If everybody thinks it is work and it feels like play, that is your dream life.
Table of Contents
The Heartbeat of Hustle
I woke up in New York City, the heartbeat of hustle. In 48 hours, I spoke with Gary Vee, Patrick Bet-David, and attended Tony Robbins’ Business Mastery.
These conversations reminded me that building your dream business requires a level of obsession most people think is too much. It is not about balance. It is about alignment and designing a life that matches your deepest values.
Every decision I make is about the lifestyle I want to design and whether it brings me closer to it or further away.
Some people spend their lives waiting for retirement. I believe you should build a life you do not need to escape from.
Lesson 1: Build with Obsession and Alignment
The difference between average entrepreneurs and dream builders is obsession. The kind of obsession that looks crazy to others but feels completely natural to you.
Gary, Patrick, and I all agree that long-term alignment matters more than short-term gain.
What is the point of making money if you are not designing a life you love?
Your business should support your dream life, not drain it. Success is not about more hours. It is about more alignment.
When drinking becomes the focus, how are you supposed to trust the people around you? The conversations that happen at 1 a.m. are not building wealth.
Lesson 2: Gary Vee on Selflessness, Creativity, and Long-Term Play
Gary Vee told me something powerful about how he balances giving to others and protecting his own time.
My relationship with myself is healthy because I do not judge others either.
He reminded me that great entrepreneurs build with self-awareness. Gary’s creative projects like VeeFriends, Empathy Wines, and Resy were built by overinvesting in long-term brand equity.
All my companies were built on the backbone of the Vayner machine. When you overinvest in the foundation, everything else compounds.
That is the real secret: patience, self-awareness, and reinvestment.
Lesson 3: Stop Waiting for Permission
Patrick Bet-David and I spoke about something almost every entrepreneur struggles with: waiting for permission.
Most founders are waiting for someone else to give them permission to move.
You already know the next step. You just have not trusted your gut yet.
Gary said it perfectly:
Sequencing equals success.
If you bake a cake with the same ingredients as the person next to you but in the wrong order, you end up with a mess. The same applies to business.
Timing, order, and effort matter.
I call this Vector Leadership.
A vector has both direction and magnitude. You need both.
Direction is the sequence: what to do first.
Magnitude is the intensity: how much effort to apply.
Together, they determine how fast and how far your business grows.
Lesson 5: The Role of Mentors and Proximity
Every successful person can name a mentor who shaped their journey. Michael Jordan had Phil Jackson. Bill Gates had Warren Buffett.
For me, mentors were the accelerators. Whenever I build a new company, I create a list of 100 people who can help. Mentors, advisors, and peers who have already walked the path.
Proximity is power. The closer you are to people who inspire you, the faster you grow.
That is why I invest in masterminds, coaching, and rooms like Tony Robbins’ Business Mastery. You cannot think small when you are surrounded by people dreaming big.
Lesson 6: The Fulfillment Loop – Hurt, Heal, Help
After speaking, I visited a detention center to mentor at-risk youth. It reminded me that purpose completes the loop of success.
Life is about going through the hurt, healing from it, and helping others get through theirs.
If you have built success, it is your responsibility to light the path for others. Pain is inevitable. Healing is personal. Helping is transformational.
Your mess can become your message.
That is the real definition of a dream business: one that gives you joy, freedom, and the chance to lift others up.
When work feels like play, and impact feels like purpose, that is your dream life.
Everybody thinks it is work. To me, it feels like play. That is my dream business.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a dream business according to Dan Martell?
A dream business aligns with your purpose, creates freedom, and feels like play even when others see it as work.
What did Gary Vee teach about long-term success?
That success comes from patience, creativity, and overinvesting in your foundation before chasing short-term wins.
How did Patrick Bet-David influence Dan Martell?
He reinforced the mindset of self-permission: you do not need anyone’s approval to execute your vision.
What is Vector Leadership?
It is Dan’s concept of combining direction and magnitude, knowing what to do and how hard to push at each stage.
What completes the success cycle?
Hurt, Heal, Help using your past struggles to guide and uplift others.
