a guy who throws a ball? And he's like, Well, a fireman dad, of course. I was like, Okay. I was like, What about a military person or Michael Jordan, greatest basketball player of all time?

He's like, well, of course the military person's dead. And that's who his heroes are. Because I've trained my kids and working with my kids over time. And for those parents who are out there who are listening to that, have that gut check and have that conversation with your kids and ask them those types of questions to find out who's really important for them. Like my mom's like one of my heroes, raised by a single mom and stuff like that.

Did whatever she could to make sure that there's food on the table and to make sure that I had a roof over my head and make sure that everything was taken care of on the outside. Meantime, she's going through cancer and I don't even know about it. So that's the side of it guys. That's my hero. And you want to ask yourself, who are your heroes?

Who are you really looking up to? So I think that's one of those things in reality check that you have. There's a lot of crap out there with these entrepreneurs and they put out a bunch of garbage and I've seen the backend of a lot of these people and they don't have their stuff together. They're not all They might act like they have Lamborghinis in their garage and they've got all this crap that's actually out there. It's all a bunch of crap.

I literally know one of my clients who has a Lamborghini and that's only because he was a young kid and he loves cars. Other than that, most of them, the people that actually have money, they don't want to tell everybody to have a bunch of money. Right? The people that don't have any money, those are the ones that are trying to act like they have a bunch of money to think So you think you actually want to buy stuff from them. So I'll give you that right there.

If you got somebody and they're portraying this image of like they've got gazillion dollars in the garage and they're going to teach you how to fly in cars and go to the moon and all this other stuff. I was like, guys, I was like, stop buying their crap. I was like, look internally, I'm like, give me the nuts and bolts of what actually really works. So I came out and I was at that point too. And I look back on it and what made the difference with me is I went out, a lot of times I served.

I looked at ways I could actually help other people because so many times One of the things I hate and I don't hate very many things, but when people say to me, I want to pick your brain. How many times, Chris, if somebody called you up and said, Hey, can I just pick your brain?

Chris Albert 00:31:04 (link to this point)

Well, it's that or, can we go out for coffee or something like that?

Daryl Hill 00:31:09 (link to this point)

Yeah, I was like, okay, well, first I was just kind of like And then I realized, all I really want to do is just ask you a bunch of questions about your business and how you're doing it because it's free coaching, it's free service, right? And all of a sudden when you're like, yeah, no problem. My fee is a thousand dollars an hour, which it is, to sit down and talk to you about how to structure business and work and all that kind of stuff. I was like, I'd be happy to go out for coffee. Where do you want to go?

All of a sudden, Oh, well, yeah, I'm going to have to cancel that. Okay, a lot. Nice day.

Chris Albert 00:31:43 (link to this point)

I think a lot of people don't get that. And it's that idea of if you're gonna be approaching somebody and trying to get advice or seeking mentorship and things like that, you can't ever go up to somebody and say, hey, can you teach me about this? Or hey, can you can you do this? Because it's it's likely that that person is extremely busy that they have their own business on their mind right now. They're not gonna be able to do that.

I think the the best way to get in touch with somebody is, you know, try to do something for them. Try to try to, you know, write Daryl some copy or show Daryl a new sales technique or something like that. That'd probably be the better way to impress you, right?

Daryl Hill 00:32:25 (link to this point)

100%. I've got one guy, his name is Paul. He's a fireman actually. They had a boy's dad who just moved to Arkansas. We stay in touch and he's helped me out a lot.

Paul's one of those guys, anytime he calls me, call him back or I text him back when we chitchat. Paul's virtually, at all times I talked to him, I think he's only asked for advice once. And I include him on stuff I'm doing and what's going on just because I want to help him and see him succeed. And I remember being that same guy, looking back on things where I was that guy actually serving people that work with me now. All the people who are my team and work with me personally, I've either I pretty much have personally coached them at some point in time and they've been a personal client of mine.

And that's ultimately ends up being my team and the people I play with because I know what the inner side of their mind looks like and I know where their heart's at. I know where they want to go. And that's one of those things that like when you are building that cohesion, that team, its team is built in fire. It's built in the fire of things. It's not built on the little fields out there where there's daisies and stuff like that.

It's when crap's hitting the fan and you really got to get stuff done. That's when you find out who the real people are then your team. When all of a sudden things are getting haywire and when you're at the bottom of the barrel and you're like, man, I was like, life sucks about right now. And all of a sudden you got one of your team members reached down and pick you up. In my life, I went through a divorce and I went through a nasty one where literally, he was my ex wife, literally ran up all the credit cards and tried to bankrupt the whole family.

And she ended up doing bankrupt herself. And it's out there public record, if you want to go look at it. And I was refused to do all that. And I was like, I had just this fight inside of me. Was like, hell no.

I was like, I'm going to battle. I want to make it. And it was that inner battle of me just, I'm not going to quit. And that's one of the things out there guys that if you haven't quit yet, don't. Because just focus on that goal and where you're going.

