Dan Go: How He's Building a Massive Personal Brand and Business Using Social Media

Tim Stoddart: What's up, everyone? Welcome to the Copyblogger podcast. My name is Tim Stoddart. Thank you so much for joining me. My guest today is the one and only Dan Goh. What's up, Dan? It's great to see you.
Dan Go: What's up, Tim? It's great to be on here again.

Tim Stoddart: Yeah. All right. I see that one of your fingernails is painted. Oh, yeah. How's dad life?

Dan Go: Very astute observation. Yeah. Dad life is amazing. It's one of the most amazing things in this entire world. And it is also one of the most challenging things in this entire world, notwithstanding the pink nail polish on the finger. I actually was, uh, I remember I was at the gym yesterday and I was pumping weights and, you know, just trying to be as masculine as I can. And then, uh, and then, uh, and then I looked down, I'm like, Oh, shoot. I saw my nails are still pink right now. This could be very interesting for someone who's just observing from the outside.

Tim Stoddart: It's a blessing, dude.

Dan Go: Yeah.

Tim Stoddart: Isn't it funny how once you have kids, like. You hear all your life, don't worry so much what people think about you. And then when you have kids, for whatever reason, that actually just happens on its own, where it's like, dude, like I've made humans and anything that you can say to me right now is completely irrelevant. It's a really good equalizer.

Dan Go: Yeah. And your kids just say whatever they want to say to you in the first place. They're they'll, they'll have some crazy stuff that they will throw back at you that, uh, you wouldn't normally hear from an adult. So, so that kind of preps you for the whole, not caring about what other people think.

Tim Stoddart: For sure. Yeah. Well, I'm great to see you. I'm always happy to see you succeeding, Dan. Um, you're one of like, one of the real ones out here and I appreciate you. So. So on the topic of being appreciative, I don't know if I've ever said this to you, uh, just straight out. I think I tweeted something about it, but when you came on my podcast last time, you were the sole inspiration for me to say, man, let me give this social media thing a try. It was when you said. I've built a Twitter following and I got 30,000 emails from it. And it was the first time it ever really clicked to me that like, wow, maybe there is something to sharing my ideas. Online outside of just long form writing, which is what I've always done. So not starting off with a question. I really have to say like, thank you because it, it was you, like you were the exact reason why I decided to start putting myself out there. So I'm grateful to you.

Dan Go: Thanks, man. I appreciate that. Uh, I really, uh, wish I remember what I said. Um, but if it, if it caused you to start building your own brand and being consistent on social media and, uh, stepping up to the plate and always creating, um, that's a, that's a win in my book. So thank you for the kind words. I appreciate that.

Tim Stoddart: All right. My pleasure. Well, since we spoke, um, You've grown. Let's just say that, man. How does it feel to, uh, to be on Andrew Huberman's radar to have built the kind of success that you have over the past two or three years? How are you feeling about it all? Well, you know what, let me, let me preface this. I'm sorry to cut you off right as I finished asking the question, but you're always so grounded. And out of all the people I meet, you're kind of have the same. personality, whether things are going good or whether things are going bad, you're always really even keeled about it. And so I'm curious, how has the success like. change that for you, if at all?

Dan Go: It's such a funny question to answer. And the reason I say that is because I never considered myself or I still don't consider myself to be successful. I don't even I've kind of don't even know what that word even means anymore. And also, there is also this fear that I have of even labeling myself as successful. And the reason I say that is because one of the things that I love is just staying just fucking hungry. I love staying hungry. And any point that I feel that I've made it, I try to check myself as hard as possible. And I do that because number one, it's like made aware like, there is no place to make it is the act of like doing the thing that I'm doing right now is, is where I derive a lot of like my joy, and regardless of whatever growth that is and also the continuous pushing of like, changing what I'm doing, evolving what I'm doing, that's something that is challenging, yet I find joy in. So if I do consider myself to be like, quote unquote, success, or to get kind of like, identified with, say, even like the numbers, I think that is like a forcing feature of like stopping what I'm doing. to kind of stop and be like, oh, cool. Like, you know, I've, I've arrived and stuff. So I'll tell you right now, like my mentality towards this whole thing is still, I'm still so early in this game. I'm still kind of just like figuring it out and getting it started. And, and yeah, like the other day I like hit like 600K Twitter followers. And then I just like, well, my, my whole, motto is like onwards and upwards. Cool, like we did it. But I mean, that this is literally just the beginning of another mountain. So let's start enjoying the climb towards like next one. So I guess that's like a really long winded answer of saying like, I'm not sure how it's really affected me. Although I will throw in there that I have to say no, a lot more now in order to protect my time. Um, because there are a lot more opportunities coming my way, which is both a blessing and also sometimes it can hinder the thing that you actually want to do in the first place.

Tim Stoddart: This always happens on my podcast where I bring in guests, I bring in my friends and I get ideas of topics to talk about that are tactical. And it always turns into more like psychology. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. Right before I jumped on with you, I recorded two episodes today. I was talking to Jose Rosado. I think you know him.

Dan Go: I'm not sure if you do. Yes, we are friends. Yeah. Cool. Love Jose.

