Welcome to invest in yourself the digital entrepreneur podcast. Join the podcast mogul Phil Better as he interviews successful entrepreneurs that make their living in the digital world. Now let's join your host Phil Better as your special guest today on invest in yourself the Digital Entrepreneur podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur podcast. I am, of course, your host with the most feel better. And today's guest, I am very excited too. They are former US well, they are a US Navy vet who chose to go through the BUDS SEAL training twice, and they failed out for good reasons. It's freaking insane.

They've had twelve years of video production, former professional skydiver, then they got the once in a lifetime job to learn from a hundred million dollars a year CEO in real time, watches the success and mistakes in real time. That's in then seven years ago, they started their first e com business, which which had early successes and then blew up in his face causing over a hundred k in debt. But then he spent his years honing his craft, getting better and better. He launched multiple courses which failed, but taught him that the key was focus. So he started saying no more than yes, which allowed him to launch his YouTube ad agency, which in the first year made 16,000. But in year two, because of that focus, he increased it over a %, making a hundred and 86 k in the second year. He's on pace to make 600 k in his third year in 2023. So ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for the founder of Proven Digital.

Man, when you say it like that, it gets me excited too.

Right? You you got it's it's it's something new I've been doing. I've been using AI to get the rough outline of the thing, and then I just go in and I play with it, make it the AI just gives facts. It doesn't give feelings. Yeah. So I jump in there trying to make it a little more fun. Nolan, thank you so much for being on the show.

I love it, man. Yeah. Thanks for having me. So excited to talk to you.

So I I got to get to know you a little bit. We had a a a before you jumped on the podcast, we had a call. We We talked. You saw that it was not just some guy looking for clout. I actually wanna know a bit about you. So I'm gonna give the baton over to you, the microphone over to you. Please introduce yourself to my audience so they can get to know how crazy cool you actually are.

Thanks, man. Yeah. So I guess I is you probably heard most of everything he just said. But, yeah, my name is Nolan Harper, Navy veteran, and I I kind of stumbled into entrepreneurship. I didn't really know what entrepreneurship was, and I just I I started testing little ways of making extra money here and there. I mean, ten, fifteen years ago. I'm 34 years old now. And then it started kinda snowballing.

And the further I got in the rabbit hole, the more interested I got and the more it became just an absolutely burning passion. Not just for the money, just, it's a completely different lifestyle. I, I love working. I love, providing value if I can. And so, I don't know. Like, it just I I caught the bug, and I went all in, and I've I've failed a whole lot, and I still I'm still failing to this day. But the goal is to fail forward and and keep improving and get a little bit better every day.

So that that is awesome. Like, that that like, just just the incredible stuff you've done. Like, you went from a Navy vet doing the BUDS twice, which if anybody's seen any videos on the BUDS, you know you have to already be a a bit special to try out because that's next level. Like, really? Like, five hours is, like didn't you do, like, five like, isn't one of them it's like you're living off, like, an hour of sleep?

Yeah. So, I was fortunate enough to go through BUDS back in, when was that? 02/2007. I believe it was. Yep. 02/2007. And I was 19 years old at the time, and it was an incredible experience. I had just actually failed out of junior college, which is funny to say, but I I just wasn't in that place mentally. And, I had always wanted to be a SEAL since I was six years old, and I decided I was like, now is the time to do it.