Because as long as you keep going, then you'll get there. But the second you stop and sit on your behind, I was like, you're done. It's like, oh, I'll get to that later. I'll get to this, whatever it is. It's like, guys, it's not gonna happen.

It's like you have to stay focused on that goal. Chris, how many people have contacted you and they're like, asked for advice or hired you and they never follow through on

Chris Albert 00:34:48 (link to this point)

I would say that 98% of the people who've ever contacted me, there's definitely been a few who've gone and they keep going, right? But the one thing I will say is that a lot of the veterans who contact me, they keep going. They because they they know, they understand. It's a lot of the other people. A lot of a lot of and it's not to down talk civilians or anything like that.

It's just that sometimes people have this glamorous view of entrepreneurship and when they start to realize that they're getting dirty, that you know, they're having those nights when they're trying to get to sleep and they're thinking about the fact that they didn't get a sale yet, things like that. They don't like that discomfort too much, and when that starts to come, a lot of people just give up. And something you said there that really resonates, you know, not falling down isn't failing, right? You actually wanna seek those periods where you're gonna be falling down because you're gonna learn from them. The only way you fail is if you stop, if you quit.

That's what failure truly is. And failure doesn't I always say, failure doesn't look like the grim reaper or anything like that. It looks like your couch, it looks like your TV set, looks like playing video games or doing other things that aren't going to add up in your bank account.

Daryl Hill 00:36:13 (link to this point)

Yeah. No. A 100% is failure is just feedback. That's it. You know, that that's all it is.

Chris Albert 00:36:20 (link to this point)

Yep. And with your with what you're doing right now with ecommerce, what are some of the biggest rookie mistakes you see people make when it comes to starting an online business?

Daryl Hill 00:36:35 (link to this point)

So right before we get into the online commerce side of things, I definitely wanna share some really cool stuff with that. I got to let If you're out there right now and you're listening to this, you're like, man, well, this guy can do it because he's gone to the Naval Academy or he's done this and he's done these things. I'll let you guys know that literally, I was at the point where I didn't have a pot to piss in. Literally, I was in my car, drove down to North Carolina and stayed with a friend for a few months, didn't even have a house. I have three kids at the time, gave them to now my ex wife to watch what they're doing because I had to get my mind right.

And I was lucky enough to have a mentor that looked after me to make sure that my mind was staying in the right place. So, mean, like literally, I mean, I got to the point where I had less than like $5 in my bank account. Yeah, and you've been there too. I know you lived in out of your car as well. So I mean, like I remember packing, you know the stuff I put in my car, Chris?

I was like, what'd you get? I put my books in my car. I threw some clothes in there, but I took my books. It's like my entrepreneur books is what I took with me. Because I was like drive time university, baby.

I was like, I had my books to read, I had my audios listened to. And I was down there and I got my mind right. Went back to church down in Port City there in Wilmington, North Carolina, great church they got down there. And I sat there and I got my mind right. And I remember the first time I walked in that church, I had never been a big church like that.

Was one of those big mega churches, they got 5,000 people there, a huge parking lot. And I'm like, wow, this is kind of different. I grew up Presbyterian stuff and it was like personal development for an hour. And I was like, wow, I was like, this is amazing. I was like, people should pay to come to this.

I was like, it was amazing. I was like, I paid a lot of money to go stuff like this. I mean, and somebody else is talking. So I kind of look back on that time and it during that time that I found out who my true friends were. I found out my brothers from the Marine Corps, my guys I served with and also guys that were on my Navy football that I reached out to.

Literally, I had to pack up my whole house and move it in one day and put it in a storage. And I had one of my buddies, he helped me do the whole thing. Over the course of a day, about 20 buddies come by my house and sometimes help for an hour, some guys stayed the whole day. I've got most of them guys are asserted within the Marine Corps or that were friends of mine that I went to school with, that stepped in and actually helped out. I mean, that's the kind of stuff.

Those are the people that you want in your life. That's what I'm talking about. When the fire is burning, it's like you find out who the steel people are in your life because the plastic people melt away. All those people that want to pick your brain and do all that kind of stuff that are out there, those people just melt away at that point. You find out who the true people are that you want to work with and serve for the long haul.

So look for those people when you pick your friends and you pick your team members to see if they've actually gone through some of that stuff themselves and how actually How have they reacted? When the crap hits the fan, do they freak out and meltdown or do they actually Do they get there like steel? They stay in place and they take action. Because that's some of the things I wanted to throw out there in business side of things, whoever you're working with to make sure we do work with somebody. For me, if somebody hires me to work with them on the mindset side of things or hires them to help them build their e commerce store or whatever else they need help with, I was like, I'm giving my commitment to them that I'm going to grab their hand and I'm going to pull them up.

And that's the difference with majority of people out there. They'll just quit. And I'll tell you right now, will grab you by the back of your neck and drag you to the finish line. Because our thing is no store left behind. And just like the Marine Corps, there's no Marine left behind.

