Build Your Lifestyle Empire Using Your Personal Advantage With Taki Moore

The $100 MBA Show

In this first in-person episode recorded at the new $100 MBA studio, host Omar Zinhome sits down with Taki Moore, founder of Million Dollar Coach and 'coach of coaches,' to explore how embracing

Key takeaways

• Authenticity is the foundation of sustainable success; pretending to be someone else leads to burnout and disconnection.
• Your unique personality traits—your 'flaws' or quirks—are often your greatest business advantages.

Main topics

• Embracing authenticity in entrepreneurship
• Leveraging personal quirks as business superpowers

Notable quotes

"I think the real you, the one with the broken bits, is the more attractive you."

"You don't have to have it perfect. You just got to like share the journey."

Conclusion

Taki Moore's story proves that success isn't about becoming someone else—it's about becoming your most authentic self. By

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Today, I sat down with Taki Moore, who is the coach of coaches. Any big guru, any big coach that you know, went through the school of Taki. Okay, Taki taught them everything they know when it comes to coaching. Welcome back to the $100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinhome, where I deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, to help you start, grow, and scale your business. Speaker 2 (0:31) Hey, if this show has helped you in any way, leave me a quick review wherever you listen to podcasts. This helps us reach even more people who need the same no-fluff practical business advice. It literally takes a few seconds, but it makes a huge difference. Thanks for being a part of our journey to help others on their journey. What I love about Taki as a close friend is that he's the same person, whether he's on camera, off camera, having lunch. And I find that incredibly hard to do. And most people don't do this. He's one of a few people I know that can do this. And I wanted to find out how did that happen? Did he work on it? Is it just natural? So I wanted to sit down with him on the podcast to find out. But I also wanted to find out a couple other things. One. He built an incredible business with a very small team. Taki doesn't have an office. He works from home. He has a small team remotely that he works with and he makes $2 million a month. He's a busy guy. He's got six kids. He's got a wife. He travels a lot and he still only works four days a week. It's incredible what he does, and I want to find out how he built that kind of life, because it wasn't always that way. I've known him long enough to know that that wasn't always his business. So we dive deep in a conversation together that I really want to share with you, and I can't wait to share with you. But there's one more thing that we get into in this conversation that I think is amazing, and it's all about understanding who you are as a person and what you can add to your business. Taki's actually not. like an amazing business person. He doesn't know how to read a spreadsheet. He doesn't have access to his own calendar. He's that like all over the place. But he's built this incredible business because he knows his superpower and he really knows how to be his own artist. He's really more of an artist than he is an entrepreneur. And we get into how he kind of identified that, but also how you can find your superpower and utilize it in your business. Can't wait to share all that with you. So let's jump right into that conversation with Taki Moore. Speaker 2 (2:36) I think I'm Speaker 1 (2:54) more comfortable. being who I am everywhere now, then like even sitting down here, I was a bit nervous because there's like three cameras and a crew and all the stuff. I just think it's, maybe I'm just old and Speaker 2 (3:06) you Speaker 1 (3:07) just get beyond the and you just don't care anymore. There's probably a little bit of that. I think it's hard to be who you're not long-term and I've been running this business for like 16-ish years. And so, you know, I don't think I would have kept it up if I wasn't me. Speaker 2 (3:19) That's been my experience. Like, you know, we've been doing this for a while and you get to a point where it's just like, not being yourself is not really working and you just get frustrated and you're just like, I'm just going to do what I want. Speaker 1 (3:30) Yeah. Like I remember we run an event three times a year, March, July, November. And for years I put shoes on to run the event because, well, I don't wear shoes anywhere else. Why am Speaker 2 (3:38) I