You’re here because you want to know how to become a millionaire, right?
Good, because in this blog, my only goal is to show you how to become a millionaire.
Too many young people are still living in their parents’ basements, the middle-class is getting screwed, and most people simply don’t believe they can become rich.
And let’s face it, if you AREN’T a millionaire, it’s because you don’t know something, otherwise you would already be a millionaire!
Would you agree?
If so, read on, because here’s just some of what I want to show you:
- How You Can Become a Millionaire Fast
- The Truth about the Single Digit Millionaire
- Specific Tips to Guarantee You Become a Millionaire
Are you ready?
What follows is your millionaire manifesto. Pay attention, because this is quite literally your path to 7-figures and beyond.
First, though, I want to explain the biggest reason you’re not yet a millionaire (and trust me, it isn’t your fault):
Let that truth sink in a moment—the reason you don’t yet have money is because of what you’ve learned about it.
You’ve been taught wrong!
Many people are broke and struggling financially because they have the wrong data about money. If you’re having money problems, it’s not because you’re stupid, lazy, or have the wrong job.
Nobody ever taught you how to get enough money, save enough money, and to invest enough to actually have financial freedom.
I did a short documentary on money earlier this year that I want to show you, it’s about how people view money and why people are broke. I went to the streets of Las Vegas for the interviews…
Here are some of the questions I asked along with the answers I received:
What did your parents teach you about money?
- “Basically to save it, but I’ve never been able to do it.”
- “How to spend it.”
- “To save it and that you have to work hard to get it.”
- “Be Careful with it.”
- “Spend it wisely.”
None of them were told by their parents to get rich or to concentrate on increasing income first. Everyone was taught by his or her parents to conserve, protect, and view money with a shortage mentality.
What do you save money for?
“To buy a house.”
I heard this answer over and over. Everyone was brought up to believe that you save money for the purpose of buying that mythological American middle-class dream of owning a home. A home won’t get you rich—but more on that later.
What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made with money?
“Not saving enough.”
I heard this response time and time again. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, saving is not your problem, income is your problem. You can’t save anything if you don’t make anything. People are living paycheck to paycheck, how are they supposed to save?
The only way out is to increase your income!
You’ve been taught your entire life cute little money quotes that are COMPLETELY FALSE.
Want proof?
Fill in the blanks from these well-known sayings:
A penny saved is….
A penny earned.
Money doesn’t grow on…
Trees.
Money won’t make you…
Happy.
You become a robot automatically filling in these sayings as if they were the truth, but the truth is this:
A penny saved is….
Just a penny man.
Money doesn’t grow on…
Trees? The paper comes from trees and men print as much of it as they desire.
Money won’t make you…
Happy…but it won’t make you sad, and I’m willing to bet being broke has never made you happy, right?!
After all, who has ever woken up in the morning and said, “I’m so happy today that I’m NOT a millionaire!”
Literally nobody.
Ever.
So, you’ve been taught wrong—but now what?
Ok, so we both know that how to become a millionaire isn’t taught in schools.
It’s funny that schools teach you how to read and write, how to do math, how to know history and geography, and how to pass a test—but they never bring up the subject of how to get rich, isn’t it?
Getting super-rich seems to be a topic reserved for fantasies, movies, and drunken what-if games.
Most have come to believe that becoming a millionaire is for the lucky sperm club, business owners, gold diggers, lottery winners, athletes, rappers, and inventors.
But it’s not true.
Millionaires and the super rich come from all walks of life. In fact, just to debunk one of the myths, I’ll tell you that four out of five millionaires today work for someone else.
Here’s the truth of the matter: The possibility of you becoming rich is NOT just a fantasy.
The reason most people never get rich is that they never even consider it a possibility. They are convinced by those close to them to simply be satisfied with whatever their financial situation is.
The other reason is that people fundamentally do not understand money. Very few people know how to get money, even fewer know how to keep it, and almost no one knows how to multiply it. Just look around and you will see signs of this everywhere.
America in one of the richest countries in the world, but…
- 76 percent of people live paycheck to paycheck
- 50 percent of Americans have no money for retirement
- 47 percent of Americans don’t have $400 for an emergency.
If these statistics were true in a poor country, it would be one thing, but America is considered a wealthy country.
It’s Not Just Schools that Have Taught You Bad Money Tips
Turn on the television or go online and you will see endless, ridiculous financial advice.
Financial pundits suggest saving tricks where your path to wealth is finding the lowest price for a product or putting more air in your tires to save gas.
