Gallant Dill is an award winning serial entrepreneur and is sought after for his marketing and business experience.
Gallant is an advisor/consultant to hundreds of business owners ranging from startups to multi-million dollar conglomerates.
By the time he was 23, he had placed dozens of products into retail stores around the globe.
He has been in 30 under 30 three separate times and has grown some of the world’s largest entrepreneur communities on Facebook.
Not only does Gallant have over 5,000 entrepreneurs in his training programs, but he has donated millions in free trainings to business owners in need.
Find out more about Gallant at:
Looking to grow a real estate empire but don’t know where to start? Pick up a copy of Money, People, Deal by Stefan Aarnio for only $3.95 at www.moneypeopledeal.com/podcast.
To get exclusive podcast listener only offers for the 100K Challenge (like a free hotel room for the event), email Devin Savage at DSavage@StefanAarnio.com.
To learn more about the 100K Challenge visit www.stefanaarniolive.com.
Stefan Aarnio: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the show Respect the Grind with Stefan Aarnio. This is the show where we interview people who’ve achieved mastery and freedom through discipline. We interview entrepreneurs, athletes, authors, artists, real estate investors. Anyone who’s achieved mastery and [inaudible 00:00:31] what it took to get there.
Stefan Aarnio: Today on the show we have a friend of mine, Gallant Dill, he’s from Austin Texas. He is well known for agencytools.com. He’s a business coach and mentor to hundreds and thousands of people, and he’s the mentor at gallantdill.com.
Stefan Aarnio: Gallant, welcome to the show Respect the Grind. Thanks so much for joining me.
Gallant Dill: Hey man, thank you guys for having me. I’m excited to drop some gold nuggets for everyone today.
Stefan Aarnio: Yeah, bro, yeah. It’s going to be a great show. Now, Gallant, for the people at home, in your own words, who are you, how did you get started with what you’re doing.
Gallant Dill: I’m just a kid with a dream. One of those guys that was the underdog from the day I was born and so just somebody who keeps defeating all odds and proving all the haters wrong. I’m sure a lot of people listening have been doubted and stepped on and just overall painful steps to the top. I’m that guy who’s just jumped through it, as hard it’s happened.
Gallant Dill: I’ll tell you a little bit about my story so you guys get a better feeling of who I am. I’m a high school dropout, one of these real high school dropouts. I know it’s kind of cool for a lot of people online to make that claim, but I’m having about five high school credits before I exited my high school days.
Gallant Dill: I started my first business though when I was 17 years old out here on Lake Travis here in Austin. There was a drought and people’s docks weren’t being cranked so they wanted to stay on the water. If the water levels keep dropping, what happens is your dock where you house your boat ends up being on the side of the lake, and no millionaire wants to come out to his two million dollar house where his boat, you can’t even use it. I came up with the idea, why don’t I go every day and crank these people’s docks for a monthly fee and I’ll charge them extra to clean their boats and make sure everything’s set up.
Gallant Dill: That was the first time I had a taste of money. At one time I was making upwards of a $1,000 a day. Imagine being 17 years old making $1,000 a day. But, that was what I call luck, because 90% of the time when you’re an entrepreneur, you sell 100 times before you ever make money. I almost felt like that was a curse because now I approached everything with too much of an open mind, versus being all skeptical.
Gallant Dill: I started investing in doing other businesses models and they all would fail and I’d be like, “What’s going on? Why isn’t this working? This is horrible. This is bad luck.” When, really, it’s normal to fail. You will never have real success until you’ve experienced failure and failure doesn’t even exist, that’s a man made word. If you learn you don’t fail and I’m going to tell you guys how I’ve made myself rich off my failures, coming up when I finish my story.
Gallant Dill: At 19 years old I started … The other thing I finally [inaudible 00:02:59] some money with was, I was living downtown on 6th Street. I was way too young to be living downtown on 6th Street here in Austin Texas, but I was. This is before phone apps, this is before Airbnb.
Gallant Dill: What I decided to do was like, how are these rich people going to go to ACL? How are they going to go to South by Southwest? There’s not that many hotels and they’re booked out years in advance. Why don’t I rent out my condo that I’m living at for $1,000, $2,000 a night and post it up on Craigslist and see what happens? People from all over the world are reaching out ready to pay that.
Gallant Dill: So, I came with the bright idea, “Why don’t I reach out and tell the people on my floor that I’ll pay the rent if I can have their place for a week. So, I started renting out everyone’s condo and nobody knew what I was doing, but I was making all this money. That was the second time I ran into some money.
Gallant Dill: Along the way, guys, I failed every other day. I tried hustling, I tried selling drugs, I tried doing everything and it was like a rollercoaster. I’d go up one month, make some money, go back down and just keep losing.
Gallant Dill: Until I hit about 21 years old, I started an energy pill company called Moll3 Energy. This is when everything in my life really got serious. I truly wanted to build a real company. I wanted to be respected. I didn’t want to be that guy who’s inconsistent, who has money one week, the next week he’s broke, I wanted to have something tangible.
Gallant Dill: During the time, EDM, Molly, all these big party scene things were happening. So I was like, “Why don’t I create an energy pill that is safe that can replace those night drugs that everybody’s on these days.” I said, “I’ll market it, I’ve been in the music for a while, I know how to do this thing.”
Gallant Dill: So, I created my own formula. I started getting all the ingredients offline. It was all legal and safe and then I decided to sell it. Right out the gate, man, I had a lot of people interested. It was a purple and black pill, it was really cool [inaudible 00:04:39]. Because I live downtown, so I’d [inaudible 00:04:40] all my friends all over the place. I just grew a massive following.