Related Articles
More Resources
Tools Mentioned
Buy Back Your Time Book Learn how to reclaim time and energy to build your dream life.
Growth Ceiling Calculator Find your current business growth ceiling.
High Performance Coaching Mentorship to build focus, clarity, and discipline.
Full Transcript
How to Build Your Dream Business (feat. Gary Vee & Patrick Bet-David)
https://www.youtube.com/watch/8lakAE_AZM0
00:00:00.080 I woke up in a city that I consider the
00:00:02.560 heartbeat of hustle, New York.
00:00:04.720 Conversations with Gary Vee, PBD, and
00:00:07.520 doing Tony Robbins business mastery all
00:00:09.599 in 48 hours. For you to create your
00:00:12.000 dream business. It requires a level of
00:00:14.719 obsession that everybody else thinks is
00:00:17.279 too much.
00:00:19.520 When I look at all my decisions, it’s
00:00:22.560 always about like what’s the lifestyle I
00:00:24.640 want to design and does the decision get
00:00:26.800 me closer to it or further away? And I’d
00:00:29.119 rather give up short-term gain for
00:00:31.039 long-term alignment. Like what’s the
00:00:32.640 point of making money if you don’t do
00:00:34.000 that? Some people keep going to work for
00:00:36.000 hoping someday maybe. I mean, in
00:00:37.920 retirement, what’s that idea about?
00:00:39.280 That’s weird. You should enjoy life. I
00:00:41.280 don’t know.
00:00:45.680 It’s good to see you, man.
00:00:46.800 How you been?
00:00:48.079 Good, dude. Question for you,
00:00:49.840 please.
00:00:50.320 You’re obviously a big dreamer. The bee
00:00:52.320 friends.
00:00:53.039 Yeah.
00:00:53.440 Cuz I’ve heard you talk a lot about
00:00:55.039 selfless and selfish.
00:00:56.559 Yes. Tell me about like how does
00:00:59.120 somebody think through that because like
00:01:00.879 it’s counterintuitive to want to give so
00:01:03.120 much but at the same time protect
00:01:04.479 yourself.
00:01:05.040 I would argue that that framework of me
00:01:07.760 communicating that is only me capturing
00:01:10.320 what has always been real. For example,
00:01:13.280 we met when the Gary Vee brand was a a
00:01:16.479 pimple to what it is now. But you know
00:01:19.119 that the way I’m even talking right now
00:01:20.560 about V friends is exactly how I talked
00:01:22.320 about Gary Vee. I can feel it.
00:01:23.759 That’s what’s wild. V friends is how
00:01:26.560 uncomfortably
00:01:28.080 creative I can get if I’m in that spot.
00:01:30.799 So you’re willing to overinvest on the
00:01:32.159 machine.
00:01:32.799 Correct.
00:01:33.600 Knowing where you want to go,
00:01:34.880 which is how resi happened, which is how
00:01:36.960 Empathy Wines happened,
00:01:38.400 which is how my brand got built,
00:01:40.159 which is how Vfriends happened, right?
00:01:41.920 Like all of the companies I just
00:01:43.360 mentioned, two of which exited very
00:01:45.600 significantly, were built on the
00:01:47.520 backbone of the operating system of the
00:01:49.040 Vayner machine. When it comes to the
00:01:50.799 dream side, and we’ll leave you with
00:01:52.240 that, like people that are still sitting
00:01:54.640 on their hands, they’re not going for
00:01:56.240 the dream. What’s the current language
00:01:58.880 you’re saying?
00:01:59.520 It’s the simplicity of like self-esteem
00:02:01.200 versus insecurity. That’s it. The other
00:02:03.280 thing I do a lot, I’m like, why is this
00:02:05.200 working? What what am I?
00:02:07.360 And even critically, like, why is this a
00:02:09.679 problem for me? Oh, you know, my dad is
00:02:11.920 this way and I always try to make it
00:02:13.200 better. So, I’m always looking for like
00:02:15.200 to help and like sometimes to a fall
00:02:17.200 like what’s my strengths? What’s my
00:02:18.480 weaknesses? One of the things that’s
00:02:20.000 very obvious to me is my relationship
00:02:22.160 with me is very healthy and I think it
00:02:24.560 has a lot to do with me not judging
00:02:26.239 others either.