Speaker 1 (3:38) putting shoes on for these guys? They're Speaker 2 (3:39) kind Speaker 1 (3:40) of paying to come and learn from me. Why don't I just be myself? So I left, you know, took my shoes off and did the event. I remember Jack DeLosa, one of the, one of our members was like, are you not wearing shoes? I'm like, no. He goes, huh, cool. And then that was it. And now I can just be me. Yeah. Speaker 2 (3:55) That was like, that was the last hurdle of like Speaker 1 (3:57) freedom. Yeah. I think there's nothing more attractive than someone who's comfortable in their own skin. I'm not doing it to be attractive. I'm just more comfortable without shoes or whatever. I mean, there's something, I don't know. I think that's what we all like. The people I look up to are the people who are like, they've got something great to say and they're very natural and not forced. Yeah. I don't know if it's a learned skill or quite. Speaker 2 (4:16) Yeah. Did you copy somebody in the beginning? For me. Yeah, for me, it was Tony Robbins. I always tried to be Tony. I realized, like, I'm not Tony Robbins. I'm a brown kid from Long Island. Parents immigrated from Egypt. Like, Tony's got, Tony's Tony, you know, and I love Tony. But, like, I tried so hard to, like, because he was the person that was in my ears, CDs listening in the car while I was driving to work. Who is it for you? Speaker 1 (4:39) I think when you start something, like, it's very rare that you've got your own everything together. And so you start by, like, modeling bits. I think I've got bits of a lot of people. So when I started, like business model wise, the only guy I knew who had this kind of information style business was a grumpy old dude called Dan Kennedy, who's amazing. I know Dan. Right. But he's like a, yeah, he's a writer, seems to be an introvert. And his model was like, I'm going to send people a paper newsletter and a monthly CD and a weekly fax. I guess what I did, you know, a weekly fax and a monthly CD and a paper newsletter. And I was like, dude, I hate writing. I'm a talker. And so like, but you got to start somewhere. Yeah. Presenting wise, I learned from two people. I was in a seminar in a workshop once with Brad Sugars and I remember he asked a question of the audience and they didn't reply and he just got indignant and like puffed his chest up and said like, since when was it okay not to participate in one of my workshops? Like, oh, you can like lead these people. And then Ethan, our son, was nonverbal for like four years. And we took him to this speech class called Hannon, which is about how do you help a nonverbal kid to communicate? And there's a lot of tricks. Like, you know, you get down on their level so you're not big and scary and intimidating. And you, like, leave the end of a sentence and you wait for them to fill it with something. So I think, like, you know, public speaking-wise, I've just got a lot of those skills. Yeah. I don't know. I think you just, like, see bits that you like and you adopt it as much as you can until you've got your own thing and then you adapt it. Speaker 2 (5:58) One of the things that... I believe has helped our podcast do so well is that like I try to lead as much as possible with empathy. Yeah. I still remember what it's like to be struggling financially, struggling with my business, my voice. I personally felt like I was trying to be Tony Robbins because I felt like who I was wasn't good enough. So I have to put on this performance so that I can be able to be good enough for my audience because who I actually am is maybe not. blockbuster and larger than life. Yeah. Like what advice would you give somebody who's like listening right now? It's like, okay, talky, but like, you know, you're, you're big and you're huge and you're making millions and millions of dollars. How do I present without feeling inadequate? Speaker 1 (6:37) Um, I think the real you, the one with the broken bits is the more attractive you. And I think if you want to help somebody like it's hard to like, it can be aspirational. Look up at Tony Robbins. Who's like extraordinary. But like, it's very hard to go, wow, I could see how I could do that. Because he's like, he's up there and we're down here. And I think just realizing that everybody you're trying to help or communicate with, whether it's an audience member or a potential client or whatever, or a customer, they're going through some stuff and the vulnerability makes you super relatable. And so, you know, I write an email every day to my audience and they're often quite funny. But if there's a joke about