We just have that tenacity. As long as you're reaching out for help, we don't care what it is. We're going to pull you. And that's the difference with a lot of people out there is they really don't care. They're teaching old regurgitated material.

It doesn't even work anymore. They're not actually out there in the trenches doing it themselves. They're just like, Hey, this worked a couple of years ago, so let me do it again. And they're using the same content over and over again. And I'll tell you what guys, especially in the e commerce world, if you're not up to date on the latest technology and you don't have the best team that's out there, your ads are going get shut down, your website's going to get blacklisted, your store on Amazon might get shut down.

You might actually disappear on Google altogether if you don't have the right team that's put together. So that's what I've collectively done, Chris. I've been able to summarize some of the best people that do all of that and I'm bringing them together. And that's the thing, that's what we have as a powerhouse team behind us. We have guys that was one guy, he had a free bracelet that he did a 7 figure business with last year.

I was like, you imagine that. Yeah, a free bracelet. They now create a set of free bracelet. I've got one lady who literally, she basically paid off all our debt. Now her store has done over $800,000 year to date or whatever it was.

My business partner, Ernest, I mean, he's amazing in himself. Here it was a guy who literally got to the point where he was doing a seven year cubicle sentence. Doesn't have a college degree, doesn't really have a background. Did door to door sales for like Comcast, literally. And then here he is, he's like, man, I'm not going to quit.

He's just not going to quit. And he turned around and he finally figured out how to do this e commerce stuff. And he figured out how to sell really expensive stuff. And when he figured that out, it was like a light bulb went off. It was like, Eureka, I got it.

Because before that, literally a month before that, he had three cars that were broken down, he couldn't even get it to work. And he didn't have enough money to fix any of them. And he's literally hitching a ride up to work, borrowing his mom's car. And then he's dropping her off and dropping his wife off her fiance and then driving up to work himself, then doing it all over again and then getting home and stuff like that. And he figured out in the late hours of how to get something sold.

And all of a sudden a check came in for like a thousand dollars. And he was like, Holy cow, this works.

Chris Albert 00:42:56 (link to this point)

It's funny because there's so many

Daryl Hill 00:42:58 (link to this point)

This guy didn't have enough money to fix his cars. He like, I don't have money to spend on ads. He was spending $5 on ads when he did that.

Chris Albert 00:43:06 (link to this point)

Well, so many people out there right now saying, Hey, I can't do this. Hey, there's no way that

Daryl Hill 00:43:12 (link to this point)

You know what? People are gonna say that they can't do it. You know what? They're not gonna be able to If you ask the question, how do you do it? Then you're going to find the answers. But if you're focused, like I had a conversation with my son last night. My son said, Dad, why are you getting mad at me? I was like, Because I can't stand it when you sit there and say, I can't do it.

I was like, you can do this math homework. But if you sit there and say, I can't do it. If you sit there and call yourself names and say yourself not gonna be able to do it, guess what? You're not. And that's the hard truth behind it guys.

Is because if you sit there and you try different stuff up to this point, well guess what? You figure out a lot of ways on how stuff didn't work, but it's that three feet from gold that you could just sitting right in front of. And that's where I was at. I was at three feet from gold, literally where I was like, man, I finally found the right thing. I finally found the right time.

I finally found the right people because I put the time, energy and workout in. I worked those hours that you're never going to see. When Michael Jordan and professional sports guy gets on out there on the free throw line and he shoots and he makes it and he averages 28 points to game and starts all these records and stuff like that. You know how many basketballs he actually shot outside of playing in the game? How many thousands of balls did he throw through the hoop before that?

And that's what most people aren't willing to do. That's why people go out there and they win the Olympics over and over again. It's because they put in the time, energy and effort. They just go out and jump in the pool and swim through at once. No, Michael Phelps, the guy lives in the pool.

He literally use her in Maryland. He's got a whole pool complex. And that's where he swims in the pool all day. I mean, what do you go figure? And then he gets to the Olympics.

Yeah, he's talented. Yeah, he's got some natural abilities and all these things. But you know what? Hard work out works talent every time. And that's where I was at.

And that's where I was at in high school. I just outworked everybody else. And I still outworked everybody else. People ask me, do you sleep? And I'd say, you know what?

Sleep is for broke people. It's like, you got time to sleep guys. Then you got time to watch TV and you got time to screw off and do all this stuff. And you want to sit here and come back to me and complain about why you don't have any money. I was like, there's the door.

But if you say like, Hey, listen, I'm putting in this amount of work, this amount of energy, this amount of effort into these things that's not working. Then we can have a conversation about, Hey, why it's not working? But don't call me because you're like, Hey, this isn't working. I just tried this once. Oh, really?

I was like, Well, it took me a thousand times to figure it out. Look at Thomas Edison with a light bulb. Guys, who wouldn't have light if the guy would have quit? There's actually over 3,000 times it took him to figure out how to get a light bulb.

