Near Death Experience, Importance of Breathwork & Struggling to Get Investors | Tyler Hall DSH #301

Once you've taken somebody in marriage, you've taken their hand in marriage, like you're now one.

You're no longer individuals.

Like you're a unit.

And then when you have a child, that child is part of your unit.

You develop this like powerful core as a family.

And I never felt that until this moment happened.

Welcome back to the show, guys.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly.

We are here on the Digital Social Hour.

Got someone with an incredible story here today.

Tech Entrepreneur turned podcaster tyler hall how's my man my man good to be here yeah i uh i saw your story man and i i almost cried man it's pretty incredible what you went through and i'd love for you to just tell the viewers that are watching your story thanks brother i've got the glasses on by the way today because it's a little bright in here got a little bit of a headache so i'm not trying to be too gucci over the top but i thought i'd i thought i'd wear them on the episode you're good yeah man so my story is uh is a unique one, I think.

You know, growing up, always was the guy that challenged challenged the norm from a really young age.

So

I was never going to be put in a box, right?

And I think I realized that from a really young age, 10, 11 years old.

I end up going to college,

get accepted to Stanford to study.

I drop out as a sophomore.

I end up joining two early stage tech companies.

The first one went public at a billion dollar valuation.

The second one we sold to a private equity group for over half a billion dollars.

But I wasn't a founder of either of these.

And in 2018, I decided it's time for for me to go start my own company.

So I founded a company from the ground up called Drivably,

automotive technology company.

Went out and raised a bunch of venture capital.

First company in North America backed by Porsche ever,

which was a really cool thing because I'm a big fan of the brand.

And, you know, we had

all of the challenges you can think of as a first-time founder.

You know, we almost ran out of money several times, one payroll away from literally not being able to pay the bills and shutting the doors.

Through a bit of resilience, hard work, and luck, you know, we ended up

catching a wave, I would say, going in.

We ended up acquiring a company during.

It was the best decision we ever made.

We had vertical growth for the next 18 months.

And in October of 2021, we sold our company to a public company.

Had a really successful exit.

You know, timing was...

fairly lucky, but like we had to be in a position to receive that luck.

And,

you know, five months later, Sean, I had an experience that changed my life that I'm happy to, you know, go into for the audience if you'd like me to.

Yeah, this is the one I was referencing earlier.

I'd love for you to share it.

So we sell the company.

You know, before I get to the story, three months later, I'm in Houston, Texas.

And I show up at my hotel.

I'm at a Marriott.

I jump on the elevator.

As I'm getting ready to go up, A man sticks his arm in the door and hops on the elevator with me.

And the guy jumps on and

I just say, hey, man, how you doing?

It's kind of older gentleman, probably 55, 60.

And he looks at me and he says, I'm not doing well.

And I'm like, sorry to hear that.

And he said, I had to bury my 26-year-old son today.

Wow.

And dude, it just like, it just hit me to the chest, man, to the core.

And I was speechless.

I didn't say anything.

I just, I was, I was shocked.

And he said, he was a good kid.

It wasn't abuse.

It wasn't anything.

It was a total fluke.

Yesterday he was perfectly fine.

Today he's dead.

And the doors open for him to get off the elevator.

And I just open up my arms to embrace this man.

And I'm getting pretty emotional.

And he looks me in the eyes before he hugs me.

And he says, I don't know who you are.

I don't know if you have a family or if you have kids.

And I do.

Obviously, I have three kids at this point.

He says, but if you do, hold them really closely because you never know when it's going to be their last day.

He walks away.

The doors close.

I break down.

I go up to my hotel room.

I call my wife.

I say, hey, I'm so sorry that I haven't been there more, you know, for you and the kids.

I've been chasing this thing and it's finally happened.

We're in a really good place.

I'm so sorry.

And she's like, you know what?

You've been doing the best you can.

Like, give yourself some grace.

But I'll never forget that moment.

Two months later, I'm in New York City.

I'm getting ready to present at

on CNBC.

This is like every entrepreneur's dream.

It's like live, CNBC, NASDAQ, the whole deal.

And I'm presenting with the CEO of the parent company, and I wake up.

We do a dry run on Monday.

It's the end of February, March 1st of 2022.

I wake up and a phone call comes in from my mother-in-law.