a person, it's always, I'm the stupid one. Yeah. And the audience is the smart one. Partly because I've got ADHD and I do dumb stuff all the time, but also deliberately self-deprecating because of approachability. And I think the real you warts and all is very attractive. If you're going through some hard stuff, talk about the fact you're going through some hard stuff. I think maybe there's a spot for like, do it when it scars, not open wounds, maybe. But I think just being honest with people about, you know, where you're up to and what you're working on. And you don't have to have it perfect. You just got to like share the journey. Like this is what I'm going for. This is what's hard right now. This is what I've figured out. And I think that actually, I think the thing that makes it tricky is when you pretend you're the I've got it all together guy and you don't, that's the piece that eats you alive and people can sniff that. But if you don't pretend you've got it all together and you just go, here's what I'm learning, I think you do really, really well. Speaker 2 (8:02) Yeah, 100%. A lot of the episodes that came out of this podcast came through the struggles that we had growing our software company, Weapon or Ninja. people would come up to me in person and tell me like, I just listened to your episode about like, you know, one of your key teammates or team members got poached. Is everything all right? It's like, yeah, yeah. That was like a year ago. It took me a year to get over it and to be like, okay, I'm comfortable teaching. But those episodes pop because you're teaching out of experience and you're teaching, hey, this is what worked for me when this happens. And it's going to happen. You're going to have struggles. You're going to have people. close friends of yours, poaching your team members. And it's just like, no phone call, no nothing. What do you do? Do you sever that relationship? Do you do the same thing back to them? All this stuff. Like, how do you want to play this game? But I find that anything that's hard, like it's really hard to share that. That's when it really does well. Anything that's like, I got to pull this out somehow. Speaker 1 (8:57) I think so. And you let people into your world a little bit. I think, you know, on the content side of things, really, I'm trying to share two things. You know, my worldview is... the thing that people buy. But what makes that relatable is my world. Speaker 2 (9:08) And Speaker 1 (9:09) I think your world, my world has a bunch of characters in it. Yeah. You know, Nicole's a character. These guys are characters. The office is like this, this new amazing studio is a, is a character. And so letting people into your world makes you super relatable. And I think there's a bunch of people on the internet and all you see is the highlight reel, like Instagram life. It's very perfect. And I think the, the reel is where it's at. Speaker 2 (9:29) Yeah. We've been buddies for a while now. I think about we've known each other for about eight years. When I moved out to Australia 10 years ago, more than that, 2016 was when I moved. Yeah. So 10 years ago, before I moved out, Michael Port, Book Yourself Solid, Michael Port. He's extraordinary. Yes. And he's a good friend of mine. And he was like, you're going to Australia. You got to know Taki Moore. And I was like, OK. And I looked you up and I watched your videos and da, da, da, Speaker 1 (9:52) da. Speaker 2 (9:52) And then, you know, I was probably just busy trying to move. I think Speaker 1 (9:57) I met you at Dale's. Paella Party. Yeah. Speaker 2 (9:59) And that's Speaker 1 (9:59) where Speaker 2 (9:59) we met. And then I was like, okay, I got to know you a little bit. And like, we've been buddies for a long time. But the first time I saw you speak on stage was last year at the thing I did with Dan. Yes. Yes. The Media Empire event. Like, I just knew you as a friend. And I never saw you in person, like doing your thing. Yeah. I don't remember this. But when you finished that event, I was just like. I don't know what the heck you do for a living. You should be doing this, man. Like this, Speaker 1 (10:25) you were magic, dude. Speaker 2 (10:26) Like I was like, Speaker 1 (10:27) you Speaker 2 (10:28) are so, the whole room was glued to what you're, I think you were doing this session about a pocket banger. You have this framework of how to do short, Speaker 1 (10:38) yeah, short form content. Speaker 2 (10:39) And even the name, a pocket banger, you put it in your pocket and all that stuff. It's these little cards you put in your back pocket