Tim Stoddart: I asked something similar. He had, basically he was just telling me his origin story and he got fired from a job and he had no option other than to make this work. And I shared with him if he still feels that way, because I constantly feel that way. It feels weird talking about this. I was literally just talking about this a half hour ago. I feel like, okay, I'm successful in other people's definition, whatever that means, you know, and I don't have to be working as hard as I constantly do, but there's just this nagging, nagging might not be the right word because there's positives to it. You know, there's like this subtle encouragement for me to keep going, keep going. Like there's more to do. There's more to do. And sometimes I wish I could just chill out and enjoy the sunshine a little bit. But then other times I'm like, why I'm only 37. I have so much more left in my life to give and left to share. So I'm, I'm speaking about myself and I hate when I do that because this is about you, but I'm really just relating to you in that regard because I feel that same exact way.

Dan Go: Yeah. I, I, I feel that, um, And one of the things about that idea is just the sense of like, even if you feel like you've arrived, like that is like a symptom of something deeper that is happening. I remember this thing where I was talking about, I was talking to one of my friends and one of his His dad was about to pass away. He was going through something just really bad with his health. And the thing that he only wanted in his life was just to be useful. And I think that when we find that we can be useful, and if we can do that for as long as humanly possible, that actually gives us meaning, that gives us purpose. And we are not doing it because we're trying to achieve some sort of outcome. We're doing it for the legit love of being useful and love of the game that we're playing. So that's a much more healthier way to approach it, rather than be like, Oh, I want, you know, I'm going to get like a hundred thousand followers. I'm going to make a hundred million dollars or like whatever it is. Eventually, if you want those things, it's going to happen through the course of you really falling in love with the things that you got to do to get there.

Tim Stoddart: It's a strange thought journey that people have to go through where there's a realization that I find a lot of people have where it's like, the thing is the actual reward. And then when you get the reward, you realize that it didn't actually matter that much because you just want to go back to doing the thing.

Dan Go: You know, it's kind of cool in a way.

Tim Stoddart: What'd you say? I'm sorry.

Dan Go: I said the reward, like when you get the reward, and when you make everything about the reward, it becomes so empty when you actually receive it. Because there's this sense of loss of like, of doing the thing. Because you feel like the thing that you're doing is done, and you're not going to do it anymore. So sometimes, like, or actually, a lot of times, like, even think back to some of your biggest business accomplishments, or even some of your biggest fitness accomplishments, when you hit it, you kind of just realized that it wasn't about hitting the goal or achieving the goal. It was literally about like doing the work and showing up and doing the work and then becoming the type of person that you became as a result of showing up and doing the work and looking for ways to improve.

Tim Stoddart: Totally becoming the type of person. I, uh, I read a book years ago. I was in middle school about the Protestant work ethic. I know it's kind of a random topic to talk about, but The idea with the Protestants is that they didn't see, they saw the work itself as salvation. There was no like end of the road and then you repent and get salvation. It was actually like, no, the process is the salvation itself. And I always thought of it in skateboarding growing up because I would land tricks that would take me like years sometimes to practice and hit in the pavement over and over and over again. And then you land the trick and there's like a split second of being like, ah, I did it. And it, and then all of a sudden it's gone. You just want to start trying a new trick again. And, uh, and I think that's what you're saying. Hey there, it's Tim. And I need to take a moment to tell you about this show's sponsor. It's a product called Hype Fury. When I was able to speak to Yannick, uh, who is the CMO, one of the founding partners of Hype Fury, and he agreed to sponsor the show. I was so thrilled. And the reason. is because I have personally used Hypefury for the last three years, and it has allowed me to build my social media following and my personal brand to over 70,000 followers. I could not have done it without Hypefury. And I really, really mean that. I use this product every day and it's added so much to my business and to my life. So Hypefury is a social media scheduling tool. It has three main features that I think separates it from every other tool. One, it, it allows you to quickly create content and schedule them. So it's a very nuanced feature, but it's so helpful. Basically. I sit down at my desk in the morning and I type out my tweet and I type out my LinkedIn posts. And then all I do is I hit enter and hype fury schedules it at the opportune time on Twitter. And on LinkedIn, I don't have to think about it any more than that. All I have to do is sit down and create my tweets, create my posts, hit enter. And Hypefury does all the work for me. Uh, second Hypefury makes it so that you can easily create threads and threads have been the biggest value add for me in growing my following. So threads really helped me grow my following on Twitter and those threads format themselves into longer form. LinkedIn posts on LinkedIn. It's actually kind of funny. I made a video about this not too long ago about how, yes, like you want to create threads on Twitter. You want to be a thread boy, because I'd say like 80% of my growth on both Twitter and LinkedIn have been from threads and long form posts. And I wouldn't have been able to format any of this. without using Hypefury. And then third, Hypefury is really good for keeping you inspired. So what it does is it, it shows you some of your most popular tweets and your most popular posts. And it basically gives you information. It gives you inspiration as to what your audience is looking for and what they're most actively engaged in. So you're never sitting at the computer thinking, oh man, like what am I going to say today? What, you know, what kind of content am I going to create today? It's constantly feeding you new ideas, new inspiration, and it allows you to, to quickly create this content so that you can continuously get yourself out there, continuously build your brand. And most importantly, turn that social media following into newsletter subscribers. So through Hype Fury, I've been able to grow my personal email list, timstodds.com to over 30,000 followers. That's turned into a business within itself. It's really helped me grow the copy blogger newsletter. We're at 110,000 followers right now. A whole lot of that is also because of hype fury. So please, this is a product that I use every single day. I personally vouch for it. You can check it out at hypefury.com. H Y P E F U R Y.com. If you have any problems with it, you can send me a DM on Twitter and I'm sure I can convince you as to why it will add value to your life. So hypefury.com. Thank you so much to hypefury for sponsoring the show and let's get back to the episode. You said be useful. And I think in your case, that's such a practical way to say it because I feel I feel one of the reasons that people have gravitated towards your message so much is because you're fearlessly and honestly talking about something that I think people are a little bit scared to talk about. And that's like health. And I would say maybe this isn't totally the case, but from my perception, it's more specifically men's health. And, um, it's a big deal. It's something that I'm very passionate about. It's something obviously you're very passionate about. And I, I think your honesty. and willingness to say some of the uncomfortable things that are true has has been one of the catalysts. And the reason why I bring that up is because it's not sensationalized. Like you don't say shit just to make people angry. You know, you say things with this purpose to try to help them and try to get people to a point where they're living like a more healthy, happier life. I want to know how intentional that was, because I'm sure there's a lot of times when you could have been sensational. And, you know, just gone viral for the sake of being viral, but but you never have, I want to hear about that process for you. Um,