Gallant Dill: It started becoming a legitimate business, right? I started getting stores that are interested, at the Placeit, smoke shops, gas stations and then finally one day I had a knock from Circle K. Circle K is a huge gas station chain here in United States. They wanted to put me in 500 stores. I didn’t have that kind of order or that kind of money to fill that order, it was a two million dollar purchase order.
Gallant Dill: What happened was, I started looking for investors and some guy I met, I liked him, I looked up to him, he was a very successful guy, said he would invest. So I went ahead and placed the order with everything I had left. Well, he pulled out at the last minute.
Stefan Aarnio: Oh, no.
Gallant Dill: Overnight I got this company that’s in front of every single person I know. All the doubters, the haters and I’m bankrupt. I’m toast, I have zero dollars, I can’t finish filling this order, I got rent coming up, I was done. I wanted to give up, man. I was about 22 at the time and I was just super depressed because it was like, “Man, I gave this my all.” At the time I thought I gave it my all. Obviously now I look back there’s so many things I could have done differently.
Gallant Dill: So, I failed miserably, but what I realized then is that the journey wasn’t over. I wanted to quit, I actually went and applied for a job here in town for $2,500 a month because I was doomed, I was short on rent. Nobody wanted to invest me, I was the loser everyone was right about.
Gallant Dill: The night before I went into that job is when everything clicked in my mind. I was in the bathroom crying, literally, like, “Wow, dude. What about the Ferrari dreams? What about that big house you wanted? All that, it’s gone. You’re going to go make $2,500 a month working from someone else. Everyone was right about you.” And I remember saying, “I’m not giving up, I’m not quitting.”
Gallant Dill: I went in to my girlfriend’s, I went to her, I said, “Hey, if I can find business before work tomorrow, can I still be an entrepreneur?” She was jokingly like, “Yeah, sure, I don’t see how that’s possible.”
Gallant Dill: Well, what I thought was, well, I just learned so much about business and marketing from starting my energy pill company and all the stuff I’d done prior, there has to be a start up here in Austin, Texas that could use some of these skill sets. I got on Craigslist and I reached out to every single business I could find on there, offering my assistance, showing my work that I had just done with the Moll3 and the next day I actually landed a client for $1,500 a month.
Gallant Dill: That was the day I knew I’d never struggle again because I realized that once you have a strong skill set there’s millions of businesses out there that will pay you for it if you could package it up the right way.
Gallant Dill: So, I went and I started scaling up my little [inaudible 00:07:06]. I started helping products get in the stores, I started helping them sell better on Amazon and overnight, pretty much, it started growing really quickly.
Gallant Dill: I’ll tell you the key factors on how I scaled this business without having a website or having any money for marketing. When I was doing the Moll3 thing, I was at the Post Office every single day sending off energy pills. I was like, there’s millions of business owners that go in the Post Office every day. I need to just go to the Post Office and talk to the lady up front, who’s my friend now because I’d been there so much, see if she wouldn’t want to help me or be a reference or a referral for me.
Gallant Dill: I told her to meet me for coffee. I walked in there, I said, “Listen, I want to meet with you, it’s something about business, I want to talk to you.” She met me for coffee and I said, “Listen, if you can bring anyone of these business owners for marketing help or needs a new website, I’ll give you a $100.” She was making $13 at the time, so she was excited. She’s like, “Gal, there’s business owners that walk into the Post Office every single day.” So, she started referring business left and right and I called up and someone I had worked with during the Moll3 days, they worked with a lot of other products and I said, “Listen, I will be a reference. I will help you close any new business if you can bring me some of the people you don’t close that I can work with.”
Gallant Dill: So, just from those two referral partners I scaled to $20,000, $30,000 a month as a consultant. Actually didn’t even have a website at the time. My only reason I ever made one was because I was meeting with the board of the company after three months being on retainer with them and they wanted to look me up and show all the partners. So, I got on the [inaudible 00:08:31] and built one.
Gallant Dill: What’s crazy though is, I struggled for two years and at the time I did not see the light at the end of the tunnel and two years later, I’m making all the money in the world, it felt like, from the failure and the experiences, everything I had struggled with.
Gallant Dill: So I took all that money and I started investing in my own brand, in my own self because I had automated. I was getting products in store, I hired a team and now I’m like, “You know what? I’ve got money [inaudible 00:08:57], let’s start building something away from that. If I invest in myself I will never have to worry about money again.”
Gallant Dill: I was also kind of lonely. When you’re 22, 23 years old and you’re making $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 a month, there’s not a lot of people like that. People are thinking you’re lucky, you’re crazy, you’re a scammer, whatever. So, I got on Facebook and I said, you know what? I’m going to create a Facebook group, and I thought about it.
Gallant Dill: I was in one that was all business and I would post in there, I already get hundreds of likes on my statuses. But one day the owner kicks me out. He said, “Dude, you’re trying to sell MLM.” That was his excuse, I was like, “No, dude. I’m dropping a real legitimate business advice.” He’s like, “Well, we don’t want you in there.” It was because I was getting the shine, right? He had built this community, I was posting, I was getting more love than him, so he kicked me the hell out.
Gallant Dill: That’s when it lit a fire under my butt and I was like, you know what? I’m going to build my own group and this is going to be the biggest one on Facebook. So, I started building, man. I started the Entrepreneurial Lifestyle Group, in the first year we grew to 50,000 members. I didn’t go into the online scene to make money, right? I didn’t know about Tai Lopez and all these guys. I didn’t know people sold courses, I didn’t think people would buy into that because I always thought it was a scam.