when you're done with it, you put it in the other pocket. But I thought, In that moment, everybody in the room was just like, I can be successful, as successful as Taki, because Taki feels very relatable. Yeah. And he's fun and interesting. And I have this, like, thing, this kind of archetype of what I have of you is like this reluctant hero kind of Speaker 1 (11:06) person. Yeah, retarded Jedi. Is how I refer to it. I know that's inappropriate, but that's how I think about it. Speaker 2 (11:10) Yeah, no, but it's this idea of like, hey, I stumble upon this thing. I'm no genius, but I want to share with you. And people, for some reason, are a lot more. And it's not an act. That's who you are. No, totally Speaker 1 (11:21) it is. I treat my business like a lab. We're testing out new stuff all the time. Half of it blows up in my face, which is hilarious to me. We had a program that designed to get someone to $10,000 a month. And the goal was to get people to $10,000 a month so they could join us in Black Belt. in order to qualify for Black Belt, they need to do 10 grand a month for three months in a row. So that's the business goal for me. The program was three months long, which is, I was like, why aren't people upgrading? Well, they get to 10 grand a month, but they couldn't have got to 10 grand a month and hold it for three months in a row if the program isn't long enough for them to do that. And so like you make all these stupid mistakes that you realize afterwards how obvious it was. You laugh about it. And then you've got a story to tell that's useful for others. Yeah. I don't know if it's reluctant hero, but it's definitely, I'm in the lab and I'm testing stuff out. And I'm happy to share both the stunning successes as well as the stupid failures. Yeah. Especially if I find them entertaining. Yeah. Speaker 2 (12:08) I mean, I say a good portion of your content is you making fun of your old self and the business that you built that you hated. Yeah. And then how you're like, hey, I woke up. I was like, I don't like this anymore. And the reason why that's so relatable because. Entrepreneurs do that. Of course. They go after something they think they want. They like the idea of it. Yeah. And then they live it. Speaker 1 (12:26) Man, this sucks. Yeah. Speaker 2 (12:29) Yeah. Talk a little bit about that. I want to hear a little bit more about, you know, the business that you built. Why did you hate it? How did you make the decision to change? What were the steps where you're just like, everybody out of my office? Speaker 1 (12:38) Yeah. So I've been doing this for a long time. And for someone who likes variety as much as I do, it's kind of weird that I've kind of got the same business as I started back then. It doesn't mean it's morphed and evolved. I mean, like version 58.2 or whatever. But it's been a stable growing thing. COVID hit a few years ago and we're in this amazing situation where we had to do an event every March, July, November. And the March event was in Australia and then two weeks later in the States. And so we did the event in Melbourne. It was amazing. Clients from all over. And then in between the Melbourne event and two weeks later in LA, COVID hit and the borders got shut to the States and Tom Hanks got... COVID and it was like, okay, well, if Tom Hanks got COVID, it's in Australia, right? So we had to like redo the whole event, like A, figure out how to do it on the internet and not make it suck. And B, all of the content that I taught in Melbourne now is irrelevant because the whole world's like being rug pulled from us. And so we're inventing this whole new event and a new delivery style. And it went super, super well. I think it was just like lucky timing that, you know, that happened right at that moment. And so we had a bit of an idea about what to do and we were able to lead people through it. So all of a sudden we get this reputation as like, These are the guys who can help us in this weird time. And the business takes off. And because I'm a better, you know, face than CEO, our solution to all the growth was let's just, you know, hire some more people and throw Speaker 2 (13:57) people out. I'm not Speaker 1 (13:58) systemized. And so we threw all these Speaker 2 (13:59) people out and the business grew. Are you talking about sales teams? What are you talking about? Speaker 1 (14:02) I'm talking about sales team. I'm talking about coaches. I'm talking about support people. I'm talking about everything. We grew to like 36 people, which for me is a lot on the team. And, you know, COVID was an awful time to live