This piece of advice always cracks me up: “If you don’t drink coffee out, you’ll save another $700 a year.” You can save $700 a year for the next fifty years and you won’t be rich, you’ll just be old!
Another pundit preaches all debt is bad, and that by avoiding debt you will somehow be financially free. “Never borrow money under any circumstance,” the previously bankrupt advisor promotes. He overlooks the reality that almost all wealthy people have used debt to multiply their wealth.
Flip the channel and you’ll see fancy graphics making a case that you should turn your money over to the boys on Wall Street who, smarter than you, will invest in stocks, bonds, and financial instruments they can’t even explain.
Ask your parents for money advice and they will recite their path: get a good job, buy a house, contribute to your 401k, be grateful you have more than most and pray everything goes right.
You’ve received bad financial advice from others your entire life!
I’m here to change that today, starting right now.
The first thing you need to do in order to become a millionaire is a rather simple step, but don’t skip over this because it’s important and lays the foundation for everything that follows.
Decide to Become a Multi-Millionaire
Did you notice that I didn’t say “Decide to become a millionaire”, I said, “Decide to become a MULTI-millionaire”—there is a big difference here in mindsets.
I don’t want you to shoot too low, because the truth is the millionaire is the new middle-class.
This isn’t 1970; inflation has been eroding the value of the dollar for years. Quite frankly, a million dollars is not THAT much money anymore.
If you want proof that a million dollars won’t go that far, let me show you what $1,000,000 can buy you today. You can get an old, run down looking tiny house in San Diego for $1 million. You get “two” bedrooms with 840 square feet, and it looks like an old barn.
That house doesn’t exactly fit your idea of living rich, does it? I mean, look at that lawn. That’s a million-dollar purchase!
This isn’t just a San Diego thing. In San Francisco, a million is simply the median home price.
You need to start thinking beyond a million dollars—more like $10 million.
If you need more convincing, let’s do the math and I’ll show you a million dollars isn’t even enough to comfortably retire on.
If you retire today at 65 with $1 million in cash (after taxes) and no new income from any source, you would have to live off of $40,000 a year ($3,250 per month) for the next 25 years before you ran out of money.
Consider that assisted living can cost up to $76,000 a year and those twenty-five years are cut to twelve, which means you are just about broke at 77.
And all this assumes no inflation or critical life events: lawsuit, divorce, college for the kids, or heaven forbid even more serious situations like cancer, a car accident, a family member in trouble, death of the breadwinner, economic downturn or loss of a job.
I know the idea that “a million dollars isn’t enough” may be hard for you to swallow, but your opinion doesn’t change the reality: A million dollars is simply not what it used to be. I know first hand how fast an emergency can devastate a household.
My dad died in his peak earning years from heart disease. My mother immediately had to sell the house and manage five kids through college on the death benefits provided by insurance. I watched my mother live in fear every day not knowing how long the money would last.
$10 million is the new $1 million
As I graduated college from McNeese State University in the 1980s, becoming a millionaire was an almost iconic and unachievable status.
Today, billionaire Peter Thiel recently suggested that the “single-digit millionaire” can’t even afford to access legal defense in America.
The Truth About “The Millionaire Next Door”
There was a best-selling book written a while ago called The Millionaire Next Door. I can tell you the only thing I learned from The Millionaire Next Door was that I didn’t want to be The Millionaire Next Door.
The Millionaire Next Door basically suggests that if you are frugal you can be a millionaire.
I don’t want to slowly and gradually save small amounts of money. I don’t want to hope that, one day, by the time my prostate falls off when I’m 80-years old, if the stock market doesn’t go up in flames, I might scavenge just enough money to never enjoy it.
The truth is, The Millionaire Next Door will Leave you old and angry.
When I first read The Millionaire Next Door I was inspired until I spent the next five years trying to save my way to millionaire status.
You know, pinching pennies and if doing any traveling, being sure to stay on a budget at the Holiday Inn.
Let’s be real, would you rather stay in a Holiday Inn or the Ritz?
Being a mere millionaire will still leave you staying in Holiday Inns, while if you reach $10 million you can stay at the luxury hotels and not worry about how much you’re spending.
Let me ask you this, are you buying used cars and avoid buying $5 coffee at Starbucks because you believe you’re going to save your way to financial freedom?
It’s NOT going to happen. This is where The Millionaire Next Door doesn’t work and why you need to shift your mindset.
I don’t want you to be a scared, angry mooch, saving every penny, chasing nickels and losing dollars.