Dan Go: At its most basic, it is the… I think after you start writing tweets for a very long time, I don't know if you noticed this, but you start to kind of like think in tweets as well in terms of like the way that you're writing. So a lot of the times when I'm posting something, it is coming from a realization or like a thought. And I do believe that part of healing or part of someone fixing some part of their life is a big aspect of that is just telling the truth. If you're not able to tell the truth, then you're not going to be able to bring awareness towards this specific area of your life. You're always going to be hiding from it, or you're always going to be trying to treat the symptoms rather than the causes. But you want to know what the causes are before you actually go about trying to fix anything. So I guess like the way that I write is, is one part saying exactly like what I think is on my mind. Um, the other part is just making it a little bit broad enough. So I'm, so it's not like you send out a tweet and you're gonna be like, oh yeah, this one, a hundred percent, no one's going to get offended by it. I mean, you can say that you drink water and someone's going to be like, Oh, well, you could die of water poisoning or whatever it is. You said that? Yeah, exactly. Like, I'm allergic to water. But when I when I do post it out, I do keep in mind to be respectful as much as possible towards everyone that is kind of like going through, you know, something specific to them, whether it be weight gain, or whether it be problems with their eating or whatever it is. So I try to be as like respectful as possible while also treating it like I'm talking to a friend and being like, you got to get your shit together, bro. Like, dude, no one's going to sugarcoat, everyone's trying to sugarcoat it for you. I would like to tell you the exact truth that you would need to hear. And then, and then I think that's the best way to approach it. And also just understanding that you're not going to throw something out there and be like, no, one's going to get offended by it. Like literally there, everyone will find something to be not everyone, but a very small percentage will find something to be offended by it. So it might as well just like post it anyways.

Tim Stoddart: Do you have like an underlying message that you think about because you're, you're speaking to like a specific audience, but however, there's a wide range of what it means to be healthy. You know, you could talk about fitness or diet or like sexual health or mental health, right. And you've you've tapped into all of those things while still sort of being a core to your message. So over time, as you've been doing this longer, have you come up with like an underlying thesis or like a core message that you stand by?

Dan Go: More, more so like a person that I'm speaking to, rather than a thesis. So I, I run a coaching company, and we do these calls where people come on and, you know, they we, you know, they see whether or not we're a good fit for them for coaching, or we see whether or not they're a good fit to be our client. Through these conversations, we have, let's just say, pages and pages and pages of what our clients are suffering from, what their goals are, the motivations behind what those goals are. So I know who I want to speak to it's usually like the person I want to speak to is like, you know They have their shit together, you know financially You know, they're living they're living pretty good lives their parents. They they're in a you know, they're in a relationship They have a dog two kids like all this kind of stuff and then I speak to the one thing that they are probably suffering from which is the thing that they're coming to me for help for and So that's the way I kind of like speak. It's like I'm either speaking to myself at like 20 years old or I'm speaking to one of my clients. And then what kinds of things would I say to them in order to simplify the process of getting in shape? Because a lot of times when you go on social media, there's a couple of things that you're seeing. Number one, it's like, you're seeing the extremes of what a body should look like. And then that kind of fucks with how you think your body should look like. I mean, this leads to some people just constantly feeling bad about their bodies because they don't have a six pack and they don't have like shredded abs or, you know, a Kim Kardashian type butt, whatever it is, right? So you see the extremes on like social media. And then what am I pointing to with my clients? I'm saying that, hey, guess what? It's okay to actually not have a six pack. You don't need one. And the process of actually getting one is harder than you think. And also keeping it is probably just as hard. For some people, it's easy. For a lot of people in their genetics, it's just not. It's a harder course for them. And then I try to kind of like just simplify the whole process of getting in shape for them and also to tone down their ideas of what getting in shape look like. I think it's both a combination of, yes, how you look, but also like how you feel on a regular basis. And, uh, and then that's what I do. I just, I just speak to the person or I speak to myself when I was like going through all that stuff. And I feel like that's a good way to approach just anything when you're creating content on social media.