My mother-in-law and I are close, but we don't like talk on the phone, specifically not at 5 a.m.

in the morning, Arizona time.

So your heart dropped immediately.

And I knew something was wrong.

So instead of picking up the phone and saying hello, I said, what happened?

And she said, Brooklyn, who's my wife, is being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.

And we don't know how bad it is.

We don't know what's going on, but you might want to come home.

And, you know, the idiot in me is like, well, I got this thing.

You know, I'm doing this thing and it's important and I got to be at it and I can't cancel.

Right.

And I remember just having this feeling like, I got to go.

So I text my assistant.

I say, hey, I need to get a flight out of New York City.

I get in the Uber.

I'm getting text message updates from my father-in-law.

And the updates are, hey, we just got to the hospital.

A few minutes later, hey, they just did an ultrasound.

We found two liters of blood in her abdomen.

And at this point, I'm arriving to the airport.

I'm standing at the terminal.

I get a photo that's a picture of

the diagnosis and it says ruptured ectopic pregnancy.

And I don't know what this means, but I I go to Google and I realize that in the majority of cases, when this happens in the home, it's fatal.

And so I go from like having a lot of hope, maybe my wife is lightheaded, she passed out, to my wife's going to die.

And

I remember in that moment,

I went into like a state of shock.

And I'm standing in the airport terminal.

Everybody boards the plane.

They're calling my name.

I'm not hearing it.

The flight attendant comes over, realizes, like, hey, are you Tyler Hall?

Are you going to board this flight?

Escorts me out of the plane.

The next update is they just rushed her in for an emergency surgery to the front of the line.

And then for four hours, about every hour, still in surgery, still in surgery, still in surgery.

And, you know, at this point, I'm getting really worried because I've delivered three children at this point.

The doctor is only in the room for about 15 minutes.

Wow.

She's in surgery for four hours.

So I know something's seriously wrong.

The last message I get

as we're descending from my father-in-law, of all people, is something to the effect of, brace yourself.

It doesn't look like she's going to make it.

And at that moment, Sean, like everything changed, right?

My entire life.

And I thought when I read this, I actually read,

she's gone.

but I'm not going to tell you until you get to the hospital.

And so for the next four hours of my life, three hours of my life, like landing, getting through the airport, getting to the hospital, I was living with the assumption that my wife had passed away.

And that's a tough thing to live with, right?

Three small kids at the time are six, four, and one.

And,

you know,

I'm asking myself all the questions.

Am I fulfilled?

Am I happy?

What is fulfillment?

What is happiness?

Have I been a good father?

Have I been a good husband?

You know, have I spent enough time?

Have I been honest enough enough with my spouse, with my kids?

What do I want to do with my life?

What is life?

You know, I'm asking everything you can ask.

Get to the hospital.

I run past the emergency room.

I get up to her floor and I'm expecting to open the door to her room and for her father to embrace me

and for her to be gone.

And I open the door and I hear the heart rate monitor.

It's the first thing I hear.

And so I have hope.

Like my wife is still here.

She's still alive.

I get one more moment with her.

And I walk over to her.

I sit down at her bedside, and

I'm just grateful that I get to like feel her heart beat one more time.

And I sit down and I ask my father-in-law, I say, hey, how are things going?

How is she?

And just as soon as those words came out of my mouth, she had this like seizure-like episode, super scary.

Doctors had to come in, nurses.

And that one moment turned into one night.

And that one night turned into another night.

And we get to the third day, and she starts coming out of this sort of state of comatosis and starts communicating.

And I remember at some point I asked her, I said, do you remember the moment where I came into the room and you had that seizure?

Like, what happened?

And she said, when I heard your voice, it gave me life.

And that moment for me, man, was like, was really special, right?

Because it showed me that we are not, once you've taken somebody in marriage, you've taken their hand in marriage, like you're now one.

You're no longer individuals.

Like you're a unit.

And then when you have a child, that child is part of your unit.

And then another one, they're part of your unit.

So you develop this like powerful core as a family.

And I never felt that until this moment happened.

And so eventually we get through it.

The silver lining is she makes it.

But I realized that

through that experience, all this, all this

I I was chasing, this money, more accolades, more things, at the end of the day, don't matter,

period, like at all.

And there's going to be controversy.