00:02:27.200 100%.
00:02:27.840 Anyway,
00:02:28.160 dude, appreciate it.
00:02:29.360 Love you. Take care of yourself.
00:02:30.800 Means a lot.
00:02:33.120 You’re living your dream business
00:02:34.480 basically, right?
00:02:35.599 Put it this way. People ask me all the
00:02:37.440 time, they’re like, “Travel much?” I
00:02:39.680 guess, but there’s nothing about my day
00:02:41.920 today that feels like work to me,
00:02:44.319 but it looks like work to everybody
00:02:45.760 else. Gary was a huge influence on that.
00:02:47.840 Most people thought he was a keynote
00:02:49.519 speaker and they don’t know that he runs
00:02:51.599 four $500 million a year business.
00:02:54.000 How important is it to actually double
00:02:55.840 down on something for 20 years plus now?
00:02:59.200 28 years building software.
00:03:00.800 Yeah. I mean, I think it’s just
00:03:03.360 realizing there’s more to do.
00:03:06.480 More to do. Do more. You know, the whole
00:03:09.120 like what are you pretending not to
00:03:10.239 know? I think a lot of people are
00:03:11.440 pretending not to know they have more in
00:03:12.959 them to give.
00:03:14.159 I’m just brutally honest with myself.
00:03:16.000 Like are you holding back? Are you under
00:03:17.840 indexing?
00:03:19.200 That’s something that I learned being
00:03:20.159 around you and other people is you don’t
00:03:22.400 wait for permission. I think a lot of
00:03:24.239 CEOs and founders, we’re like waiting
00:03:26.000 for someone else to give us permission
00:03:27.120 to go do something. We can all do this.
00:03:29.280 We don’t have to wait for anyone to give
00:03:30.560 us permission. Most people have the
00:03:32.480 intuition that that’s what they should
00:03:34.560 do. They just don’t listen. You know
00:03:36.159 what sentence I’ve never said out loud?
00:03:38.239 I wish I wouldn’t have listened to my
00:03:39.920 gut. I honestly believe most of us have
00:03:42.000 the answer to live our life, but it’s
00:03:43.519 clouded with the fears and the judgments
00:03:45.200 and the scarcity and all that stuff.
00:03:46.560 that we actually know inherently what we
00:03:48.799 should be doing next. It’s just we just
00:03:50.319 and luckily I’ve done enough work to
00:03:51.840 just be like look I’d rather be wrong
00:03:54.720 and aligned with my intent than not and
00:03:58.400 live a life for somebody else’s
00:04:00.239 approval. I can live with I made this
00:04:02.799 decision cuz I thought it was right, but
00:04:04.560 I would have a hard time living with I
00:04:06.400 made this decision cuz I thought you
00:04:07.760 thought it was right.
00:04:08.640 Dan, thank you so much. Thanks, Cassie.
00:04:12.460 [Music]
00:04:16.000 So,
00:04:16.160 you guys came up quick. You guys are
00:04:17.759 killing it on YouTube right now. I’m
00:04:19.680 excited to get into AI software.
00:04:22.160 Yeah.
00:04:22.400 You want to rip it?
00:04:23.120 Yeah.
00:04:23.360 Yeah. Let’s do it.
00:04:27.199 A long time ago, I realized business was
00:04:29.360 kind of like, and I’m not a music guy or
00:04:31.840 anything, but you know like those mixer
00:04:33.120 boards. If there’s a hundred moves that
00:04:35.520 you can make as an entrepreneur and
00:04:36.960 they’re all dials, the entrepreneur that
00:04:39.120 wins is the one to know which dial and
00:04:41.520 how much to move it cuz you don’t go 0
00:04:44.000 to 10
00:04:44.720 cuz it might take a while to do that.
00:04:46.080 You go 0 to three. Okay, now I got to do
00:04:48.160 this. Now I got to do that. I always say
00:04:49.520 sequencing equals success. And
00:04:52.000 thank you.
00:04:52.800 Yes. And we can look at life around us.