Never ever get your advice from a mere millionaire!
Too many people model their financial life after The Millionaire Next Door rather than people who have indestructible 9 and 10 figure wealth.
And that’s the single biggest financial mistake I’ve made in my life—listening to the wrong people and not thinking big enough. There is no shortage of money on this planet, only a shortage of people thinking big enough.
$10 million is your target, not $1 million.
$1 million is fine if you have just one year left to live. If you have 30+ years left, you’ve got a problem because you’ll be worried about your little pile of depreciating paper running out so you’ll be forced to live frugally, pinching pennies.
To make your money last longer than your clock, you need much more than $1,000,000. You need more zeros than minutes. That’s the problem with money— time.
If you’re in poverty thirty years from now it won’t be because you’ve bought a latte every day, but because you didn’t think big enough and didn’t produce enough each day.
Do you believe $10 million is possible for you?
You have to decide that you will become a deca-millionaire, and then you must reinforce that decision, over and over. Put a stake in the ground right now: “I am going to become very, very rich.”
Although some people will judge you for making this decision, just remember that nobody who has created wealth will frown or judge you negatively—they will pat you on the back and say something like, “Great, you can do it and, by the way, you should!”
Those who have created wealth understand that creating financial freedom is a worthy adventure.
Is it possible for anyone?
Remember, most rich people today are self-made, what’s called “first generational,” meaning they created their millions without inheriting the money.
Now, before that little automatic voice in your head says for the millionth time, “I don’t want to be rich,” or, “I just want enough to be happy,” you should understand two points:
- Getting rich isn’t just about you, and
- Limiting yourself financially invalidates your abilities.
Most of us are convinced to settle for basic necessities: clothes, a house, transportation, time off, maybe an upper-management position, and some money in the bank.
This is called the middle-class.
The middle-class is for those who settle for just enough rather than striving for prosperity. The middle-class life is a compromise and it’s selfish.
When you compromise your finances, you become unable to help others because you are struggling to simply take care of yourself. Am I right?
The other part of this is the constant invalidation of you! You are capable of way more than you know, so why set reasonable financial goals? For my entire life, I have had this constant gnawing in me that knows I can do more, achieve more, create more, give more, and help more.
But enough of the esoteric and back to the material world. You can earn $80,000 a year or $400,000 a year and still struggle, depending on where you live and your responsibility level.
Just because someone makes more money than a person born in some starving village in a third-world country doesn’t mean they are much better off. The argument is, “You have a cell phone, internet access, running water, and electricity—be grateful.”
That’s code for, “make sense of your situation.”
But not having enough money doesn’t make sense.
A man once told me, “How do you make sense of insanity? The answer is, you don’t!” And not having enough money is insane.
The idea that someone would only need enough to be “comfortable” or “adequately satisfied” or “have more than others” as a way to justify his or her condition is ridiculous.
The middle class is billions of people convinced by politicians and media to turn your money over to those smarter than them, settle down in a nice house (reducing your ability to move for the next thirty years), and be a civil, law-abiding taxpayer who is grateful how much better off you have it than those who have less.
Make a decision right now to become a deca-millionaire and debunk all the ideas that idolize the mythology of the middle class.
The temporary comfort provided by the house, a nice school, a couple of BMWs, a 401k, and two weeks off is nothing compared to creating massive wealth.
You must lose your small, defensive, take-no-risk thinking. It has never been easier to get rich, but it is still impossible if you don’t change your mind.
There is so much money in the world today and so many ways to create wealth, but it will not happen if you settle.
Use my 10X Planner and start affirming your multimillionaire status every morning, every night, and anytime you have a setback. Make the decision right now: “I am going to be very, very, very rich and I am going to help a lot of people in the process.”
Have you ever noticed how the people who make the decisions and have the power of choice all seem to be the people with money? You don’t just want money for the sake of money, but to be able to have the power of choice!
I remember at the age of eight, one of my first experiences with money was walking to the local grocery store. I had a quarter in my pocket to spend at the store. I was excited, giddy, and I felt powerful.
I was walking to the store with my brother fondling my quarter when I dropped it in the street and it rolled into a manhole. I got onto my hands and knees, only to discover my arms were too short to retrieve the quarter. I got up wet, dirty, angry, and wanting to cry.
I remember going home and telling my father how I had lost my quarter. My father said to me, “You shouldn’t play with money.” My grandfather later grabbed me and said, “Son, the problem isn’t simply that you lost the quarter; the problem is that it was your only quarter.”