Tim Stoddart: This person that you're talking to, I'm going to say some things, which I think are true. If they're not, please cut me off because I'm, I'm assuming a little bit you coach entrepreneurs. That is your, your target market for lack of a better word. And I remember hearing that for the first time and being a little, not skeptical, but kind of raising my eyebrows a little bit because my thought process was that entrepreneurs, especially successful entrepreneurs usually are successful in like a lot of different places in their lives. And I remember thinking like, that's a tough, a tough market to go after, but you've really, really not just proven me wrong, right? Not like I was. needed to be proven wrong. But I think you've proven to yourself that specificity continues to be a secret power, like the more specific you can get. So what was that process? Like, why did you even decide that you wanted to work with the entrepreneurial types. And has it been difficult finding business in that real hyper-specific realm?

Dan Go: No, it's actually been quite the opposite. And then also from like a peace of mind perspective, let's like from a peace of mind perspective, I just love working with entrepreneurs. Uh, I was talking with one of my clients the other day, uh, and then I was actually doing a workout with him and He's just like, dude, you're so smart. You position yourself as like the coach to entrepreneurs and you position your company this way and whatever. And then I told him, I was just like, That was not necessarily intentional as a way of positioning and framing myself, although some of it was. It was mostly because I just enjoy working with these motherfuckers. Like I do, I legit enjoy helping them get in shape and I legit enjoy their company. Most of my friends, and as you know, like probably for yourself as well, like a lot of your friends, most of your friends are probably like entrepreneurs. They're probably business owners because they share similar values as you. They think in the same terms, maybe different levels, but they're still, thinking in the same ways, they have similar values. And that's the same with me. Like I've been running business for like 15 years plus, and I've been part of Masterminds and I've basically created a bevy of a community of like entrepreneurs that I know all across the world, yourself included. And these are my friends. So, I mean, for me, it's like, it was a simple choice of like, I want to work with the people I enjoy working with. And that's why a lot of people are like, oh, why do you only work with entrepreneurs? And all this kind of stuff is like, oh, man, I just legit love working with them. And then on the good side, that actually turns into a great niche. That turns into a great marketing angle. But that comes after me actually wanting to work with the people I work with. And I know some people who just choose niches because they think the niche is actually lucrative. because they think the niche is like has money or whatever it is. What they don't realize is that we choose niches because we are actually apt with the experience to deal with their situations. So I'll use an example. I'll actually use an entrepreneur example. So I had this entrepreneur who went to a personal trainer. He gave him his macros. He gave him his work or actually put him through his workouts, did all this kind of stuff. He expected them to follow through on everything that he got them to do, which is like a robust list of like all these things. only saw him during the session, only worked with him during the session, and then every single time he'd see him, he'd just be disappointed because he wouldn't live up to what his trainer wanted him to do. So when I looked at it, I was just like, well, obviously, based on your 12-hour days, your limited ability to go to sleep, your entrepreneur's schedule, most of the stuff that he's getting you to do is just outside of the realm of what is actually possible and realistic. we need to simplify, simplify, and actually keep you accountable to the simplification. And then that is kind of like where the experience of working with entrepreneurs comes from. It's like you actually work with someone, you work with hundreds of people of the same ilk, and then you know exactly what the kind of like markers of success are. You also know what the weaknesses are more so than anyone else. So, so yeah, it's like, it's, it's just that, you know, I just love working with these people. And then, uh, and then the more experience I gain with them, the better I can actually serve them. Then it turns into this like all like virtuous cycle of just, you know, just building a better company while working with people I love.

Tim Stoddart: It seems to me like you're still very much enjoying it.

Dan Go: Yeah. I am enjoying it. And then although there is like the aspects of how the business evolves, not just in like revenue, but responsibility. So, you know, before I was like in the trenches, coaching, doing all this kind of stuff. Now we actually have, I've actually trained up a coach for like the last three years. He thinks like me, he acts like me, he talks like me. And then now I'm into this different realm where now I'm just trying to push myself towards the things that I'm actually really good at. I'm going to keep a very small circle of clients for myself, but that's the one thing I still want to keep, that coaching muscle. But the other thing is also like I build business by creating, I build business by increasing audience, I build business by searching for new ways to grow my reach. So if I can consolidate myself to like those two things while I get other people to do all the other rest of the stuff, that's great. And then that in and of itself means that you also have to like manage them until you find someone else to like manage them and do all this kind of stuff. So I'm not going to say like every aspect of like what I do is like the stuff that I actually like enjoy doing, but just like going to the gym or just like creating, sometimes you just show up and you're just like, even though you don't like doing the thing, you show up, you keep on doing the thing until you find a way to outsource it and get someone else to do it.