00:04:55.440 Like if I gave you a recipe to make a
00:04:57.840 cake and you took all the same
00:04:59.919 ingredients that the guy to your left
00:05:02.000 has and you follow the recipe backwards,
00:05:04.960 you won’t have a beautiful birthday
00:05:06.639 cake. You’ll have a pile of mush.
00:05:08.560 So the sequence you do something in is
00:05:11.520 actually the dictator of success. Not
00:05:14.720 did you do it?
00:05:15.919 It’s did you do it at the right time?
00:05:17.600 Did you do it with the right level of
00:05:18.960 effort? You know, one of my philosophies
00:05:20.560 this thing called vector leadership.
00:05:21.919 It’s called vector leisure because if
00:05:23.039 you know what a vector is, it’s a
00:05:24.240 direction and a magnitude of force.
00:05:27.120 So the idea with sequencing is
00:05:30.080 direction. What do we do? And then what
00:05:32.800 level of effort is appropriate based on
00:05:35.280 the size of the business.
00:05:36.479 Mhm.
00:05:36.800 And I find that’s like my favorite part
00:05:38.880 to argue. I like having those kind of
00:05:40.960 discussions.
00:05:41.840 It’s like do you have a strong opinion
00:05:43.360 on that? If so, what data did you look
00:05:45.199 at to come to that conclusion? Sell me
00:05:47.440 on it. And if you can’t, well, I think I
00:05:49.440 have a different perspective. Here’s the
00:05:50.880 way I look at it. And I feel like that
00:05:53.039 is the mental gymnastic that makes
00:05:56.160 entrepreneurship so much fun.
00:05:59.199 Dude, every person that’s won in life,
00:06:02.000 you ask them who is the person that
00:06:03.840 mentored you and they will say this
00:06:06.160 person. Everyone from Michael Jordan to
00:06:08.960 Bill Gates to whoever. A lot of my
00:06:11.759 mentors today started off as coaches.
00:06:14.000 How does having a mentor help you build
00:06:16.319 your dream life? because I turn to them
00:06:18.560 for the big decisions I got to make in
00:06:20.319 my life that I wouldn’t be able to ask
00:06:21.919 other people. Every time I start a
00:06:23.600 company, I make a list of essentially
00:06:25.840 100 people, people that have been there,
00:06:28.000 mentors. So like Martell Ventures, I
00:06:30.400 made a list of people. I talked to those
00:06:32.000 people. I went and visited their
00:06:34.080 operations. I asked them how their
00:06:36.080 economics work. And then there’s like
00:06:37.759 the adviserss, right? Like on the
00:06:39.440 finance or the legal side, people that
00:06:41.120 like live in that world that can give
00:06:43.600 advice. And then there’s the peers, the
00:06:45.680 people that are also inspired to create
00:06:48.160 something similar. They might be two or
00:06:50.319 three years ahead of them. I think those
00:06:51.680 are the most valuable because they’re
00:06:53.759 testing stuff while you’re testing stuff
00:06:55.840 and then you get to share notes.
00:07:00.080 I don’t know what’s happened. The last
00:07:01.919 12 months, your name never was brought
00:07:04.400 up 18 months ago at all. Now you’re
00:07:06.960 here. I’m like, whoa, good for him. So,
00:07:10.240 who do you follow? Danto. Danto. Danto.
00:07:12.639 Dan Mart. Danto. No, but this is good
00:07:15.039 for you to know that because our clients
00:07:18.240 are your audience and they’re consuming
00:07:21.039 your content. So, what book are you
00:07:22.960 reading? I’m reading D Martels. So,
00:07:24.800 that’s that’s happening. It’s kind of
00:07:26.639 crazy when I think about not even a year
00:07:28.560 ago, our first conversation of what
00:07:30.000 we’ve built at Martell Ventures and the
00:07:31.919 media stuff. So, you can look, we’re
00:07:33.599 we’re doing pretty good.
00:07:34.960 I know you’re doing pretty good.
00:07:36.160 You’re not doing
00:07:37.919 fire. You know, there’s very few people
00:07:40.080 in the world that dream like that and
00:07:42.160 that also execute. And I’m always trying
00:07:44.800 to learn from people that are 3, four,
00:07:47.039 five, 6 years ahead of me. I mean, Sam,
00:07:49.440 that’s what we got as a calibration.