Chris Albert 00:45:57 (link to this point)

Yeah. Well, as far as the sleep thing goes, I've been one of those guys who's done the four hours of sleep at night. I do have to caution you as a personal trainer, Daryl, that there is some really bad health implications to that. But, know, as far as the determination aspect of it, I'm in complete agreement. You can't just rest on your laurels.

And I think a lot of people have to ask them themselves a question, what do I really need? What do you really need in this life? And what you need is just the things you just described. You need a mission. You need a purpose.

You need a tribe of really good people around you. You need burpees. You need push ups. You need and you need to

Daryl Hill 00:46:41 (link to this point)

Get some keto. You need some prime keto from the guys over at.

Chris Albert 00:46:45 (link to this point)

You don't even need that, man. You just need you just need a little bit of food, some burpees, some pushups, a plan, and and and some work to do. And I think that's that's that's the the big gist of it. And a lot of things you just said resonated a whole lot with me, you know, and when I was living out of my car, all I had were the clothes on my back and my dog who's sitting down there. And, you know, in some ways I think that those types of positions, they're horrible, they're also freeing.

Because when you don't have an apartment and you don't have a place to live and you no longer have a wife or a spouse that you're in a bad relationship with and you no longer have a lot of those things, you're also free. You're also very free. And that's the weirdest feeling I've ever had in my life was being homeless, sitting in my car, and playing the music, and having this crazy sense of calm come over me because I had nothing to lose at that point. Like, nothing. And just knowing at that point that I was going to be okay because, you know, what in my mind was the worst thing that could happen happened.

And I was okay. I was still breathing.

Daryl Hill 00:48:08 (link to this point)

That's the difference guys is when you don't stop and just like Ernest didn't stop, just like I didn't stop. Ernest went on the next month to do $17,000 in profit in his business. And then he's been on a tear ever since then. He's doing the same exact thing, rinse and repeat. And that's the difference guys.

Was like up until that point, hadn't had success. But if he would have stopped anywhere along there, would never be where he's at today. And that's the one question you got to ask yourself, how bad do you really want it? What's really important to you? Really what's your why behind why it is you're doing whatever it is?

And that's one of those things that people just overlook a lot of times. From my why, it's like being a provider for my three kids. At the end of the day, those are the three most important people in the world to me. And then it's my immediate family members and making sure I take care of them. Then it's my extended family members and my brother from the Navy football side of things and my Marines, make sure if I can take care of them or do something extra for them, then I go out and do that.

I yeah, I take care of myself. I do this stuff, but guys, I still drive a Honda. There's not a Lamborghini in my parking lot. You're not going to see me driving a Lamborghini, other maybe renting one and just having fun driving around a track. But I don't want the bills to go along with that.

It's a freaking piece of metal that sits in your driveway. I'd rather transit to drive around the world and enjoy and fly around the world and spend time with friends and all over the place. I mean, that's the cool thing. It's the memories you actually make and the people. Like this weekend, one of the guys who's coming in is literally he's bought and sold over $50,000,000 for the e commerce businesses.

And he's going be going through how we're going to be able to package up and help people actually sell their businesses and get 7 figure checks.

Chris Albert 00:49:56 (link to this point)

Wow.

Daryl Hill 00:49:56 (link to this point)

This is real checks, like with 7 figures. I mean, that's the two comma club. This is cash in your pocket. This isn't like, Hey, we're to kind of do this and we're to show you this way and buy this course and join this group. Maybe someday you'll get there.

It's like, No, literally he's done this over and over again. And I'm actually friends with him because I helped They had me brought me into an event to speak about the mindset side of things. And we connected there like over a year ago in Las Vegas. And we've just been friends ever since. We've coincided, we've worked together with a few other deals.

We're working on some things. I was like, you know what? I was like, I'd really love to do this. And I called him up to talk to him and I let him know what I was doing. He was like, yeah, I'd be interested in helping out with that.

I was like, really? He's like, yeah. I was like, man, he's like, that's my daily WIC. And I was like, no kidding. I was like, well, let's do this together because your expertise is this and mine's this.

So it's like making sure that you're aligning up your vision, your values is one of the most important things that is out there. It's like, I look at it this way, what's your vocation? What's your true calling for whatever it is? Write these down right now. Your vocation, your true calling, what you're here to really do.

What's your vision about what that actually looks like long term? And what's my values? What do I value? And ask yourself, do a gut check and write those down. Because here's what happens.

I was having a conversation with another business guy and this guy does financially very well. And he was telling me how this business partner kind of screwed him on something. And I asked a key question to him. I said, well, when was your first indication that he did that to you? And he said, Well, he told me about how he did this to this other business partner he actually had and how he set up this offshore bank account and how he was hiding funds and some stuff like that over there.

And I was like, Okay, well, at what part of that do you not get a little thing that said he might actually do this to me in the future? And then he's like, You know what? I always thought that he wouldn't be that stupid enough to do something like that to me because I assume take all his money and all that kind of stuff. I was like, well, he's stupid enough to actually tell you that that's what he's doing to somebody else. How stupid is this guy?