Tim Stoddart: I think the transition is a perfect place for us to go next because the last time You came on the pod and you and I talk semi regularly. Like I know what it is that you're working on at most moments. You know, I don't know, like the specifics, but, uh, we, we share each other's thoughts and part of the journey. And I remember you talking specifically about. Scale coaching businesses are great businesses, but they're difficult to scale. You just get to a point where the only thing you can do is hire another person. And then the way the numbers work, it's kind of like. hiring another person really decreases your margins because that, that one person is like a nut cost, right? It's a fixed cost. And so as much as I encourage anybody to start a coaching business, there's pros and cons to all of it, you know? And we were just talking about your desire to get a little bit more into scalable, um, markets, let's say, and man, you have executed on that. I think at this point, I would, consider you more of like a media company than I would even a coaching company. You got your newsletter, you seem to be booked out on sponsorships for a long time.

Dan Go: Yeah, we can talk about the sponsorships, but I'm actually like putting a little bit of a pause on that until, uh, yeah, but we can, we can talk more on that one. Yeah. Pause on the writing? No, pause on the sponsorships. Wow. Are you willing to talk about it? Yeah, definitely. So I have like these arms of my business that bring in revenue, which is like we have our coaching arm, we have our course arm, and then we also have, I wouldn't consider like YouTube monetization to be like any sort of like revenue arm, but yeah, we make some stuff off that too. And then we have sponsorships. So with sponsorships, like I was getting sponsors for my newsletters every so often. And, and it was great. You make a little bit of like cash on the side and it's awesome. Right. But for myself, when I look at sponsorships, I don't necessarily know if I want to actually put any amount of energy towards promoting someone else's business as opposed to promoting mine. right. I would much rather, I would much rather kind of like, keep the space either for giving value, or for selling like a product of mine, which I'm going to come out with more in terms of like 2024. So, and also there's this aspect of like, you are beholden to the sponsor's want of how you present the copy and all this kind of stuff. And also you want to do really good for the sponsor too. That's a part of it. You want to make sure that they're getting the clicks and you want to make sure that they're getting enough out of their investment too. I don't take that responsibility lightly. So for the time being, what I'm doing right now is I'm just kind of like just putting a pause on offering sponsorships at this point. I do still have it up, but it's like five. I think it's like I'm trying to make it exorbitant. I may actually like increase the price, but I'm trying to make it exorbitant. if people choose to want to sponsor with me, then they really have to choose it. Uh, but, but, but it's, uh, it's not something where I'm like, Oh yeah, I feel like awesome doing this. I, I kind of just like want to put more attention and energy towards like selling my own stuff. If that makes any sense.

Tim Stoddart: It makes perfect sense. And I'm not surprised to hear that you, you spoke to me once about, uh, I don't know if you have your own coach or as a mentor. Um, it's a person that you have in your life, whose advice it seems like you take very, very seriously. And I've noticed that you are always so willing to make like a hard decision, because you feel like it's really best for you and your family. And the long term goal, I think the long term, like your very long term goal oriented to future base.

Dan Go: It's a personality trait that I would say again, it's like two future based as someone say, it's like, I'm always like, every, every like decision I make is extended across a time horizon of like five to 10 years, or even like shorter than that sometimes. And it's always like based off of like, okay, well, how do I see my life going? How do I see my business going? How do we see my brand being viewed as a result of like this decision that I'm making? So every single decision, especially when it comes to like a monetary decision of where I'm like selling something that is always like the horizons that goes through it. And I want to make sure I'm, I'm doing right by myself, my family, and also like my, my brand and the, what it actually represents over the course of time. So that's, that's always going through my mind.

Tim Stoddart: It's a difficult personality trait to develop because. It's hard to saying no to short term gratification. I mean, it's, it's, it's, I don't mean this lightly. It's one of the hardest things to do because our brain stems are just completely wired for like, take it now, take it now. Who knows what the future holds? Take it now. It's, it's, it's like against our evolution. Was that a personality trait that you needed to develop? Is that something that you learned from your, because I I'm harping on this because it's, it's really one of your superpowers, man. Like you have the ability to process information. and just make a choice and say, this is what I'm doing. And I'm doing this forever. So where did that personality trait come from?