00:07:51.039 It’s like, here’s what we were thinking.
00:07:52.800 We’ve never been there. You’ve been
00:07:54.479 there. What did you see when you got
00:07:56.479 there? Oh, good. We were thinking of it
00:07:58.400 that way. Didn’t consider that. Oh,
00:08:00.160 that’s a good thing. So, like, that’s
00:08:01.759 where people don’t understand when it
00:08:02.960 comes to coaching. Like, what’s the ROI?
00:08:05.199 I don’t know. What’s the cost of either
00:08:07.120 missing an opportunity that could have
00:08:08.479 made you 100 million, could have cost
00:08:10.240 you 15 million? The motivation, the
00:08:12.479 insights. I don’t know. It was I’m I’m a
00:08:14.879 big fan of being in proximity to people
00:08:19.759 that inspire me. I’m an easy cat, man.
00:08:22.319 I’ll do the work. Just point me in the
00:08:23.919 right direction. you know the reason we
00:08:26.240 came in the first place which is
00:08:27.680 business mastery Tony Robbins one of the
00:08:30.960 biggest events for entrepreneurs
00:08:33.679 and I am the AI guy
00:08:38.240 no pressure Jared you’re going on before
00:08:40.000 me and then Cohen I’m going to put you
00:08:41.679 on to close the deal okay
00:08:43.679 sounds good
00:08:44.880 no pressure
00:08:45.839 so what’s crazy is the way I got
00:08:49.120 introduced to Tony was supporting an X-P
00:08:51.519 prize with Peter Diamandis he did an X-
00:08:53.839 prize for education. I supported it.
00:08:55.920 Came with two tickets, Diego Destiny.
00:08:57.680 And it was CIS seating.
00:08:59.200 Yep.
00:08:59.760 CIS seating is chairman invited seats.
00:09:02.640 So I show up and the woman looks at me.
00:09:04.720 Oh, Mr. Martell, come with me. She’s
00:09:06.959 like, how do you know Tony? I said, oh,
00:09:08.560 I don’t know Tony. She’s like, hm, okay.
00:09:10.800 And I was like, I don’t I don’t want to
00:09:12.399 get in trouble. Like, I’m sorry. I don’t
00:09:13.760 like what happened. I didn’t I don’t Why
00:09:15.279 do you think I know Tony? And she’s
00:09:16.480 like, uh, well, you have CIS seats. And
00:09:18.160 I’m like, what’s that? She’s like,
00:09:19.440 that’s where Tony invites his friends to
00:09:21.680 participate in the event. and they walk
00:09:23.279 us right to the front. Yeah. So, I
00:09:25.040 started there and then then we did
00:09:26.800 business mastery cuz Renee bought
00:09:28.560 tickets to this event and is that 7
00:09:31.440 years ago? That’s where I wrote down the
00:09:33.440 goal at the end of this event to speak
00:09:35.040 on this stage.
00:09:36.480 Isn’t that wild? And this is my fifth
00:09:38.959 fifth time speaking here.
00:09:49.950 [Applause]
00:09:56.140 [Music]
00:10:02.720 [Music]
00:10:06.880 Brother,
00:10:09.610 [Music]
00:10:13.200 wild. I truly believe life’s about going
00:10:16.959 through the hurt, healing from the hurt,
00:10:19.920 and helping other people get through
00:10:21.360 their hurt.
00:10:21.920 You’re going to detention center, and
00:10:23.760 there’s inherent risk to like going too,
00:10:26.480 right?
00:10:27.120 There’s 100% inherent risk.
00:10:28.720 Why do you take that risk?
00:10:30.000 Like, while we’re there, essentially,
00:10:31.920 we’re under the care of the guards and
00:10:33.760 we don’t know what could happen. I mean,
00:10:35.120 there could be a riot, there could be a
00:10:36.800 situation. So that’s the math I do is
00:10:39.680 the upside potential of helping these
00:10:42.320 kids versus the downside potential of
00:10:45.200 something bad happen. I’ll take that
00:10:46.720 risk all day long.