Gallant Dill: One day I talked to some guy who had been in the game a little longer than me. He said, “Gallant, how much are you making off your Facebook group?” And I said, “None.” He’s like, “Dude, if you’re not making at least $50,000 a month from your audience, you’re an idiot.”I really thought about that, I was like, “What do you mean?” He’s like, “Bro, sell them a service, sell them something you’ve learned over the last few years. Create a course, write a book, mentor, do your thing.”
Gallant Dill: I started poking around and creating some objects and ideas on how to grow a Facebook group, how to start a consulting business and I started making a lot of money doing that. It went from $40,000 a month as a consultant at In Store Connection, the company that place products, to making over $40,000 a month just from coaching and mentoring.
Gallant Dill: Then, by the time I was 26, I was getting upwards of a $100,000 a month from just mentoring and business consulting and coaching. It’s crazy because from all the money I’ve made and all the connections I’ve landed from online, I’d been able to start dozens of dozens of other companies and investments. It’s been a wild ride and it sound like, oh, it happened overnight, but it didn’t, guys. It was, literally, you think you made it and then one month something bad would happen, you’d be back to square one.
Gallant Dill: I would lose company after company, I’d have a bad business partnership, a bad customer, bad relationship and anything can change. In the last year I had to fight these hackers that came for me and started writing bad reviews on every company I owned and that was a whole new battle because it was a battle I couldn’t even see. I didn’t who it was coming from, I didn’t know why, but I’ve learned that if you want to be successful, you have to become a great problem solver and you have to be able to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
Gallant Dill: Because every day I go into a new battle and there’s a new problem and I’m uncomfortable, but I realize I have to get used to that. I see a lot of people, as soon as things get a little trickier, they don’t understand it, they walk away, they slow down their momentum. That’s when you have to kick it up 10 notches. You can’t slow down your momentum at all.
Gallant Dill: It’s just been a constant battle, but at the same time everything bad that happens to me, I learn from, I get to eventually teach and make money from. Everything negative in your life that’s happening to you now, it’s for a reason. I promise you, it’s going to have a positive outcome. It might take a little bit of time, you might not see why now, but everything happens for a reason. If it wouldn’t have been for all those fake reviews and that hacking that had happened, I would have never created my software that I have a $50 million buyout opportunity on.
Gallant Dill: So, stop looking at everything like, “Why me? Why Me?” Reach out to the universe and say, “Try me. Try me.”
Stefan Aarnio: I’m giving that a gong.
Gallant Dill: Yeah, yeah. We’re just getting started, man. It takes a few minutes to warm up, right?
Stefan Aarnio: Yeah, bro. We’re just warming up the gong, man. We’re warming it up.
Gallant Dill: Yeah. But that’s the thing, is too many people feel like they’re owed something. Too many people feel like they have bad luck. Listen, there’s no such thing as luck. There’s no such thing as being owed anything. You got to go and get it.
Gallant Dill: Success is a game of hide-and-go-seek and you’re always it. So when you look under a bed, or you go into this room or this investment and you don’t find what you’re looking for, you just keep going. You don’t say it’s not meant to be. Everyone that I meet thinks that if it doesn’t come naturally, then it’s not for them. Like, dude, name one thing in your life that came naturally overnight? When you went to ride a bike, could you just get on a bike and ride? No. When you tried to learn how to write, could you write? No. When you tried to learn how to … So why are you giving the hardest thing of all, which is success, saying if it’s not easy it’s not meant to be? That’s stupid. Nothing comes easy and anyone who says it comes easy, is full of shit.
Gallant Dill: Just because you go and have a good month, one month in the beginning, doesn’t mean you’ve made it. People think this idea, “Oh, I made it.” You’re just getting started. People get dollar signs and confuse what success looks like, it’s all BS. Success, to me, and to anyone listening, is how you feel and having that freedom. Money doesn’t buy success, but it buys you the tools to create success.
Gallant Dill: When I’m free and happy and I’m able to do whatever I want, when I want, that’s what I think is success. It doesn’t matter how many millions I got in the bank or if I have $10 in the bank, I would rather die the happiest person, than the richest person. If that makes sense. A lot of people get those things confused.
Gallant Dill: It’s happened to me. When I first chased money instead of freedom, I wasn’t happy. I remember when I moved into my high-rise. I was making the money, I was in the paper, I’m this young entrepreneur everyone wants to be and I was still miserable because I had bought in a dream that I could buy happiness, when really I was miserable.
Gallant Dill: So, I had to reset my mind and say, “You know what? I need to figure out what makes me happy,” and helping others and inspiring others is a really satisfying way to live my life. Back then I was just focusing on making money for myself, but now it’s to make a change that will make the world a better place.
Gallant Dill: What are we here for? Just to get rich, eat sushi every night? It gets old after a while. I’ve done it, I’ve had the McLarens, I’d done that. But now I need purpose. If you want to find happiness, you want to find success, create a business, create an idea that’s around a purpose and something you enjoy, so you never feel like you have to work again. When you do something you don’t enjoy, that’s a job. When you’re successful you don’t have a job, you wake up and do what you want, when you want and you do what you enjoy.
Stefan Aarnio: I love it.