Dan Go: I think it came from making the mistakes in the first place. That's for sure. Yeah. On a deeper level, maybe it's because I'm like the last of four kids. And I'm always like, I was always kind of like watching whatever I was gonna say, or else I was gonna get my shit kicked out of me or whatever it is. But being the last of four kids puts that time horizon being like, all right, if I do this, then I might get fucked up later on at night. But it came from actually making the mistakes in the first place. I'll use like the sponsorship example, which is a sense of like, I locked myself in. When I say we, I kind of like refer to my entire team. I locked myself into an agreement where I had, I think about like five or six sponsorships booked out with this one person, right? And then over the course of time, these sponsorships were spaced out like five weeks, you know, every five weeks. And then I realized I was just like, oh, shoot, like my newsletter is at X right now by the time like I reach six months from now, like my newsletter is going to be double if not, you know, whatever it is by that time. So the amount of which I'm like actually charging for the sponsorship is going to be so minuscule based on the exposure that it's going to get later on. That's just like an example of like a short-term, let's just say, decision made on mistakes. So now like based on whatever mistakes that I've made or in terms of my decision making, usually it's kind of like me saying, oh, I fucked that up. What would I do differently? How would I act differently in regards to this? So it's usually those learnings come from making the mistakes of those hasty decisions and those instant gratification decisions in the beginning. And I can't say that I've adopted this like full-time. I'm still making these mistakes to this day, but now it's like, now like each level that you hit, there's like these different tiers of decisions that you have to make that will likely influence whatever the next year to three years is going to be. So now like, uh, it's not like you have to be, it's not like you have more pressure around these decisions, but you just have to have a little bit more of a little bit more of, let's just say like patients when it comes to, you know, whatever decisions that you choose for your business.

Tim Stoddart: When you get bigger, the decisions that you make matter more. Yeah. The analogy that always stuck with me is, is in Neval's podcast, where he says it, it's harder to steer a bigger ship. right? Like the ship just gets bigger. And so there's more weight on those decisions. Yeah, you know, speaking of sponsorships, in particular, I think a lot of people who are just starting off, especially when newsletters think that sponsorships is, is the move, at least in the beginning, knowing what you know, now, would you not have done sponsorships? At all? Or do you think that was, that was like part of your journey?

Dan Go: Definitely. I would have done it because I wouldn't have gotten to the, to the evolved conclusion that I have right now. So definitely you have to go through taking the money of like another person to put their business on your profile and to understand what that feels like. So I definitely like, don't regret that aspect of things. If I were to start a newsletter all over again, I mean, like. It depends on the context. Like if you're just from zero to like 15,000, 20,000, I mean, I would probably forego sponsors and just like really give out 99% of value and do like a CTA towards your either coaching or whatever, like your service-based business or like your product-based business. And then I would just like keep it at that. I would not necessarily approach sponsors until I'm probably at 100K, if not higher than that, just because you have more leverage in that sense. And I'm talking about newsletter subscribers. Obviously, this differs when it comes to YouTube and podcasts and all this kind of stuff. So yeah, I mean, if I were to even start one, or if I were to even start anything of my own, I would want to create my own business around that, whatever it is. Easiest way is through a service-based company. Easiest way is to find people to help. And that's actually, I would say it's the foundation because you give people the results, you understand how to get people a result, you have testimonials, and then afterwards, For the people that can't afford your coaching, then you come out with a moderately priced course for people who can't afford your coaching. And then it just becomes this product suite where you're kind of just like going down to the barest bones product that you can sell for people to actually get into your world and get value out of it. So, so that's probably what I would do. I wouldn't go the sponsorship route, but it depends. This is from the context of me, uh, wanting to create my own business. So it could be a lot different for, or a lot different for a lot of other people.

Tim Stoddart: You mentioned before that you keep a handful of personal clients to keep yourself grounded. I think that's what you said. And I really relate. It's why I continue to write my weekly blog on my personal site, on Tim stods.com. because I'm not a writer anymore. I'm a business owner and it's different. And so I forced myself to do it. I wake up at four in the morning every Tuesday. I mean, I wake up pretty early anyway, but it's just different because it's Tuesday morning and this is when I sit down to write. And the journey for me has been interesting where there's been times where I look back and I think, wow, like I'm not a writer anymore. You know, I'm just straight up an entrepreneur and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I know that you really enjoy working one on one with people and like you enjoy that hands in the dirt type process. What's that been like to, to. have that transition over the years?

Dan Go: Well, I call it the sharpening of the sword. So there's this thing that happens, especially with like practitioners, where if it happens, you build up enough of an audience, and then you turn into like a full blown entrepreneur, businessman, slash whatever it is. And then for me, it's like if you lose the aspect of keeping your edge or your blade sharp by doing the actual work, then you're missing out on a lot of lessons. You're missing out on a lot of evolution, especially if you just want to be like the best at what you do in that field. So for me, it's like you want to keep a bevy of clients that you're helping, that you're helping get in shape. Some of the clients I've been working with have been there for like two plus years, three plus years, because our goals are always evolving. They're always getting better. Like one of my clients who's been with me for about three years, he's about to like run his first marathon. He's dropped all the weight. He's gained muscle. He's about to run his first marathon. But for me, it's this kind of like, just like this, I'm not a samurai by any means, but I definitely want to keep my skills where they need to be. And then also this helps me create content for the audience because it helps me kind of just like see what's happening from a real person point of view and relay some of the stories that I'm seeing in my own practitioning business. So, so yeah, and then, I don't know, I don't even like with coaching, even with entrepreneurship, even business ownership, all this kind of stuff, I try not to really, like, identify myself with the act of itself. I tried, this is something my friend Todd Herman has taught me, which is a sense of like, he says, like, I coach. I run businesses. The only thing that he'll identify himself with is, is being a parent, because that is like the one thing that will never change. So again, thinking a little bit deeper, it's like, what if these things get taken away from you? Who are you at that point? Um, what do you identify with? So, so I try to kind of like steer away from saying I'm this or I'm that, uh, I try to kind of like keep myself to the actions that I have to take in order to achieve whatever outcomes that I set for myself.