People are going to say, well, it's easy for you to say money guy.

No, no, no.

Like, if your relationships aren't in an amazing place,

think about it.

Does anything else really matter?

And for me, the answer is no.

And so it took me almost losing my wife to realize that.

Wow.

And I'm happy I had that experience in many ways, but it was a difficult one for sure to deal with.

So that's why I got to where I'm at today, trying to now give back and help entrepreneurs and help men become better.

And I don't think I would be doing what I'm doing today if I didn't have that experience.

Incredible, man.

Really is.

So did she end up having a fourth kid with you?

Yeah, it's a good question.

So doctors told us, Definitely don't try to have kids again.

You're high risk.

She lost one of her fallopian tubes.

Her uterus is not in good standing.

You know,

we felt really strongly that like God had a plan for us and that child was supposed to be here.

And so we tried to have one more.

She got pregnant.

We were obviously very nervous through the pregnancy.

But one week ago today, we delivered our fourth child.

Wow.

Another girl named Noah Vidalia.

Hall.

Vidalia being named after the doctor who saved her life.

Amazing.

Yeah.

That's incredible.

Thanks, man.

So you're all about family now.

Like, that's your number one priority.

100%.

Like, are you even working anymore?

Yeah, I am.

I'm not working probably at the same level or same capacity that I was before.

And fortunately enough,

I don't have to.

And I think I'll get back to a place where I want to build another company.

But right now, I'm doing things that are a lot more mission-driven and purpose-driven.

So the podcast, I spend a lot of time and energy on the podcast.

Yeah.

I coach a few CEOs one-on-one of tech companies.

I just launched an apparel brand called Levels.

Our first drop actually was yesterday.

It's the Live Inspire drop.

I'm doing it with my business partner, Eddie Pinero.

And, you know, these are things that like fill my cup, right?

And I do believe that these businesses can be really big businesses as well.

But right now, as I'm in the building phase, like these are really just passion projects and really filling my cup.

Yeah.

So your podcast is 37 episodes in, but you've had on some incredible guests, eight, nine, 10-figure guys.

Yeah.

So you're still exposed to that, you know, that grind mentality, that business world.

Yeah.

But you choose to just put family first.

Yeah, I am.

And I do coat, like, I coach CEOs of companies.

You know, one of the CEOs I coach is doing.

2.2 billion a year in revenue and growing about 20% a year.

Wow.

And then companies as small as, you know, five, six million of revenue.

And so I'm still like, I'm still close enough to it to get the itch.

Right.

But I'm more like the grandparent

to the child versus being the parent of the child.

So you don't have to do all the actual stressful work, right?

That's right.

I don't have to change the diapers, sleep with the baby.

Like I just get to do the fun.

Going back to your company that you sold when you were raising money, that's something a lot of people struggle with.

How did you get experience with raising capital?

I had an unfair unfair advantage, which was that my brother, my older brother, who is my best friend and a great life mentor and somebody who's, I wouldn't be where I'm at today without him, was a VC at the time, which venture capitalist, for those who don't know.

And, you know, he was connected and friends with hundreds of VCs.

And so he opened doors to about 50 funds.

Wow.

And so I got to go pitch and mess up like an unlimited amount of times with no downside because I knew that my brother was going to be there to help open more doors.

And

I did about 55 pitches before I got my first yes.

Whoa.

And so, you know, I spent, I was on planes flying around using my own capital,

using some angel investment that we had raised to try to close a small round, a $2 million round.

And it took 55 no's.

And finally,

I got an investor to say yes.

And they wrote a check for 750K.

And once that happened, it sent a signal out to the market, all the other VCs.

A lot of VCs are really FOMO.

They don't want to be the first one, right?

Yeah, but they're like, they call them momentum investors.

I like to call them FOMO investors because they don't want to miss out on the deal.

Once you get that lead term sheet, it's a lot easier to close the rest of the round, but it takes just that one yes.

That one yes.

And most people wouldn't even attempt to reach out to 55 to begin with.

That's probably the issue, right?

Yeah, look, and it's discouraging, right?

When you keep, when investors keep saying no over and over and over again, you have to like almost be in the frame of mind of, I need to go pitch 100 investors.

Right.

To pitch 100 investors, you probably have to reach out to 500 investors.

Right.