Stefan Aarnio: Now, Gal, let me ask you this. You said a lot of stuff there, man. There’s a lot of nuggets, a lot of gold. You were talking about how success goes up, success goes down. Let me ask you this, do you think that success changed you or do you think you had to change to become successful?
Gallant Dill: That’s a great question, really great question. So, listen, every level of your life will require a new and improved version of you. You have to constantly be leveling up in order to level up. When you’re stagnant, I called it a cul-de-sac effect, where you’re just going in circles. It’s because you’re not ready to take that leap, you’re not ready to level up.
Gallant Dill: Meaning, there’s things that you’re holding on to that you need to let it go of in order to succeed or to level up. Meaning, the way you handle a problem, the way you act or react when something happens, or how you spend your time. These are different patterns that you have to constantly change to in order to keep moving forward.
Gallant Dill: Every year, it requires a new version of Gallant. I have to keep getting better. It might be for my health, it might be for my mental health, it might be my routines, how much I’m reading, how much I’m learning, how much I’m giving back. But every level requires an improvement on your part.
Gallant Dill: You’re not going to just run into success over and over again. You have to be ready, you have to work for it, you have to be prepared. When I meet people that are like, “Dude, I’ve been making the same thing for six months.” I’m like, “What have you done?” “Well, nothing.” I’m like, “Well, if you want change, it’s going to require some change and if you want to win, you’re going to have to make some sacrifices.”
Gallant Dill: We all have the same 24 hours. The people that are rich are more productive with their time and they see the ones that have made it and they’re like, “Well, he’s on a yacht all day.” Well, you should see what he used his time with prior, right?
Gallant Dill: I’ll give an example. For me, I don’t watch football, I don’t watch sports, I don’t go into the bar and hang out with a bunch of fake friends. I read and study on the weekend. As you can see in this video chat, I have a library. I literally have a freaking library in my house and the more that I learn, the more that I will earn. But before I could break $20,000 a month, I didn’t read, I didn’t study, I didn’t give up those routines or those habits.
Gallant Dill: So, the Gallant who can make a $100,000 a month has a completely different life cycle in goals and ambition and hustle and routines than the guy who was stuck at 20. Some people are afraid to change, some people are not willing to make that sacrifice and that’s why they will not grow.
Stefan Aarnio: Okay, got question for you, Gallant. This is like, we’re getting juicy now, bro, this is juicy. I’m training sales people all the time and I always meet the guy who’s like, “Bro, I wanna make $100 grand.” A young guy comes in, “I wanna make $100 grand.” Magical number in his brain, you probably heard that before.
Gallant Dill: Oh, yeah.
Stefan Aarnio: And I say, “What’d you make last year?” “$40 grand.”
Stefan Aarnio: “What’d you make the year before?” “$40 grand.”
Stefan Aarnio: “What’d you make the year before?” “$40 grand.” “Okay, fine.”
Stefan Aarnio: So you put the guy out there in the field. You make him sell or do whatever. He gets to $40,000 by March or by April. Stops working, stops doing everything. What is it that keeps some people at that $40,000 forever whereas guys like Gallant Dill’s hungry, guys like Stefan Aarnio are hungry, guys like Luke behind the camera here filming this is hungry. How do you get hungry, guys?
Gallant Dill: Because he never knew what he wanted. When you don’t know what you want, you’re not motivated. So, I follow a three tier system. What you want, why you want it and how you’re going to get it?
Gallant Dill: So, tell me what you want. Tell me what you want. $100 grand a month? Okay, why do you want it? If you don’t have a strong enough why, whenever shit gets going good or slows down or gets rough, you’re not going to continue because you don’t even know why you started. But when you know your why clear as day, you’re never going to slow down. You’re not going to let the barrier stop, you’re not going to let the BS hit you in the face and stop you from moving forward because you have a strong enough why.
Gallant Dill: Then you got to know the last part and this is where a lot of entrepreneurs fail, is they don’t have a how to. So, my goal right now is, I want to make $15 million. So I have to go and create the software, I have to get X amount of users. Why do I want $15 million? Well, Gallant wants a new house, Gallant wants another Ferrari, Gallant wants this … [inaudible 00:19:40], I have a strong why. It’s a list on my white board in front of me so I never forget. I see it every day when I work, I know exactly why and what it is I’m doing, and now I break it down, how I’m going to do it, right?
Stefan Aarnio: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Gallant Dill: Example, I need 25,000 users in order to get to that $15 million mark, so I’m going to create Facebook ads, I’m going to do marketing, I’m going to do Google Ads, I’m going to do SCO, I’m going to do affiliate partnerships, I’m going to do Facebook posts.
Gallant Dill: So, I build out a system that’s clear as day so I can take it one step at a time like a staircase. Too many people try to knock out the whole staircase at once. You ever run up the stairs as a kid and you jump and you try to get three stairs in front of your little brother or sister and you slip and you fall backwards. That’s what it’s like when you don’t take each step at a time. So, I break down how I’m going to do it one step at a time, but I always know my why.
Gallant Dill: If you’re tired of giving up and quitting, you just didn’t want it badly enough. You don’t even know why you started. I promise though, if you can put up that you’re going to buy your grandma a new house, you’re going to pay off your son’s student loans, you’re going to buy a new car, once your why’s outweigh the reasons of wanting to quit, you’ll never quit again.
Gallant Dill: I never quit, I never have a problem with finishing something because I make sure that before I even do it, that I have a strong enough why that’s going to keep me going when I have to eat shit.
Stefan Aarnio: Mm-hmm (affirmative). A man with a strong enough why can bear any how. I think that’s [inaudible 00:20:56], man. I love that.