00:10:47.680 Why is it so important to have stuff
00:10:49.200 like this make your trips to build your
00:10:51.519 dream business?
00:10:52.240 If you think of life as like a tapestry
00:10:54.720 of different experiences, if you just
00:10:57.760 work out all the time, that’s cool, but
00:10:59.680 it probably gets boring. If you just
00:11:01.279 work all the time, cool probably gets
00:11:03.440 annoying. And to me, it’s always about
00:11:04.959 like crafting and curating the
00:11:06.800 experience and like having a component
00:11:08.800 of your life that’s that’s 100% give
00:11:11.040 back to help other people. I think it
00:11:13.279 just adds to the color. It’s like full
00:11:15.200 spectrum. It’s like, you know, it’s like
00:11:17.440 4K.
00:11:19.440 Um, everybody has an ID.
00:11:21.360 Uh, no, but mine’s in the back. Luckily,
00:11:23.279 I brought my back.
00:11:23.839 Do I leave everything in the car now?
00:11:25.600 Yeah.
00:11:29.200 All right. We’re just coming back from
00:11:30.640 the detention center. That was uh
00:11:34.000 that was my favorite one.
00:11:35.600 Yeah.
00:11:36.000 Oh, yeah.
00:11:37.680 Oh, yeah.
00:11:43.519 Cuz I know I got through.
00:11:51.360 It’s really cool. It’s cool is what it
00:11:53.680 is. You got to understand there’s a lot
00:11:55.839 of like there’s a lot of fear in asking
00:11:58.079 certain questions. There’s a lot of fear
00:11:59.600 in acknowledging the speaker. There’s,
00:12:01.760 you know what I mean? because they they
00:12:03.920 then have to go back and have to deal
00:12:05.600 with what the other kids are going to
00:12:06.800 say. So there’s a lot of like mass.
00:12:09.519 So when I see them like being willing to
00:12:12.160 put themselves out there and ask
00:12:13.760 questions that they might be made fun of
00:12:16.240 later, you know, it’s pretty cool. Yeah,
00:12:19.440 that was really special. I love that you
00:12:21.680 guys were there.
00:12:22.480 Yeah. Thanks.
00:12:23.120 I really enjoyed that, man. That was
00:12:24.639 nice.
00:12:25.360 Yeah.
00:12:28.480 Wait. Okay. 3 2 1
00:12:33.920 If you’re blessed to get to a place
00:12:36.880 where you feel like you’ve achieved
00:12:38.959 something, I personally believe it’s
00:12:42.720 your responsibility to light the path
00:12:45.120 for other people. Does that make sense?
00:12:47.920 Hurt we all go through. Remember I said
00:12:50.320 pain, it’s inevitable. Nobody gets out
00:12:52.720 alive. Then we heal. We go on the
00:12:54.959 journey. We figure it out. We process
00:12:56.800 it. We get through it. We get better. We
00:12:58.800 have success. We heal. The last part to
00:13:01.040 close the loop is help. If you don’t use
00:13:03.519 the hurt that you went through to learn
00:13:06.079 how to heal, to help other people, you
00:13:08.959 did not complete the process. You will
00:13:13.040 integrate and really truly learn things.
00:13:16.079 If you take every pain you ever go
00:13:18.160 through to learn how to get through it
00:13:19.680 and share it with other people, your
00:13:21.760 mess that you’re ashamed of, that you
00:13:23.760 hope nobody finds out about, can become
00:13:25.760 your message. If you do that, you will
00:13:28.800 build a dream life.
00:13:31.519 How is these last four days an example
00:13:33.440 of your dream life?
00:13:34.720 I can only summarize it this way. If
00:13:37.360 everybody thinks it’s work and it feels
00:13:40.320 like play, that’s your dream life.
00:13:43.040 There’s no part of my life, the people
00:13:45.360 I’m hanging out with, being on stage,
00:13:48.399 you can literally do it.
00:13:51.200 Everybody, I’m not special. I just made
00:13:54.000 a decision. Make the decision. It’s
00:13:56.399 possible. It’s possible.