The thing you don't realize, though, a lot of people don't realize is there's like 10,000 institutional sources of capital in the U.S.

Wow.

Okay, so like to get to 500 is not that big of a deal.

Right.

They're looking for deal flow.

They're looking for good companies.

They want you to reach out.

It just takes some planning and organization and building out a list and being thoughtful about it.

And it takes time and it takes energy.

But you need to do, in my mind, you need to plan on doing 100 pitches to get your first yes.

But once you get your first yes, then you've got a lot of momentum.

Yeah.

When you look back at the growth of the company and how it scaled so quickly, what are some key moments you remember that really elevated the company to the next level?

It's a good question.

I think

the success of companies comes down to a couple of things.

One of them is

the energy level of the CEO.

Okay, so this is not a take that you're going to hear very often.

But there's a CEO and people inside of an organization, they're either being energized, so their battery level is going up or their battery level is going down.

It's never flat.

So you're either being energized or you're not.

And the number one way to increase energy is to operate in a zone that is called your zone of genius.

Okay, and the zone of genius is doing things that you are great at

and that you love to do.

Okay.

There's three other zones.

Zone of incompetence, things you're not great at that you hate.

Zone of competence, things you're competent at that you hate.

Zone of excellence, things you're great at that you hate.

All three of those zones decrease your energy level.

Wow.

Okay.

And if the CEO can operate at an energy increasing level every day for a sustained period of time, the probability of the company being successful is exponentially greater.

Because at the end of the day, the CEO is the most important person in the company by a magnitude of like 100.

Really?

Yeah.

It's not even like, it's not even close.

Wow.

Okay.

My next take is going to make all the people who are not CEOs feel better, which is

that then it comes down to can the CEO bring the right people into the organization to make it work.

And so, you know, I don't think that companies, specifically software companies, have any unique

IP advantage anymore.

I think it really comes down to can I hire and attract the right people and get them to do the right things and operate in their zone of genius.

And if we can collectively do that as a unit and everybody feels energized every day, then we will win.

That's my basic thesis.

I like that, Tay, because you're right.

A lot of companies seem replicatable these days.

So it's more about the talent, right?

100%.

Yeah.

There's no really innovative things that I could think of of recent years.

Yeah.

And it's getting harder and harder, man, because 10 years ago, if you wanted to go attract the right talent,

you could do it with the right amount of money.

the right salesmanship and the right amount of equity.

Today, it's not like that because some of the best best talent is going out and doing their own thing.

Like the barrier to entry to start your own thing today is lower than it's ever been in history.

And so a lot of the great talent that used to exist is now off the market.

Sean Michael Kelly cannot be recruited into a company to do a thing

because you are your own man and you're doing your own thing.

And a lot of really talented people have chosen to do what you're doing.

And so it's making it harder and harder to get great people.

Wow.

And when you went to exit, how many no's, how many deals fall through at the last minute?

What was that process like?

Oh, man.

This is an intense one.

So, you know, a lot of times when you go through an acquisition process, you actually run a formal process.

Okay.

So the way that that looks is you engage with an investment bank.

An investment bank is essentially there to

be the representative of the selling company.

and go out and find buyers to raise their hand and run the entire process, do all the phone calls, all the due diligence, gathering all the data.

They're there to make sure that the process of selling or buying a company goes well.

And they take a fee from that.

And they take a fee.

Yeah, usually between 1% and 3%, depending on the size of the deal and how you negotiate this sort of thing.

Got it.

What we chose to do was because of the timing of the market, it was so good in 2021, the automotive market was at an all-time high.

I remember.

And we were right in the middle of this like perfect storm, what we did for dealers.

And so we chose to run what I call a ghost process, which is I had an investment banker in my back pocket, but they weren't front facing.

And so I made all the companies believe that we didn't have investment banking representation and that they were going to be negotiating directly with me.

So what these companies thought was, oh, I've got an inexperienced CEO that I'm going to be negotiating with.

This is great.

We're going to get a great deal.

We're going to be able to run this process how we want.

We're going going to take control.

We're going to add things into the purchase agreement that are going to be like whatever.

But meanwhile, I had really high-powered attorneys and investment bankers in the back seat that were spot-checking everything.

Wow.

Okay.