And he realized at that point is like, Oh crap. He's like, You're right. He's like, I never even saw that comment. That's if you know like upfront, like what somebody else values, what their long term vision is for where they want to be at. If you look at what their true calling is like, Hey, this is their passion.

This is where they're going to go. If you get that in alignment upfront, it will save you so much time, energy and headaches, and probably a ton of money on top of that. So that's something I would just throw out there as a piece of advice that I've learned personally, that every time I haven't aligned with those values and stuff like that in the past with somebody, that it's done just that. It screwed me over, caused me a lot of headaches, lost me a lot of money, and done a lot of negative stuff. So for anybody listening, and that's right there, it's like, take that and put it into action for your own business, your own life.

Everybody's always want to talk about getting partnerships with different people and all this stuff or whatever. Those are some of the huge things that happen. And also, if you look inside, just like in the Marine Corps, we have all those things. We have an ethos about what a Marine is. We a vision statement of who we are.

We have values on exactly who we are. We have all that stuff. So why wouldn't you go out and take that same training you've actually learned inside the Marine Corps and then go apply it to the business world? Because it works. And that's, again, why some of the best CEOs that are out there are Marines.

Chris Albert 00:53:38 (link to this point)

Awesome. We're coming to the end of the hour here, but really quick, I just want to ask you, as far as those mistakes that you see people making in in ecommerce.

Daryl Hill 00:53:55 (link to this point)

Sure.

Chris Albert 00:53:55 (link to this point)

Somebody's out there, they they want to set up a business. They want to set up a website. They want to go to Shopify, set up a store. I know so many people are out there trying to develop products, trying to find manufacturers, trying to create things from scratch. Is that the right way of going about things and is there another better way of going about things?

Daryl Hill 00:54:19 (link to this point)

Well, just like being in the Marine Corps, if I wanted to get better at pull ups and I wanted to get better at a three mile run, I was in TBS and I wasn't very good at either of them at the time. I just started and I linked up with this guy, Lieutenant Staunacker. And Staunacker was prior enlisted, great dude, kind of funny. He became a pilot, total personality pilot. And I said, man, I was like, You crushed out there.

What's your secret? He's like, come on outside. So I'm like, all right. I was like, what do we do? He's like, get up there and do as many pull ups as you can.

I was like, okay. So I got up and did as many pull ups as I can. Probably got maybe like 12 or 14 at the time, which isn't 20 by any stretch of imagination. And then all of a sudden we get out on the road and we do a three mile run and we come back. And I was like, okay, is that it?

He's like, yeah. I was like, all right, he's like, record your score. He's like, Okay, cool. And you know what we did the next day? It's a big secret, everybody.

Thing. We did the same thing. And you know what? My run time got three minutes down off my run time. And I actually was doing 20 pull ups without a problem. Actually could do more than 20 pull ups, but I got to the point I was in like 22.

But I was able to do them the right way and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, you know what? That was the secret is find somebody who's really good at whatever it is they're actually doing. Was the Russell Brunson said this, you can do one of two things. You can hire the person for their time and get it right away.

Or you can do something else that's super cool that people want you around. Now for me, I've actually learned how to do both. I do stuff that's super cool and help people overcome all kinds of mental blocks and stuff like that around making money. And they've had any mental stuff from the past. I've gotten trained on how to do all that stuff.

So people love to have me around for that. Cause I'll sit down and have somebody have a conversation and they're like, have a blocker on their business. And all of a sudden now they're like, this guy had came to me and he had a mental block about speaking the next day and selling. And then the next day he went out and spoke and sold like $886,000 worth of one day. So the bottom line is guys, was like all that mental trash, it's just noise.

It's just white noise and just let it go. And then the first thing again is paying somebody for their time. So if you have somebody that's successful in whatever business, this applies to any business and like, Hey, if you want to be the most successful podcaster out in the world, you probably want to find somebody that's really successful being podcasts. John Lee Dumas comes to mind. Actually be an army guy.

And he's out there making $500,000 a month plus in podcasting. Might be a good person to learn. He actually publishes his numbers every month and even does a podcast about it. So, if you want to be an awesome podcaster, go copy who's somebody else who's been successful. If you want to be the best machine gunner out there, I was like, go find the best machine gunner that's out there in your battalion and go learn from him.

If you want to be the best sniper, they go hang out with the best sniper that's out there and learn from him. And business is different. You find the people that are best at what they do. What I see if people that make mistakes is they listen to people who aren't number one actively doing it out there in the business. That's number one.

They talk about things they used to do, but they're not actively doing it because business changes, just like tactics change, business changes. And then all of a sudden this thing is you want to make sure that you're picking a winning product. And there's a whole strategy on how to go about picking a winning product and stuff like that. The biggest thing is you want to pick things that aren't going to be products that are necessarily You have to sell a gazillion of them. If I could say, let's say like a water bottle, let's say my Marine Corps water bottle, let's say these are selling for $20 If I sell a 100 of these, a 100 times 20, what's that?