Stefan Aarnio: Let me ask this, Gal, you’re a pretty creative guy and I love the creativity. Robert Greene, he wrote 48 Laws of Power, he wrote Mastery, he wrote 33 Stratagems of War. He says mastery is a brand of creativity and discipline, do you think that creativity is more important today or do you think discipline’s more important?
Gallant Dill: I don’t think either of them are that important, I think drive is the only thing that’s important, is being able to want it. I know plenty of smart, creative guys. I know plenty of guys that have discipline that aren’t going anywhere because they’re not driven.
Gallant Dill: You could be the smartest person in the world but you’re not going to beat me because I’m more driven than you. You don’t have to be the best basketball player to put up the most points. You don’t have to, you just have to be the most driven. I don’t think Mark Cuban is smarter than most people, but I think he has more drive and his routines say so.
Gallant Dill: I would personally be more about discipline, but for me, I think you need to continue to embrace and enhance your skill sets. Even the things that I’m not good at, I’ll buy 20 books on and practice until I become, but to me the most important is the drive, is just the willingness to show up. Like I was saying, I met so many great people, I’m like, “Damn, this guy’s smarter than me,” but he doesn’t show up. He shows up late, he doesn’t show up at all. Me, I show 15 minutes early and stay two hours late so I can make sure it gets done. So, if you want to be successful, 90% of the success is just showing up.
Stefan Aarnio: I love that. I’m going to give that a gong. I’m giving that a gong, that’s money. Now Gallant, let me ask you this, a lot of really successful people have an obsession and I always like to ask people on my show. What is Gallant Dill’s obsession? What is it the thing that you’re thinking about all the time, you go to bed you’re thinking about it, you wake up in the morning you’re thinking about it. What is Gallant Dill’s obsession?
Gallant Dill: That’s a great question. You keep asking some of the greatest questions.
Stefan Aarnio: This show is money, man. I’m telling you, you’re on the money show.
Gallant Dill: I want to be a legend. I want to be someone that’s remembered and well respected. I want to be able to say when I’m on my dying bed that I did everything I ever wanted to do. I never want to have that feeling of regret that I didn’t do enough. It’s very hard for me to go to bed at night because I’m so driven and I have so many goals. I just don’t want to take off, I’m so close, I get closer every single day.
Gallant Dill: My biggest goal and what is my wine? What do I want to be remembered for, is being great in doing the most and making the most of my life. People don’t realize how abundant opportunity is. It’s almost as abundant as oxygen. The reason why so many people are broke and don’t realize that is because they lack the drive and they lack the wrong information.
Gallant Dill: So many people are putting into their mind what they read on Facebook, what they hear their family or friends saying and they just never go anywhere. I want to be remembered as the guy that put out the best information and did everything I said I was going to do. I don’t want to be one of these talkers, I don’t want to be one of these coaches or entrepreneurs Facebook ad guys. That’s why I created my software, so I can be up there with Jeff Bezos.
Gallant Dill: I want to be legendary and I want to prove that with the small amount of time in life that I get, that I could do something great with it. So, maybe it will inspire others who come from the same background, divorced, high school dropout, drug dealers, were given up on by society, criminal backgrounds, to turn around and changing the world. So, that’s my why and that’s what keeps me going and that’s where I want to be.
Stefan Aarnio: I love what you said, that you want to be the most well known, it’s iconic. It’s the pinnacle of leadership, where one day you die and your work outlives you. Would you say that’s what it is?
Gallant Dill: Absolutely, absolutely. I don’t want to be average, that scares the shit out of me. Every night when I go to bed I’m scared that I don’t have enough money, I’m scared that if I died right now I wouldn’t be up to where I wanted to be. I don’t ask God for anything. The only thing I ask Him for is to give me another day. That’s all I pray for. I don’t ask for good health, I don’t ask for more money, I don’t ask for opportunity. I know it’s out there and I’m going to go create, I ask for more time. My time is my most valuable asset that I carry. It’s priceless and people need to stop living like they have nine lives.
Stefan Aarnio: Gal, that’s money. We’re getting a gong. Another gong for Gallant. It’s a three gong show already, man. [inaudible 00:25:10].
Gallant Dill: No, but anyways. I’m just saying to you that your time cannot be wasted. Your time is all you really have. So, when you’re hanging out loser friends, you’re watching football and people that don’t give two shits about you, you’re really letting yourself and your time go to waste. So every night I read, I read from six different books, a chapter out of each one, I walk for an hour, hour and a half, I listen to audio books and podcasts. When I’m not working during the day, I have another screen going with more information courses and I’m virtually printing money now because I make money almost every single day and the smarter I get, the easier it comes.
Gallant Dill: I think in abundance. The reason why so many people are poor is because we think in such a limited mindset. Money is everywhere, opportunity is everywhere, blessings are everywhere. Listen, if your listening to this right now, then you have just as much opportunity as me. You have internet, that’s all it took. I was a high school dropout, guys. I could barely read, I could pull up an old email that I remember sending to my parents and I could barely type an email.
Gallant Dill: But I changed, I practiced, I hustled, I got up, I cried, I ate shit, I missed bills. I believed in myself no matter what was thrown my way because I refused to give up and now I’m benefiting from it. My family’s benefiting from it and the people around me are benefiting from me. So it was the best decision. When you give up you play yourself.
Stefan Aarnio: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I love it. Now let me ask you this, Gallant. What’s one moment where you thought you were going to fail and it was all going to be over?
