This story requires a bit of setup.

I’d been at a company called Audigy since 2012. By all measure, the company was thriving. Audigy had built a highly successful model around helping independent practices scale their operations, and I was deep in the creative trenches—doing marketing, producing podcasts, and shooting video. We were successful, the work was steady, and from where I sat, everything felt secure.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, the company was sold.

If you’ve ever been through a corporate buyout, you know exactly what that atmosphere feels like. Experience had taught me that whenever a company changes hands, sweeping changes are right behind it. The writing was on the wall, and sure enough, I was laid off along with many of my friends and coworkers.

For context, this is not a story about anything bad that happened during my time with Audigy. I enjoyed my time with there, and made a lot of friends that I still have to this day. It was here that I found a love for helping small businesses.

That sale forced me into the unknown.

But for the founder and CEO of Audigy, Brandon Dawson, it represented a huge personal score and professional validation.

The "Choose Growth" Era

After the exit, Brandon took a break and traveled the world. But he didn't build a nine-figure company by accident, and he certainly didn't want to stay retired.

When he came back from traveling, he realized his true passion wasn't just running a single business, but taking smaller businesses—companies doing around $2 million in revenue—and figuring out how to scale their operations massively. He wanted to take the exact model that made Audigy successful and apply it to completely different (and all) industries.

So, he launched a new venture called Choose Growth. And when he started putting that initial team together, I was one of the first people he called (to my surprise).

All of a sudden, I was in on the ground floor of something big. Right as COVID-19 hit and the world was locking down, Brandon recognized something crucial: the power of the personal brand. He knew he needed to be online, and he needed his story documented.

The Missing Piece: Audience

Choose Growth had the operational blueprint, but to scale it, Brandon needed a massive audience of business owners. That’s when the strategy shifted.

If you aren't familiar with Grant Cardone, he is a billionaire real estate investor who originally made his name and fortune in sales training. He is the architect behind the massive "10X" business movement. Grant had the massive, cult-like audience of entrepreneurs that Brandon needed. But Grant's expertise was purely in sales, not in the operational logistics of scaling a business to a nine-figure exit.

It was the perfect, mutually beneficial relationship. Brandon had the operational systems; Grant had the audience and the sales engine.

But how do you actually get the attention of a billionaire who is pitched a hundred times a day? You don't send a cold DM. You don't ask for a coffee meeting to "pick his brain." You apply his own philosophy.

Grant had a very specific rule, one that I would hear repeated often once I was finally in the room: "If you want to be in business with me, you have to do business with me."

Brandon and Natalie (fiance at the time) took that lesson to heart. They attended Grant’s flagship event, the 10X Growth Conference in Miami. And they didn't just show up—they bought the absolute most expensive tickets available. They invested their own capital to get proximity. They showed up not as people looking for a handout, but as participants who already valued what Grant had built.

They did business with him first. And because of that, Choose Growth eventually evolved into Cardone Ventures.

For a brief window—about a year—I had uncommon access. I was brought in to document the reality of Brandon, Natalie, and Grant building this new empire on social media. Grant is a master at internet branding. He’s a complicated, maybe even flawed person, but when it comes to marketing and sales insights, his brilliance is undeniable. I was a fly on the wall, listening to what was said when the stage lights were off and there were no celebrities to hobnob with.

That action—buying the ticket, paying the toll, showing up with skin in the game—completely shifted how I view networking and access.

The Extra Mile is the Only Map Left

It sounds almost too simple, maybe even a little transactional at first glance. But watching how it actually played out, I realized it wasn't about extracting money from people; it was about filtering for alignment. Before you walk up to someone and ask them to invest in you, to show you the ropes, to do you a favor, or to assume risk on your behalf—spend some time actually being in their world.

The takeaway for me was profound: before you reach out and ask someone to do something for you, know what motivates them. Know their content. Know their philosophies. If they wrote a book, read it. If they have a course, take it. If they sell a product, buy it.

You have to go the extra mile to remove the friction of being a stranger. You have to prove you understand their ecosystem before asking to become a part of it.

The Defensive Posture

That lesson—that you have to make things happen rather than waiting for them to happen to you—is easy to understand in theory. It’s incredibly hard to put into practice today.

We live in a culture that expects access by default. And when you combine that entitlement with the reality of a tight economy where people are genuinely struggling, the environment turns toxic. Right now, everybody just wants to "get theirs."

When times are hard, the natural human instinct is to dig in. We adopt a protective, defensive posture. We guard our time, our money, and our trust. Consequently, whenever a new opportunity or a potential collaboration comes along, the immediate reaction is suspicion.

What’s the catch? What are the strings attached to this? How are you trying to screw me?

We are so terrified of being taken advantage of that we lock the doors from the inside. We refuse to "do business" with anyone first because we are paralyzed by the fear that the investment won't pay off. But that defensive posture is exactly what keeps people stuck. You can't ask a gatekeeper to open the door when you're busy interrogating them through the peephole.

Don't Beg the Gatekeeper. Build the Gate.

I’ve spent most of my career fighting gatekeepers. It’s in my DNA to look at a locked door and want to kick it down rather than ask for the key. I hate the idea that I need someone else’s permission to make my work matter.

But looking back at that time documenting the early days of Cardone Ventures, I realize I had occasionally misinterpreted the lesson.

"If you want to do business with me, you have to do business with me" wasn't a demand for tribute. It was a reality check on leverage.

In an environment where everyone is clutching their resources and eyeing you with suspicion, asking for a favor is a weak move. Asking for "access" is a weak move. It hands all the power to the gatekeeper. It lets them decide if you are worthy.

Brandon didn't ask Grant for permission to be successful. He didn't wait to be "discovered." He changed the dynamic entirely. By becoming a customer first, he wasn't a mere supplicant at the gate; he was a player on the board. He forced the door open with value, not with a pitch deck.

Make Your Own Movement

The mistake a lot of us make (including me) is thinking that "fighting the gatekeepers" means shouting at them, or battling them on social media. That’s a losing battle.

The real way you fight them is by either making them irrelevant, or by making yourself undeniable. You stop waiting for the gallery, the publisher, or the investor to validate you. You stop viewing them as the enemy holding you back and start viewing them as a variable you can either leverage or ignore.

If you can’t get into the room, stop knocking. Go build your own room. Start your own movement. Create so much gravity around what you are doing that the "gatekeepers" eventually have to come to you to see what the noise is about.

That’s what I’m learning now, starting over in this new era of AI and multi-modal creativity. We don't need their permission anymore. We have the tools to build the assets, the brand, and the distribution ourselves.

So, if you want to do business? Go do it. Do it so well and so loudly that the people who used to block your path end up buying a ticket to your conference.