That's two Yeah,

Chris Albert 00:58:30 (link to this point)

2,000. I'm an hour in history, man. What are you trying to I'm in brain too, right?

Daryl Hill 00:58:36 (link to this point)

So we got 2,000 of these. Or I could go out and I could find two desks that I can sell for $1,000 each. And I could go out and find two people that want to buy $1,000 desk. What do you think is actually hard for you sell at that point? Because there's a demand for both.

But I've got to sell 200 of these things and I deal with 200 customers or I can deal with two customers and sell two desks. So that's one of the other things out there on the e commerce side of things. If I could throw out anybody who's listening to this, is making sure you're actually picking a product that there's profit. Pick a profitable product. Because I could sell this water bottle and maybe at the end of the day, bring in Let's say I bring in 20%, right?

So I get $4 out of doing this. After advertising, after shipping, after buying the supplies, after paying the Marine Corps their fee, I'm left with $4 Or I could sell two desks for $2,000 and make a 20% profit and put $400 in my pocket. What makes more sense? I was like, I don't know, I'll sell two desks. Because at that point I could go out and maybe I'll sell 10 desks in a day.

If I want to make the same amount of money on selling those water bottles, then that's still a hell of a lot more water bottles. Now I'm to do the math. There's a hell of more water bottles I got to sell to make the same amount of profit. I'd say that's one of the things around the e commerce side of things. And then another thing too is making sure that you're not And this is something that happened to me recently off of just like Facebook alone, was making sure that you're not dependent on somebody else's platform.

And I'm talking about like, if you're selling stuff on e commerce, right? And you have a great fan pages out there, right? Hey, that's really great. Let's say you got a half million fans on your fan page. Well, all of a sudden, what if Facebook gets a hair up their rear end and it's like, Hey, you know what?

I was like, We're going to shut your account off. We didn't like what you're doing on your page, so we're going to turn it off. Somebody posted something on there and then all of a sudden now your page gets shut down. Okay, well now all of a sudden where all your customers go? They're gone.

You don't have them anymore. Because you don't own those customers. Same thing with YouTube channel. You don't own your subscribers. You don't own that Amazon store that you think, Oh, well, you're paying Amazon fee, you must own a store.

Nope. I was like, I've had buddies that have actually scaled their products so much that Amazon copied their product and then sent them a cease and desist letter saying they actually couldn't even sell the product anymore on Amazon. And they had a business disappear overnight. And there's nothing they could do about it. They got employees, guess what?

They got kids to feed, they got their Lambo bills and all those other kinds of stuff, all gone. Just like that overnight. If you look at anything that's out there, don't build it on a platform, that's dependent on that. Use those things as a marketing angle to get people into your store and to build a list, that's your list. And that's the big thing about business that I definitely learning lesson for me is I should have done sooner was grow a list.

Chris Albert 01:01:46 (link to this point)

Yeah, you need to Collecting be collecting

Daryl Hill 01:01:49 (link to this point)

emails about people that follow you, to build your tribe. And that's one of those things I would say out there because guess what? I was like, once a gun owner, always a gun owner. And I got a friend of mine, he's built a large fan page off of gun stuff. And he built this large fan page and he's now converting it and he's got people onto his list. Now they're buying gun stuff. They're buying targets, they're buying guns from them like AR-15s, they're buying kinds of like gun oil, all kinds of different stuff that are out there. So the bottom line is though, is he has a personal list.

It's not just something he has on Facebook. Facebook shut down his account, would it affect his business? Oh yeah, it would. But guess what? He's not dependent on And that's one of the big things that are out there when you're Is if you have a great product and you have a list, you're always able to make money.

And if you make sure you treat the people you actually have on your list, old golden rule, the same way you'd actually like to be treated yourself, then you're in good shape. And make sure that if you are sending them something that's a good product, because they're going to look at it as a basic recommendation from you. You recommended the guys from the Real Ketones to reach. So I interviewed and talked to them and I used their product and I love the product. It's the same stuff you use.

And you have that course that goes along with that stuff, which is a great course on how to do real ketones. Guys, this stuff really works. So, I mean, it goes to show guys, it's like, I got that because I got it from your recommendation. And when you have a list, make sure you treat people just like they're your family. Like, okay.

I was like, you're not there to just sell them something. Give them stuff a value first. I'd say that's one of the things that a lot of business owners just screw up and they're like, Oh, we just have to sell stuff. And they're just focused on a dollar. Instead of they focused on growing a relationship instead of a dollar, then actually they wouldn't have to worry about money.

Chris Albert 01:03:46 (link to this point)

Yeah. You can't be like, buy this, buy this, buy this. You've got to give value. You got to keep giving value. And then, eventually after you've given enough value, people will come to you to buy what you have.