Gallant Dill: Every day. No, I’m just kidding. There’s been so many times, dude. Oh, man, when I lost my energy pill company because the investor flaked out, it was very hard for me, dude. I had a lot of people counting on me and I had a lot of people to prove wrong and I felt like I let down everyone and it was very tough. But one time I had my product placement company and I had a partner, who was just a horrible partner to work with who just always talked big game but never showed the results well.
Gallant Dill: In order to get rid of that partner I had to give them all the clients we had in the current company, so they’d walk away amicably. So, she walked away. I didn’t know that she had started a fire with a previous client that she had brought in. I then, after letting go of all my business, I had this company that was starting over from zero, I had to face a lawsuit and I didn’t end up getting sued, I settled out of court but it was a lot of money I didn’t have and for something I didn’t do.
Gallant Dill: So, it was very hard for me to accept everything that had happened because I felt like I had no control over the situation. I hadn’t done anything wrong. Instead of looking at it at that point, right now, I looked at everything I did do wrong. I worked, I needed not partner with certain people, I needed to do real vetting. Also, I needed to make sure my contracts are iron clad so I don’t ever risk that again because they didn’t really have anything on us. They were just one of those looking for a mistake and obviously a new company from a new entrepreneur, you’re going to make mistakes.
Gallant Dill: So, it really showed me to clean up my act and to over-deliver no matter who I work with so I never have to face that problem, or those problems again. In the end, all the stuff that happened to me where I thought I was going to lose everything and I was at zero, ended up being the greatest lessons I’d ever learned. So, I’m excited, I love when those happen because they make me stronger, they make me wiser, they make me braver and so I welcome those types of challenges. But the further you go down the rabbit hole, the more educated you get, so the less they happen.
Gallant Dill: In the beginning of my entrepreneur years, problem, problem, problem, problem. Every single day there was a fire I had to put out, but as I went down the rabbit hole I just got better and the problems just slowly, slowly go away. But the problems do get bigger, right, so the stuff that hits me now, I probably couldn’t have handled at a younger stage of being an entrepreneur.
Gallant Dill: So, everyone listening, you’re not ready for that great success. You’re letting small shit slow you down, so imagine big shit hitting you that you’ve never experienced. So, everything that had happened to me previously was really just getting me prepared for the level I play on now. I love it and remember, I get paid to tell people what not to do and how to overcome these obstacles. In the end it was a double win for me. It made me stronger and [inaudible 00:29:11].
Stefan Aarnio: That’s good, that’s good. Gal, what do you think causes other people to fail? We talked about people not being hungry, but people going into business they want to do a-
Gallant Dill: Lack of drive and the lack of right information. When I look at every time I failed in my business and life, it was because I wasn’t properly educated. I jumped in too soon. I had no idea what I was really doing and I was trying to go with the flow and that was just the wrong way.
Gallant Dill: Now I like to go in prepared and understanding everything and with drive. If you’re just half-ass a business idea, you’re not going to get very far. You got to understand your, what you want, why you want it, how you’re going to get it. You have to be educated and well versed so you have to work backwards.
Gallant Dill: If you want to start a business and you don’t know why and you don’t know what you’re going to do with it and what the goals are, it’s going to be just, you wake up every day, confused and in a cul-de-sac. With me, everything that I do, I plan it out five years in advance. This is how I’m going to exec, this is who I’m going to sell it to, this is how I’m going to market it. It’s like a tutorial that I’m following along so there’s no confusion.
Gallant Dill: When people don’t have that kind of guidance or that map planned out, it’s very hard for them to understand what to do next. So, they fail because they don’t know what do to, they don’t know of they need more money, they don’t know if they need to partner up because they haven’t built it out.
Gallant Dill: For me, I build out the most detailed plan like it’s already existing. I write down how I could fail, where I’m going to run into problems, where I’m lacking, how I’m going to fix it. I literally just build out this entire spiderweb of success and issues and so, whenever I get to that point I’m ready with plan B, C and D. So it’s not, “Oh, I don’t know what to do because I had planned for this.” I always play devil’s advocate for anything I invest in or do. I always have a solution for that before it happens.
Gallant Dill: 90% of the time mostly issues that I thought were going to occur, never even come up. A lot of times people are scared that those issues are going to come up so they never even start. When I mentor people and these young entrepreneurs, they come to me and they’re like, “What if this happens?” I’m like, “Dude. Who even thinks about that? That’s never going to happen.” They create these invisible barriers that don’t even exist. I always call it the Pennywise effect. In the movie IT, these kids, the more they believe in IT the bigger IT became, when in reality IT didn’t exist. That’s like a lot of the people that are listening. The reasons that you’re saying that are holding you back, they don’t even exist.
Stefan Aarnio: That’s a gong. That’s a gong right there, Gallant.
Gallant Dill: Yeah. I talk to people, I’m like, “Why did you …” “Oh, this and this.” I’m like, “Dude, come on, that’s it?. That’s why you didn’t start? So, when your parents or your kids are going to ask you why you suck at life, you’re going to say, ‘Well, I didn’t have a car,’ ‘I didn’t know how to use Facebook ads.'” You’re going to let something that takes 45 minutes to figure out stop you from greatness and achieving massive success. It’s crazy.
Gallant Dill: I hear the craziest excuses every day of my life that has my jaw to the floor. Like, on my 26th birthday when I bought myself a Spider McLaren, I wish I could’ve looked in the mirror and say, “Oh, Gallant, this didn’t happen because you let those little barriers stop you from it.”