through, but business-wise it was great for us. And then it disappears and I'm... left with this heavy business with a bunch of folks. And I kind of lost, not kind, I lost my mojo bigly. I'd replaced myself out of a bunch of the jobs like you're supposed to. I wasn't doing much of the coaching. I was still running like the teach sessions, not doing much of the coaching, not doing any of Speaker 2 (14:31) the Speaker 1 (14:31) sales because we had a sales team that did that, like nine people, not involved in the marketing very much. And like, frankly, I didn't really know what my job was anymore. And so I'm in this lost place where I've got this. big business that looks great on paper, but my weeks are like, if you're not doing the coaching or the sales or the marketing or the whatever, what's left? Well, the meetings to organize the people. And I hate meetings. So I remember like just being in this funk, like lost my mojo. And I didn't realize, I felt really powerless in my own business, which is a weird thing to say. I'm the boss and I could do whatever the hell I want, but I'd like completely didn't feel it. And one day I jumped on Zoom because once a month we get the whole team together to do this like all hands thing. You know, when you're on Zoom and you can see all the Brady Bunch faces of all the people. And I noticed that I can click to page two and there's like two Zoom pages full of folks. I'm like, man, when did we become like a two-page Zoom company? I didn't say this bit out loud, but in the back of my head, I'm like, what the hell do all you guys do? I don't want to be a two-page Zoom company anymore. No wonder it felt really heavy. And so afterwards I got off the Zoom and I chatted with Tony, who you know, Speaker 2 (15:27) and Speaker 1 (15:27) Karim, my wife, who you know. I was like, I don't want this anymore. I didn't know what I wanted instead, but I knew what I didn't want. Which is a good start. Often it's really, it's much easier. If you make a list of what you don't want, then what you do want is probably that kind of the opposite of that. And so I sat down with these two amazing women and figured out what it might look like on the other side. And I realized it had been like a year and a half in a funk, just like tolerating all this on my business that, that drained my energy. And my week was like, Casey and I said, it's not about how much time you spend doing what you love. It's about how little time you spend doing what you hate. And I was spending all my time doing what I hate. And I just didn't know that it was possible to change it, which is stupid to say, but true. It's Speaker 2 (16:05) also, you don't want to disappoint people. Speaker 1 (16:07) Most of it was just hanging on to people because- You hired them. Because I hired them and we'd become friends and I felt like really uncomfortable. I'm a conflict avoider. And so I didn't want to have awkward conversations with people put up with this thing that I hated. And I thought about shutting the whole thing down and just keeping Boardroom my VIP group, Speaker 2 (16:25) like Speaker 1 (16:26) me and an assistant. And I was like, okay, but half the people in Boardroom I only met because they joined us when they were smaller in Black Belt or smaller again in clients. And I was like, it's not the, like, I love the clients and I love the programs. It was just like the way my week was running. I didn't like. Watched Speaker 2 (16:40) an Speaker 1 (16:40) episode, a great talk by Jason Free from Basecamp, who I love. He's like my Elvis. He's talking to a bunch of software guys. I know this is rambly, but I promise it'll be worth it. Hopefully it'll be worth it. Talking about how like software designers design the product, but they never think about the product, the ultimate product, which is the business that they get to work in every day. And so I grabbed him for an interview and like secretly, I was like, what can I get from this for me? Because I feel like I've built amazing client products, but the product I'm in every day doesn't feel fun. And then Tony and Keri Marie helped get a vision for what it could look like on the other side. And then we're only like from, you know, making the decision to a completely different business was 90 days away. And I spent more time not making the changes than making the changes. Yeah. You know, 90 days later, the business was completely different. Sales team of nine to sales team of zero, like not a single set, a close, no sales calls, no nothing. Team went from 36 to eight. And most importantly, my role went from, I don't