Since that loss, I have been fascinated with the idea of amassing enough money so no single event or loss would ever cause me to be without.
When it comes to getting rich, you don’t need to trust yourself at this point—simply put your trust in someone who has done it. When I first started studying wealthy people, I put my trust in them because I could not yet trust myself. Trust me to take you to your first million and beyond because I know that If I did it, you can too.
Your Multi-Millionaire Manifesto
Benjamin Franklin was the first millionaire in America. Now, there are millionaires being made every day—and many of them are becoming multi-millionaires.
By failing to prepare to get rich, you are preparing to be poor.
You need to make your Multi-Millionaire manifesto. A manifesto is defined as a public declaration of policy and aims. To “declare publicly” is important if you are ever going to manifest anything.
You accomplish goals more easily when you are held accountable. Tell someone you are going to be a multi-millionaire. Get a megaphone and announce it to the world.
You need a manifesto to gain clarity on the purpose.
It can guide you. It will represent your highest priorities.
The fact is, getting rich matters. The decision you make about this will impact your grandchildren. The actions you take today will effect generations of your family.
It matters to your kids, your spouse, your parents, and your community. Becoming a multi-millionaire is your duty.
“A man who conquers himself is greater than he who conquers a thousand men in battle”
— Buddha
Can you conquer yourself and become financially free? You are either going to do this thing or you’re going to decide the leap is too far.
What will it mean for you to become a multi-millionaire? What will your contribution to the world be?
You will have to be different and do things differently. Millionaires aren’t average people, doing average things.
That’s why after your decision to become a multi-millionaire, your next step is to…
10X Your Life
The 10X Rule is now my best selling book. I get letters and videos from people all over the world telling me how applying the 10X rule has changed their lives.
This book is about how to set financial goals 10 times bigger than any goal you currently have and then it explains how to create a plan to achieve that 10X goal. Do you want to be a millionaire? Then create a plan to become worth $10,000,000.
This is what you and your family deserve.
All you have to do is surround yourself with the right people, the right think, and take the right amount of actions!
Let’s start with surrounding yourself with the right people, ok?
The way to make more money is to get connected to those that already control money.
A network is defined as a group or system of interconnected people or things.
What is your network?
- Immediate Family
- Friends
- Extended Family
- Co-Workers
- Social Media connections
- What you are reading
- What you are listening to
I don’t go to ‘work’. I go to my netWORK to get my Net Worth. You need to increase your network to increase your Net Worth.
It’s not just about the hustle.
You have to have a strategy, a target to your hustle.
Can you imagine going into a restaurant and telling them “give me whatever you’ve got”? The menu is large, and in life, you can connect with anybody you want to, but don’t settle for the grilled cheese when you can get the steak or lobster tail—or both.
That’s why you must get specific: Pick just a couple of people to get information from.
If you go to CNN and search “oil” you’ll get 3 articles that say don’t buy oil and 3 that say buy oil. Who will you trust?
It’s never been easier to create whatever network you choose and it’s also never been easier to have your network contaminated. With so many social reaches through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and endless articles and webinars, it is vital that you control your network to control your net worth.
Get a Wealthy Mentor
Most of us were brought up middle class or poor and then hold ourselves to the limits and ideas of that group.
Getting a mentor to emulate is a success hack of monster proportions that has helped me throughout my career to both know what to do and what to avoid doing.
What is interesting is I have never met any of my mentors.
Never.
But I feel like I know them because I dedicated myself to learning everything about them from their first work to their last.
A super successful person will probably not be able to make time to sit with you. I can be mentored by Mark Cuban without taking his time by reading everything and anything he has written or said. I can study Warren Buffett by simply reading his books and watching interviews.
The problem today is that there are more life coaches on the planet than smartphones.
Your mentor has to have more horsepower than you do. If they roll up in a Corolla, you gotta roll out!
While grabbing a mentor has never been easier, that’s good and bad. Easy access means you can get too much information from too many sources resulting in conflict and doubt.
Be selective.
I want to be a mentor for you—I’m sure you wouldn’t be reading this if you didn’t have some level of trust with me already, right?
I have studied many multi-millionaires in order to duplicate what they did, and I can tell you from experience that with any mentor you choose, you’ll have to immerse yourself in their information and their material in order to get a benefit from them.
That’s why I want you to immerse yourself in my material:
I have a free YouTube channel that has so much content on making money it’s insane. Take a moment and subscribe now.