Tim Stoddart: very good advice. It, it made me emotional for a second thinking, what if all of this gets taken away from me? Then what am I? Yeah. And there was a split second. I was like, Oh man, I don't know. Like obviously your family comes in, but that's kind of like cheating.

Dan Go: You know, that's just, at least for most people, having family, but yeah, it is.

Tim Stoddart: Yeah, for real. Yeah. Yeah, man. Wow. Um, I got to reflect on that a little bit for sure. So then what does, what does a typical day look like now? Do you, are you creating content most of your time? Are you strategizing? Are you managing people? I mean, you're, you're big time now, man. Like, I don't want to be hyping you up and know you're a humble guy. I mean, all right, dude. All right. Well, you got a lot of shit going on.

Dan Go: What do your days look like? I remember I was talking to, uh, I had dinner with this guy, Sam, and he was just like, Oh man, like you're like big time. And I don't know, I forgot what he said, but he's like, yeah. he said something to the to that extent and then i was just like oh man like I really don't see myself like that whatsoever, and probably to a detriment of mine as well. But what is like a typical day of mine look like? I wake up, I take a shower if I can, if I don't have kids crawling all over me, I'll take a shower, and then I'll spend time with the kids, and then I'll spend time with my wife. And then 8 a.m., straight down to work, either I do Some a project that I'm actually working on like I I look at kind of productivity as like a funnel a little bit. So Top of funnel is gonna be whatever the priority is for that day so the first priority that get actually takes up maybe like two hours or something like that and Then it's going to be second priority is going to be an hour. Third priority is going to be like, you know, an hour. And I can't try to keep myself to about three to three at most, like five for those things. So I'll basically sit down here. I'll get them all done. Uh, yeah. And sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. I mean, as you know, like things come in, things come into play. Uh, but usually by the time it's like, I'd say around one to 2 PM, uh, that is when I'm done work. I go out, I probably go for a workout at that point. Or if it's not a workout day, I'll spend time with the family again. And then at that point, it's pretty much like spending time with family until they have to go to sleep. And then that's about it. And then I'll spend time with my wife at 8 p.m. when everyone's asleep. And then that's it. Um, yeah, it's not, it's not a robust schedule, like for a lot of people, it's not definitely not a founder schedule or anything like that, but, but yeah, I find that with, uh, with shorter work days and even sometimes like, uh, uh, shorter work weeks, uh, you, you derive more productivity out of those, uh, out of those short bursts rather than kind of like standing around the work eight hours a day, five days a week, or six days a week, or seven days a week or something like that. This doesn't mean that I don't sit in front of the computer on Saturday and try to bang stuff out. I still do that sometimes because I love the creating of content. But otherwise, that's how my week goes. And in terms of creating content now, what I do is I batch. I'm pretty much creating for three platforms right now. I'm creating for Twitter. I'm creating for LinkedIn. Whatever gets posted to LinkedIn is going to get posted to Instagram. And then, uh, and then now I'm foraying into the aspect of, uh, creating videos and doing YouTube. So, so yeah, pretty much I'm like focused on like these three platforms. I batch them all on separate days and get them done. And then I don't know, it seems to work right now, you know, Before I was creating every day, but now it's like I'm batching more so than anything else.

Tim Stoddart: I ask that question. Almost every podcast, because one, I think it's fascinating how different people's processes are. There isn't necessarily like a thing that works, but also because the one piece of consistency that I've found with it is that the people that I look at the, the, the men and women where I'm looking at the outside man, like how, how are they managing all of this stuff? It's never frantic, 24 seven nose to the grindstone. It's always like cerebral in a way, very methodical when it's done, it's done. And I think, I think. I'm finally at the place where I'm starting to see a little bit of that in my life. You know, I'm like, it's a little bit easier for me to get up and go for a walk than it was maybe four or five years ago. And so with all of that in mind. I mean, she's we touched on so much we touched on your coaching and now you have products and now you have like media and you're building on all these platforms, right? What's What's the priority? If you could only do one thing, what would that be? Where would you get the most bang for your buck?

Dan Go: Just continue doing exactly what I'm doing right now, which is focused on building reach. So I've had some opportunities this year to get into product and to take equity in certain products or something like that. And I find that I was like, okay, these are great opportunities. That's awesome. And then I always ask myself, like, but what if I just kept on doing what I'm doing right now, evolving this creation process? increasing my reach, increasing my audience. And if I just like focused on that for the next like two to three years, what would happen? And this is the stuff I love to do. Anyways, it's stuff I kind of like show up to every single day. What if, what would happen? Um, I think good things are going to happen out of that, you know, they've, they've already done it. So, uh, so yeah, maybe you want to add some like arms, you know, maybe you want to add like a product arm, you know, whatever it is, and create something that's a little bit more, that has a little bit more like what they call like, quote unquote, enterprise value. Maybe you want to do that, right? But I don't know, I don't feel like in a rush to do that. I think I'm growing. I'm doing the thing that is most important, which is growing the audience, growing the reach, spreading the message to as many people as humanly possible. And then if I do that, again, for the next like two or three years, I think really awesome things, more better, even, even more awesome things than what are happening right now are going to happen and bigger opportunities are going to be at play. So, so that's why I'm going to be focused on just trying to increase this reach as, as much as possible.