know what my job is. And I'm in meetings all the time till I get to do the two things I love, which is make new things and hang out with cool people and share the lessons from those two things to everybody. It's liberating. Speaker 2 (17:42) A hundred percent. And I think one of the things that I love about this journey is you recognize the fact that, hey, like, I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. Like, you know, this doesn't feel right. And a lot of us, we build these monsters called businesses and we, confuse what we're supposed to do with what we want to do. Like, Speaker 1 (18:01) yeah. Um, this is, this is a quote from, from Pinterest, you know, one of those Pinterest inspirational quotes that actually landed. And, uh, my friend Dan put me onto it, a different Dan. And it was like, I'm much more interested in how my business feels to me than how it looks to anyone else. And I heard that. I was like, Oh my God, that's it. Speaker 2 (18:16) So Speaker 1 (18:17) I don't really care what anyone else thinks. Like I'm the dude in this life 24 seven. Yeah. Let's build something that feels great. Yeah. Life-changing. Speaker 2 (18:26) So, Taki, we like to play some games here. Okay. This is a bunch of markers. Okay. I know you love markers. Yeah, I can't think without a pen. Speaker 1 (18:33) This whole thing's been awkward. This is going to make it much better. No Speaker 2 (18:34) worries. We're going to play another game later, and these markers will be pivotal. Okay. But right now, Speaker 1 (18:39) we're Speaker 2 (18:40) going to play a game called Real Taki, Fake Taki. Okay. Okay. Speaker 1 (18:43) Yep. What do the markers do? Speaker 2 (18:44) Well, the markers are going to be used later. Okay. We don't need them now? No. But if you get a wrong answer, I'm going to remove one of the markers. Okay. Speaker 1 (18:53) Okay. Speaker 2 (18:55) And if you're left with just one black marker later, Speaker 1 (18:57) you're Speaker 2 (18:58) going to want all the markers later. So you want to, as much as possible, get these answers right. Okay. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you a quote. These are cards. You can read them out loud. Okay. This is a quote. You're going to tell me, did you actually say this? Was this the real talkie? Or is it, I've never said that. That's not me. Fake talkie. Okay. Speaker 1 (19:15) Okay. Speaker 2 (19:15) So I'm going to give you these cards and you can go ahead and start reading. And I'll tell you if there's real or fake. Speaker 1 (19:21) Okay, first one. I'm not responsible for any projects myself because I want them to actually finish. The idea is right. I don't remember saying those words. I'm the chief wanting officer, so mostly I'm like deciding what I want, but I'm definitely not responsible for finishing projects because otherwise they will definitely bomb. Speaker 2 (19:36) So more real or more freak? More real. So real talky? Speaker 1 (19:39) Yeah. Correct. Phew. Okay. Speaker 2 (19:41) I don't remember Speaker 1 (19:42) saying those words, but that's great. Speaker 2 (19:44) Next one. Speaker 1 (19:45) Most coaches don't have a marketing issue. They've got an issue with marketing. I don't think I said that, but I love that quote. If I didn't say it, I'll say it now. Speaker 2 (19:52) But you're right. Fake Taki. Yeah, okay, good. Speaker 1 (19:55) Next one. Speaker 2 (19:56) This Speaker 1 (19:57) is outrageous. I haven't got a number we need to hit in order for daddy to love me. I don't think I said that, but it's very true. Maybe I did say that. I'm going to say real Taki. Speaker 2 (20:06) It is real Taki. Yeah, that's true. Speaker 1 (20:10) I don't have a number in my head. My dad, I had a great childhood. I'm definitely not driven by... I think Speaker 2 (20:15) you're answering somebody's question. Yeah, that's Speaker 1 (20:17) hilarious. Okay. This is definitely fake Taki. Mediocre coffee is fine. I did not say that. Speaker 2 (20:23) True. That's right. Fake Taki is right. Speaker 1 (20:25) Yeah. Next. 80 % done by someone else is 100 % awesome. That's a Dan Martell quote. So if I said it, I was quoting Dan. I don't think it's me. Is that true? Speaker 2 (20:32) I caught you saying it on a video. So it is real Taki. It's Speaker 1 (20:36) real Taki quoting real Dan Martell. Speaker 2 (20:38) Okay. So I love the filler. Yeah. Love you, Dan. Speaker 1 (20:42) Going viral should be your primary goal in marketing. 100 % not true. Fake Speaker 2 (20:46) Taki. Correct. Speaker 1 (20:47) Okay, I'm probably going to die one day on Zoom teaching a workshop