Daryl Hill 01:03:58 (link to this point)

Yeah. A 100. And that's where I get majority of my clients come in off of recommendations, off of referrals and stuff like that. I mean, I don't market anything I do around the mindset stuff. Like literally they just, they're like, Hey, I talked to so and so and they said, I need to talk to And some of the people I've worked with now, it's cool because they have gone out there and they've created 7 figure businesses for themselves and seeing the results that they've actually been able to do afterwards.

And I would say one of the other things that was the learning lessons in business that I learned myself is stay focused on one thing. And that was one of the things I first did. I remember going to my first It was my first seminar. This is back in 2006. I went to the seminar and I bought like five or six things at the seminar.

I like, I went home, my wife at the time, she looked at me, she's like, You're crazy. I like, Well, I'll do this and then I'll do this and I'll do this. And I didn't get anything done. Cause I was constantly trying to do everything. And when you try to do everything, you don't get anything done.

So pick one business to go after and go after that business and make it that your passion and that's your focus. Because all of a sudden you start diverting focus from one thing to another thing over here, then your income dilutes with it. And that's one thing. And then all of a sudden too is like, people will come up to you and they're like, Hey, what are you doing now? Because you've always talked about some new thing.

It's like every time you talk to them, it's like, what are you doing now? And now when people talk to me, because I did that myself, that's what mistake I made. And now they said, I'm doing the same thing I have last time you talked to me, which is the truth. And the funny part now is they see me flying around like private jets and they see me at these houses and they see me with all these people and stuff like that. I sit down at a football game and I'm like, Hey, how are you doing?

I don't talk about any of that stuff. But they come to me and they're like, Wow, you've been flying around? I'm like, Yeah, I got business friends and stuff I go to. I don't brag about it or anything like that. But at the same time, it's just kind of like Mike Sealy.

Mike was a second lieutenant and I checked in to TBS and Mike was checking in. We're in the same platoon. And my buddy, Joe Panaro says to me. And Joe and I are still friends. I saw him last weekend at a golf outing we had for memorial for a friend of ours who was killed.

And he said to me, Hey, you got to check Mike out. I mean, Mike, he's got a bronze star. I was like, No kidding. And I was like, Now we're like green lieutenants. I just fresh out of college.

We had a lot of guys for prior service coming in, which I personally loved. And so Mike never says anything literally about anything, like about who he is, background, all that kind of stuff. He just doing his thing. And I started asking him, I was like, Hey, I heard you were prior enlisted and stuff. He's like, Yeah, I was.

So it's like, you want to look for those Mike Sealy's that are on the wall that don't have to talk about all their accolades. Look for those guys because those are the guys that really know their stuff. It wasn't until It was kind of funny because where I went to infantry officers course in TBS down there, we're just talking about this last weekend. Was pretty funny. And I'm sitting there and I look up at the wall and there's a citation on the wall and it says Mike Sealy.

And it has his citation about how literally the citation reads like Mike Sealy repelled the enemy literally while taking fire and was shot and he did it by himself as a corporal. Was Lance Corporal, corporal at the time. And he repelled a battalion of Iraqi soldiers by calling fire on them and saved this whole unit from being killed and all this stuff or whatever. Was out there by himself. This sounds like, holy cow.

Literally, if it was an officer, I'm just going throw this out there. Probably would have given the guy a silver star, a Navy Cross. And that's one of the other things that pissed me off. Is a lot of times in the Marine Corps, guys out there that are on the tip of the spear don't actually get the credit that's actually due. I was sitting there and Doug Zembiec, Major Zembiec, Lion of Fallujah rose up next to me on his Harley.

He had this yellow Harley and he was all pissed off. And I said, What's going on, sir? And I'm like a lieutenant at the time, he's a captain. And one of his lieutenants was Pace and he was one of my buddies from IOC. And he says, You know what's fucked up?

And sorry for cussing. But he's The triangle. He's like, These triangles are screwed up. So he draws a triangle on the back of my buddy's car because it's all dusty and he puts a triangle like this and he says, see this right here? He's like, this is the awards triangle.

And he draws the triangle upside down like this And he draws a triangle that goes on top of that one. He says, this is the killing triangle side. And I was like, okay, sir. He's like, you see how this is messed up? And I was like, yeah, everybody's getting killed is not getting awards.

And he's like, exactly.

Chris Albert 01:09:04 (link to this point)

Right. So, yeah, I get what you're saying. So as it goes up, upside down triangle is that the higher ranking people are getting more awards and then the lower ranking people aren't getting a lot of rewards. But the killing triangle is the other way around where most of the lower ranking people are getting killed.

Daryl Hill 01:09:24 (link to this point)

That was Hearing Doug Zembiec come in and talk about that, that's the type of officer he was because he went back and fought for every single award that actually got shot down from his Marines. He had 148 think it was You don't quote me exactly, but he had 148 Purple Hearts in his company from when he was there. And he was just amazing to do it. And you know what? Back in the day when he was a first lieutenant, you know who his platoon sergeant was?

Chris Albert 01:09:52 (link to this point)

Who?

Daryl Hill 01:09:53 (link to this point)

It was Mike Sealy.