And so what that allowed us to do was it allowed us to move a lot quicker because you didn't have investment bankers and attorneys

playing the big show

in the negotiation that would have dragged the process out.

So instead of it taking six months,

I basically reached out to about six CEOs, five of public companies, and these are guys that I knew in the industry that I was cordial with, some of them friends with.

And out of those six, five of them said, Yeah, we want to engage you in a process.

Out of those five, we got three term sheets in three months.

One of them was totally low, so we weren't even going to entertain it at all.

Two of them were competitive, and so we had a little mini bake-off is what you would call it, where we got these two to sort of do their best and final.

Right.

And one of them really stepped up, and that's the one that we ended up selling the company to.

So now once the LOI is signed, it's not done.

It's not a done deal.

And a lot of people think, and I actually thought at the time, dude, we did it.

I called my co-founder or I let my team know, like, we did it.

We sold the company.

And that was a huge mistake because then they have to do another level of due diligence on the company.

where now they have access to everything.

And there were things that they found in the way that we sourced customers that as a public company, company, they would not be able to do.

So, that entire sourcing channel was going to turn off overnight.

And so, they hammered the valuation.

So, now we're in an exclusive agreement.

I can't talk to any other buyers.

Right.

And they all of a sudden go back on the deal.

Oh, and at some point, I get a call from the head of MA who says, Hey, we're not going to do this deal together.

And, dude, I remember I received that news.

I was heartbroken because I had been planning the next phase of my life

with my wife.

Of course.

Where are we going to live?

How hard do you want?

You know, I was broke at this time, really.

And

I get this call.

Hey, this isn't going to happen.

And here's why.

And I walk out and I've got tears in my eyes.

And I walk up to my wife.

She said, what's going on?

I said, the deal's not going to happen.

She's like,

okay, like,

you know, what happened?

And I just, I told her, I said,

yeah, the deal's not going to happen.

And she said, she looked me dead in the eyes and she said, so what?

And I was like, did you, did you hear me correctly?

She goes, I heard every word you said.

So what?

This doesn't change the way that I think about you or the kids think about you.

They don't even know.

So what?

And dude, it like took all the pressure off me.

I was like, you're right.

Like, we still have each other, even though we're not going to have these millions of of dollars.

Like we still have each other.

And, you know, that was certainly one of those moments in my marriage where I realized like I had a ride or die by my side.

That's amazing.

Which was an unfair advantage as well.

Like a lot of people think, no, it's the single entrepreneurs that can grind and work 20-hour days are the guys that have the unfair advantage.

Like, no.

No.

It's the one that has a support system that when you get your...

kicked every day and you go home and they hold you and they talk to you and they console you and they're there every day.

Those are the ones that have the unfair advantage.

Absolutely.

My fiancé has been here with me from the start, man, just like you.

Yeah, she's been my rock.

You have, you also have an interesting perspective on the woman-man relationship that opposes a lot of stuff you see on social media.

How do you view that?

I think there's a lot of, I'm not even going to use the word toxic masculinity.

I think it's a word, but I think you've got a lot of these guys that are incredibly insecure.

And the way that they mask that insecurity is by pretending that they are better than the woman in one way, shape, or form.

I'm an alpha.

I go earn the money.

I hunt the lions down.

I kill.

I'm the.

And it's like,

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, who gives a f ⁇ ?

Come on.

My take that might be unpopular or popular, we'll see.

is that men should help around the home.

And the reason I know this is the first time my wife left me with my children for two days,

the whole world almost fingered me.

I mean, honestly, Sean,

like, dude, it was the hardest two days of my life.

I thought, no, I'll be able to balance the kids and still work.

And

the answer was no.

Like, dude, I was trying everything just to survive for two days.

Being a mother is the hardest thing in the world, hands down.

It is harder than any job that any of you are doing out there by a magnitude of 10.

Wow.

Hands down.

And so you're telling me that women should just

themselves every day.

Now we have four kids with our children and then make sure that the home is tidy and clean and perfect every day.

Like that's

there are days where you should come home from work.

You should realize that it's probably been a stressful day.

Just observe the environment

and then pitch in.

Go do the dishes one time.

Go take the trash out one time.

Go sweep the floor one time.

Go mop.

Go clean the bathroom if it's dirty.

Like, pitch in.

Yeah.