Tim Stoddart: Well, last question, and this will sound like a loaded question with the answer that you just gave me, but if that's the case, then like, what is the vision? Do you, do you have like a vision, a big vision, or are you really just whatever is right in front of me is when I'm going to there's got to be something that you think of when like you put your head on the pillow at night you're like wow like What if we could get there?

Dan Go: What is that? Well, I mean, you have your visions for what you want personally, and then you have your visions for what you want as a business in the movement. Yeah. I'll keep my personal visions to myself. I kind of like to keep those goals a little bit more private. From a business vision standpoint, I mean, our mission is just to simplify the process of getting in shape and to help the world get in shape as a result of that. That is the whole mission. However big that gets, cool. I mean, right now it seems to be doing pretty well. I mean, I'd set a goal at by the end of like 2027 to say that we have literally like can quantifiably say that we've changed the lives of millions of people with our products, with our content, with our services. But again, that's just like this milestone and this target that we're gonna hit. The overall, the overreaching mission is just to make the world a healthier place. And to say that our business, and to say that the words that we put out there, the content that we put out there, brought value, or at least like most of it brought value to other people's lives, and made them healthier in some way, shape, or form. And to do that across the world with billions of people, That that is our mission. That's what we want to do. Uh, I don't think that mission is ever going to stop. And I don't think even by the time I reach my deathbed, it's, it's going to be done. So, but that's what I get up every single day and that's what I do to push it as much as I possibly can, as much as I possibly can. So, so that's what I'm, that's what I'm focused on right there. Just yeah. Trying to get the world and healthier as much as humanly possible.

Tim Stoddart: We need it.

Dan Go: Yeah. Yeah, we need it. That's absolutely. And I like to ask myself is like, what is not going to change your fitness in the next like 10 years? So everybody's going to ask like, what is what what is actually going to change your fitness? But I like to think I like to ask, like, what is not going to change? Yeah, it's like exercise is always going to make you feel fucking awesome. Uh, getting the right nutrients in your body. That's going to help with your mental health. It's going to help you stay lean, feeling good about your body, feeling really confident about your body. That's never going to go out of style, getting the right amount of sleep. That's I don't think it's going to go out of style. I doubt it. Getting out in nature, being amongst the mountains and the woods and all that kind of stuff. That's not going to change. So I, I, I would like to kind of like, think about the things that will not change that will help people get healthier. And usually it's like the pillars that we just talked about.

Tim Stoddart: Can't believe you said that this is a whole nother podcast topic, but we, this has become a very foundational part of Stasi where everyone's like, what's next, what's next, what's next. And we've just found ourselves at a point where like, don't worry about that. What's going to be here forever. And hearing you say that it was kind of a weird moment. I was like, I can't believe we just said that, like, this has been really foundational for us over the last year. So that's really cool, man. Congratulations, Dan. Um, like I said, I, I appreciate you. I really admire everything that you're doing. You helped me out a lot. And, um, man, I know that you're going to do it, but like, just keep doing it, right? That's, that's the whole mission in the first place.

Dan Go: And try as, as, as much as humanly possible. Uh, and dude, I mean, like, you know, we've, we both helped each other in this, uh, in this journey, we've known each other since 2020, uh, you know, pitching back and forth with each other. Uh, we were, we were going to possibly invest in each other as well. And, you know, that's, that's a whole nother story, but, uh, you know, I'm glad that we've kept this relationship up. I'm glad to be on this podcast, talking to you again. And, uh, and yeah, thanks for the opportunity to talk about this stuff. I'm usually like mired in just talking about fitness, fat loss, getting lean, building muscle. And, uh, and, and one of the things I do actually love to talk about is like business and increasing reach content generation, all that kind of stuff. So I'm, I'm glad for the opportunity to be able to do this.

Tim Stoddart: Likewise. Um, likewise. Well, I love the new website. I know it's been out for a little while now, but you finally went for it. Dan go.com.

Dan Go: Can't get the.com. They're mired in legal conflict right now. So. Oh, no way. And some people that work on it, you know, but, but yeah, that's a pain. Yeah.

Tim Stoddart: Yeah. Yeah. It'll take, it'll take a while. It will. Um, that sucks. Okay. Dan go.co all of the links to Dan social media will be on the show notes. of this episode to get those links, go to copy blogger, pod.com. You'll have the YouTube video and all the, uh, all the links to the iTunes and the Spotify word, whatever it is that you listen. Appreciate you, man. Thank you so much for coming on. Let's keep in touch. We'll do it again in another three years.

Dan Go: Yeah. A hundred percent. All right, bro. See you. All right, bro. Have a good one.