Gallant Dill: I’m telling you, guys, when you look back and you think about all the things you were scared of, you’re like “Wow. What, was I stupid? Wow, that didn’t even exist. Wow, that never even happened. I’m glad I kept going.” It’s okay to be scared. Get comfortable being uncomfortable if you truly want to succeed. It’s all part of the process. If you think that you’re going to strike a home run every swing, you’re an idiot. Babe Ruth was one of the best baseball players of all time, he struck out just as many home runs as he hit.
Gallant Dill: If you read any successful person out of any book you’ve ever read, they all failed, they all faced hardship. Not one person was like, “I touched this, turned to gold. Touched this, it turned to money.” It’s unrealistic. Read the Tribe of Mentors, in every story it starts off with hardship. From every one of those successful people. Once I saw all the pattern of failure and hardship, I stopped feeling sorry for myself. This is supposed to happen.
Gallant Dill: When things are going too good in my business, I’m like, “Okay. This isn’t right. I’m ready for it. Don’t trick me because I know something bad is going to happen.” It happens, so I wake up with the attitude that I’m ready to hit whatever is thrown my way and I’m not going to create a barrier by any means, because there’s no such thing.
Gallant Dill: The issues in your life you can solve, probably with a quick Google search. You could solve, probably, with a book or solve, probably, with a mentor. Stop letting things that don’t exist create a lifestyle that can exist. Stop letting it happen, it’s bullshit.
Stefan Aarnio: I love what you said about the tribe of mentors. On this show we’ve had so many people, Gallant, with massive success. They’re doing companies, $20 million, $100 million, big, big companies. What I noticed is, the people that go down deeper into failure, the deeper they go the higher they climb.
Stefan Aarnio: I love what you said, don’t be afraid of it, it’s going to happen, and the lower you go, the bigger you’re going to jump up.
Stefan Aarnio: Now, if you can go back to yourself and talk to Gallant Dill at age 15, 16, what’s a piece of advice you’d give to yourself?
Gallant Dill: Stop chasing girls, man. Other than invest in Amazon or Bitcoin, I would probably just tell myself to … I’ll be honest, man. I think everything happens for a reason. I wouldn’t change a damn thing because it got me to where I’m at today and I was so independent back then and I was doing my thing and being a fool. If I wouldn’t have done that, who knows, I might have not gotten it out of my system.
Gallant Dill: So, I’m very thankful I got to grow up quicker and I’m very thankful I ran into the trouble and those issues at such a young age, so by the time I was 25, I was past all that. I see my friends doing stuff that I was doing when I was 15 or 17. Really man, I wouldn’t even tell myself anything because everything happens for a reason and I learned so much during those days that got me to where I’m at today.
Gallant Dill: A lot of people spend time focusing on stuff like that and it just does them no good. If I could go back, date this chick, or I could go back to college. It’s happened, there’s no point of even dwelling on it. I would rather say, how am I … I look more like this, what is the future Gallant going to say about what I do today versus what can the Gallant do in the past, it’s irrelevant. Past, it doesn’t even exist, time is done.
Gallant Dill: What can I do now that’s going to have my future self saying thank you? So, when I go to bed, before I go to bed I do 30 push ups, my future self’s going to say thank you. When I drink a bunch of water, myself tomorrow isn’t going to have a headache, he’s going to say thank you. So I’m too busy trying to perfect my day and what tomorrow’s doing. I never think about the past. The past sucks, whatever. But the future Gallant’s going to have it all and I’m going to die with it all because I’m focused on that.
Gallant Dill: I know a lot of people that are stuck in the past, stuck on resentment, old relationships and you cannot soar to the top if you have all these anchors holding you down. If you’ve got a lot of regrets and things in your life, you’re just focusing on the wrong thing. You’re not focusing on pushing yourself forward, so you’re actually slowing down your future self. So I don’t even think about stuff like that. I just think about what I can do today that’s going to benefit tomorrow.
Stefan Aarnio: That’s great.
Gallant Dill: You’ll never float to the top with all those anchors, man. A lot of people I know pretend to be happy, pretend to be successful and they’re holding on to resentment towards their parents, their friends, their future, just different things. You will not win with that kind of mindset and having those things hang on to you.
Stefan Aarnio: Gal, you said you read a chapter from six books a day. Top three books that changed your life?
Gallant Dill: I’m going to be a 100% transparent. Books are what help me level up. No book changed my life. I was at $20,000, $30,000 a month before I ever even picked up a book. The first book I ever read was called The Million Dollar Consulting or Million Dollar Consultant by Alan Weiss. The one thing it did for me is it made me think bigger. I thought I was king shit when I was making $20,000, $30,000 a month in my early 20s. I thought I was God.
Gallant Dill: But hearing him say he would send proposals for hundreds of thousands of dollars was inspiring because I didn’t think that was real, then hearing this guy say it. So, that was very impactful, but I want everyone to listen to me.
Gallant Dill: I meet so many people that spend all their time and energy and money learning versus acting. Act first, learn a little bit later. Get yourself out there and play some ball, quit being the bench warmer, quit being coach from the side, you’re never going to get where you want to be because I see a lot of people become addicted to their routine. This course after this course. This book after this book. Do and then learn to expand on.
Gallant Dill: So, when I say I like reading. I only read books that can expand my skill sets. I don’t read books on fictitious story telling. I read stuff that’s going to help me right now. So, I’ll give an example. I’m launching that software company, I’m reading on people that have launched their softwares. I’m reading books on how to get acquired, how to go public, how to get user bases. Every book I read is just as impactful because it has some sort of purpose.