Chris Albert 01:09:55 (link to this point)

Oh, wow.

Daryl Hill 01:09:56 (link to this point)

Mike Sealy was his platoon sergeant, literally. Mike told a story about, yeah, I had to square him away. So it just goes to show guys, again, your team, going back to that team side of things, there's a reason that Major Zembiec made it where he was at was because he had somebody like a Mike Sealy who was there in his corner making sure. And Mike was by far one of the best officers, not the best officer I ever knew in the Marine Corps. And he was the Mustang.

He just retired recently. He spent all times like special forces with black ops and all this kind of stuff. But I mean, like he had somebody like that. He was trained in like Major Zembiec who's known as one of the best officers of our generation, honestly. So, and he is legitimately, I mean, Lion of Fallujah.

I mean, I can tell you stories about him. They're just like, make your hair a curl. So, I mean, guys, it's about leadership and being out there in front and not being afraid. And just like in business, you can't be afraid either. Because if you're gonna be afraid, then go sit in the corner and get a job.

And leave the entrepreneur stuff to the people who have the balls to go out and do it.

Chris Albert 01:11:04 (link to this point)

Wow. Well, Daryl, where can people find you on the internet? It's darylhill.com, correct?

Daryl Hill 01:11:11 (link to this point)

Yep. It's darylhill.com. And you go on there and catch up with me, learn what I'm all about. If you guys want to hear my own story and hear me rant like this, I got a podcast myself and I actually have Chris I interviewed a little while back ago and the MMC show. So I love to interview entrepreneurs and really get into their minds about why they're successful and learn from them, what their true stories are and how they came about themselves similar like we did today, Chris.

Chris Albert 01:11:41 (link to this point)

Yeah. And and I just wanna, one, acknowledge you. I think what you're doing is absolutely amazing. I I really, really appreciate that you came on today to deliver some of your knowledge and your experience as an entrepreneur and as a marine to our audience, which is largely marines and soldiers and other veterans. And seriously, if you guys wanna check out Daryl, he's got some amazing advice on all levels of business.

And I'm sure you guys are gonna be hearing a lot more about him in the entrepreneurial space to come. So I wanna thank each and every one of you for Oh, what is that brother? What is that?

Daryl Hill 01:12:23 (link to this point)

I got my Marine Corps Brotherhood t shirt on.

Chris Albert 01:12:26 (link to this point)

Oh.

Daryl Hill 01:12:26 (link to this point)

So my web designer did this to my logo. See that on the shirt?

Chris Albert 01:12:32 (link to this point)

Yep.

Daryl Hill 01:12:33 (link to this point)

That's Yeah, Albert. Put a plug in for

Chris Albert 01:12:35 (link to this point)

Albert, baby.

Daryl Hill 01:12:37 (link to this point)

You can go to the brotherhood on there on the

Chris Albert 01:12:39 (link to this point)

Oh, Albert designed that?

Daryl Hill 01:12:41 (link to this point)

No. No. Albert did the t shirt. So Okay.

Yeah. So Albert Carrasco, one of my marines.

Chris Albert 01:12:48 (link to this point)

Yep. He's the guy who works with us here at Warrior Soul too.

Daryl Hill 01:12:51 (link to this point)

So Yeah. He helped me with do that. Ship out the t shirts all over the world. So So 1775 Brotherhood. If you go on there on Facebook, there's a 75,000 people Facebook page.

Guys are on there buying t shirts and stuff like that. Which is like super cool. I I just want to create like that brotherhood side of things, because that's what it's all about. And the more you can get with like minded people, especially in business and in life, the easier things are. And that's honestly When you get behind people who have the same beliefs and they're going the same direction guys.

And that's what it's all about. And that's what makes it fun. You got to like a little litmus test. It was like, would I go out and have a beer with this dude or not? Would I have this person around my kids?

And if the answer is no, they should probably look for somebody else to hang out with or grow a business with. Because eventually when I got a chance last year to take my kids to Atlantis, which is someplace I've always wanted to go my life in The Bahamas for a week and stay with other entrepreneurs. It was the guys that I met in this group that invited me to go with them to do this mastermind. And these are guys who are just crushing in business and stuff like that. And they got kids that are the same age as my kids.

And my kids are playing over in the water with their kids. And I'm sitting there just hanging out, just pinching to myself like, Oh my gosh, this is really here. And that was the cool part guys, is there is a silver lining if you keep going. If you keep going, you can have success too. And that's the thing is like the people that stop and sit on the battlefield, those are the ones that die.

Chris Albert 01:14:29 (link to this point)

Yep. Gotta keep moving. Gotta keep moving. And, just wanna, again, thank you, and I wanna thank each and every one of you out there for listening to the Warrior Soul podcast. This has been our episode with Daryl Hill.

Find out more about him at darylhill.com, and I will be getting all of these links, including the link to that amazing t shirt there, which I'm gonna buy myself, up on the show notes. So we will be back at you in a couple of days with another awesome guest.