And, you know,

I think men have just got it a bit twisted.

Like, it's a unit.

You should be helping each other.

Well, shouldn't the, then the woman should be going to work and helping.

No, man.

Like, do more.

Do better.

So when you say pitch in, my brain's thinking of loopholes.

What about hiring a nanny or a cleaning lady?

That is the natural thing that anybody would say.

The reality is 99% of the people listening to this podcast cannot afford to have a nanny or a cleaning lady.

The 1% that can, including me, great, go do that.

But

we still don't do that.

Sometimes, okay, we have them come occasionally, but I don't have a full-time live-in nanny or a full-time.

My wife takes pride in being the mother of our children and raising them herself.

Right.

She does.

And I've asked her a hundred times, do you want to get a house manager?

Yeah.

Someone to just come take the load off?

Do you want to have a nanny?

And we have people around the house all the time helping out with different stuff.

But like, she wants to be the one to raise our kids.

And

I think it's okay for the man to pitch in and help out.

Yeah, I like that.

There's something that caught my attention on your Instagram.

I want to close off with this.

You said everyone has limiting beliefs.

What are some common ones you see in a lot of people?

I think one of the biggest ones is

people's concept of money

is

incredibly limiting.

I think the 99% that I talked about that are doing, potentially doing the nine to five, potentially working two jobs,

if I could help them see

what's possible from a financial standpoint,

truly how easy it is to make a million bucks,

I think people all of a sudden would go, I can put in the same amount of effort and make 10 times the amount of money.

And I think most of the world just doesn't have a belief in their ability to generate income.

So I think income is one of them.

I think people have incredibly limiting beliefs on

their ability to be present.

I think most people in the world are living in the past or living in the future.

For sure.

And

there's

one of my favorite Stoic quotes is Marcus Aurelius.

He says, give yourself a gift,

this present moment.

And I love the way that he says that because nothing else is real, Sean, except what is happening right here, right now.

Right.

And I think if we lived that way,

everybody would have a much richer life, whether financial or not.

Absolutely.

You'd be more fulfilled.

You'd have more purpose.

You'd have more freedom.

All the words that you're trying to achieve can be unlocked if you can teach yourself to be present.

And I think a lot of people don't believe it's possible to not think about the past and think about the future, but it is.

For sure.

I used to live in the past and it held me back so much.

I'm glad I got out of that mindset.

But going back to the million thing, you said you believe a lot of people can make a million dollars.

Yeah.

I feel like even if you give them the knowledge and information, most people won't act on it.

Yeah.

Do you agree?

I do agree.

I do agree because a lot of these people have it.

They have the information, right?

And

I think where the limiting belief comes in is I have the info,

but I don't have the skill to go and act on the info.

Right.

That could be true, but somebody else does.

Go find that person or those people.

Bring them together and inspire them.

to go and do the thing.

Absolutely.

Right.

So I think, look, you're hosting this show by yourself right now.

Does this all work just by yourself?

No.

No.

How many people do you have supporting this thing?

At least five.

At least five.

I mean, I can see some of them right now.

Yeah.

Right.

So, and that's just your podcast.

Yeah.

Let alone the other things you're doing in your life.

Right.

So

it never happens on your own.

And I think once you realize that by pulling the right band together, you can play any song.

That's the, that's the key.

Love it.

Tyler, what an impactful episode.

Anything you want to close off with or promote?

Yeah, man, I think

I'd love for people to go check out the Roller Coaster Podcast.

This is a podcast that I put a lot of time and energy into.

We spend all of our time basically interviewing guests, inspiring and inspirational guests on their roller coaster story.

Recently we had Brad Leon, we had Keaton Hoskins, the muscle, Eddie Panero, Jimmy Rex.

We've had some really big guests and our lineup coming up is huge.

Love it.

The next 10 episodes are going to blow people's minds, which I'm really excited about.

So, check out the Roller Coaster Podcast.

You can find me on Instagram at Tyler.hall.

And then I'd love for you to check out our newest drop, which is the Live Inspired drop.

It may not be available to purchase when this comes out, but our next one's coming soon.

So go over to levels.shop or Levels Apparel Co.

on Instagram.

Let's do it.

Thanks so much, man.

Thanks, brother.

Thanks for watching, guys.

As always, see you next time.