Gallant Dill: If you’re going to spend time reading, make sure it’s having an impact on your life today. Like I see these dudes, “Ah, I’ve been reading about billionaires lately.” Bro, you can barely pay rent on time.
Stefan Aarnio: Yeah, bro. That’s a gong for sure.
Gallant Dill: Read a book on how to get to a $100,000 first. You’re not going to go from zero to a billion. So, whenever it comes to reading, read stuff that you can apply that’s going to better today. Stop reading some fairytale stories about what they did 20 years ago. That’s cool, that’s a hobby, that ain’t going to help you.
Gallant Dill: So the impactful books would be, How to Write Copy That Sells by Ray Edwards because it really showed me the power of writing. [inaudible 00:39:00] such a massive following, it’s able to get easier and better sales from you.
Gallant Dill: Million Dollar Consulting, obviously. Then another one that was really cool, that I really enjoyed, was The 1-Page Marketing Plan by Allan Dib. Those three books I recommend for any entrepreneur, anyone who’s trying to taken themselves to the next level.
Gallant Dill: I’m not really the mindset guy because I just don’t struggle with that. I know it’s up to me, I know that success is a video game and the more I learn, the more I try, the more I acquire my skill points and the more I level up. I look at my life as the World of Warcraft and I’m on a certain level. The more I do, the more experience points I get and levels you up. That’s all life is and you can find the shortcuts, the cheat codes are out there and the connections that help you level up quicker, but a lot of us get scared and we run away, or we see a boss that’s coming up and we’re scared to battle him. You can’t have that mindset.
Gallant Dill: I don’t know if you’ve read The Art of War, he said most of the battles are won off the field, off the battle ground. They’re in the mind before it even starts. So, you have to have a winner’s mentality before you even do or you will lose.
Stefan Aarnio: Money. Now Gal, we got to wrap up here. Young people, the millennials, generation Z, people coming up, what do young people need to succeed these days?
Gallant Dill: Well, first they need to stop feeling sorry for themselves. They’ve got to understand that nothing’s going to fall out of the sky and give them a winning lottery ticket. There’s no opportunity that was waiting for them at birth. They’re not owed a damn thing.
Gallant Dill: If you’re young, you got to realize you got to go get it. The faster you go and get it the faster you’re going to obtain it. The more distractions and the people you’re around, the wrong people you’re around, the more it’s going to slow you down.
Gallant Dill: If you want to win, get around winners. Focus on winning and don’t do anything that isn’t bettering your life. I know that sounds selfish, I know that sounds boring, but you know what isn’t? Buying a McLaren on your 26th birthday. Living in a six bedroom house. Having hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy and play with.
Gallant Dill: You’ve got to learn to go get it. It’s not going to be handed to you and you’re not going to win if you surrounded by a bunch of losers and deadbeat downers and people that have bad routines and habits. You’ve got to make sure that your entire circle is tighter than a triangle. You can’t even fit triangle in there, right?
Gallant Dill: And that you’re acquiring the right information and you’re learning to fail and you’re getting yourself out there and you’re not waiting for it to come to you because you got to always go and get it. The faster you get it, the faster you’ll have it. It’s not going to come, ever, it’s not going to fall out of the sky, it’s not going to rain in your palm, you’re not going to win the lottery. You’ve got to go and learn it and then you got to earn it. First you learn, then you remove the L, earn.
Stefan Aarnio: I love it. Got to get hungry. Now, Gallant, for the people at home, how can they get in touch with you?
Gallant Dill: You can find me on Facebook, or you can just go to gallantdill.com, G-A-L-L-A-N-T D-I-L-L dot com. I have a lot of different cool programs and all of the stuff I do has a money-back guarantee, so nobody really has any risk when they work with me and I’m excited for any young entrepreneur who’s inspired by my story because I know that you have just a crazy story that’s probably bigger and better than mine.
Gallant Dill: So, go and tap into that, create that life. Don’t let your life be a one chapter book. Have as many chapters as you possibly need. So, whenever you die, look at it like this, that if people could read about you, give them something to read about.
Gallant Dill: Every time I do something, it’s like, is this on my destiny? Is this going to be read at my funeral? Is this going to be read by my son? If not, then I don’t want to do it. It needs to be great, it needs to be [inaudible 00:42:18], it can’t be small, I’ve done the small, I’m ready to do the big things.
Stefan Aarnio: Thanks for being on the show, Gallant, Respect the Grind.
Gallant Dill: Definitely.
Stefan Aarnio: Hey, it’s Stefan Aarnio here, thank you for listening to another episode of my podcast, Respect the Grind. If you like the content on this podcast today, you are going to love my new book, Hard Times Create Strong Men. We live in an age right now where the men have become weak, society has become weak, the mindset has become weak. What does it mean to be a man?
Stefan Aarnio: Whether you’re a man or a woman, you’re going to find value in this book, Hard Times Create Strong Men, which reveal the philosophy and the power of what it takes to be strong in today’s market economy.
Stefan Aarnio: Go ahead and get a copy of Hard Times Create Strong Men at hardtimesstrongmen.com/podcast. That’s going to be a special offer just for podcast listeners. That’s hardtimesstrongmen.com/podcast. Get the book, you’re going to love it, it’s going to change the way you think.
Stefan Aarnio: I’m Stefan Aarnio, Respect the Grind. We’ll see you on the next episode.