I try and encourage people daily on other platforms so be sure to connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
You can subscribe to my podcast the Cardone Zone.
Order the bestselling 10X Rule in audio as an MP3 or the book version if you like to read. This will give you a fuller introduction to the 10X life and will help you immensely on your journey toward $10 million.
Remember this: If you want to get the most out of your mentor, do what they say, exactly. I get people who adjust and tweak my advice and then end up with something I never advised in the first place. If you change the recipe even a little, you can ruin the dish.
What’s Next?!
Ok, so you’ve realized you’ve been taught wrong your entire life about finances, and you’re ready to make a big change. You believe becoming rich is still possible and you’ve made the decision to become a deca-millionaire. You’re committed to 10Xing your life and having me as your mentor.
This is just the baseline, NOW we’re ready to begin.
My first goal for you is for you to lose your millionaire virginity because you’re not going to jump from where you are now to $10 million without first crossing $1 million, right?
The first step to losing your millionaire virginity is increasing your income.
I want you to focus on increasing your income in increments and repeating that. Don’t be naïve, you’re not going to jump from $3,000 a month to $50,000 a month in one shot.
There is going to be incremental growth.
Now I’d certainly like you to explode and go 10X but understand that there are going to be increments.
My income was $4,000 a month and nine years later it was $20,000 a month. The good news is you can do it much quicker than I did.
So I was making $4,000 a month at the age of 25 and all I could focus on was increments. I thought about how I could take that $4,000 and control it by going up to $4400. Could I increase it by 10%? That would be $400 more per month.
That’s $100 a week, $80 a day. Doable, right?
I kept asking myself, “Who do I need to see, who do I need to call to get that $80?”
Then, at 35 years old it wasn’t going from $4,000 to $4400 but going from $15,000 to $20,000.
That doesn’t mean I wasn’t thinking about how to explode with growth, but every day, every week I was thinking about how to increase in increments.
If you are making $19,000 a year (basically poverty in the US) then the first thing you need to figure out is how to make another 10% per year. That’s $1,900 per year or $40 per week more (divided by 48 weeks).
You don’t need new skills to make another $40 per week; you simply need to go ask anyone for $40.
If you are making $50k a year, make your target $5,000 per year or $104 per week—or $17 per day based on a six-day workweek.
If you are making $100k a year, your first target should be 20% more or $416 per week. I could make $400 today simply by washing windshields of passing cars at a busy intersection.
Think about it this way—do you want more or less? There is no same. Same always falls to less.
You’ll get what you focus on.
If you focus on anything else other than more, you’ll get less. You’ll end up with less money, less income, and less ability to save.
Here are just a few ideas to help you incrementally increase your income. These may or may not be for you—they’re just ideas to get you thinking:
- Wash windshields at red lights
- Make customer service calls for your current company
- Create leads or referrals for your current company
- Collect outstanding receivables for your company in your off time
- Freelance
- Blog
- Do social media for a company or personality/brand
- Become a nanny
- Be an Uber driver
- Watch animals for people on vacation
- Babysit
- Clean homes
- Maintain lawns
- Become a telemarketer
- Join affiliate programs
- Sell things you have and don’t use
- Write reviews
- Set up a mystery shop service for company reviews
- Marry a wealthy person
Again, if these ideas don’t fit for you, come up with your own list—but make sure you do this unless you just don’t really want more money.
I have been broke, and I didn’t like it. I made excuses and assigned blame, until one day I realized neither was changing my financial condition for the better.
Your money situation will not change until you quit trying to make sense of it and start spending 95% of your time on income and just 5% on expenses.
It’s called the 95/5 Rule
Take out your household income statement. Everyone has one, money that comes in and money that goes out. The line for incomes is thin, the line for expenses is thick.
Income is powerful.
You need enough income to overwhelm the expenses.
Most people have this in reverse—they spend most of their time on expenses and little time on income.
How much time do you spend on the income side? If you are anything like the average American, you are spending all of your time on the expenses.
Would you like to know the difference between being wealthy and being rich? People can get rich quick, but nobody gets wealthy quick.
I figured out how to create wealth—I’ve become a millionaire over a hundred times over and by the time you read this, I’ll likely be a billionaire.
I’m not saying this to brag, but to tell you firsthand it’s nice having so much money it can never all be spent or destroyed. And in order to get wealthy, you have to first get rich.
Trust me, it’s easier to get rich once than stay poor forever.
Income is king, so keep increasing your income by increments, and keep yourself focused on your income—not your expenses.
If you spend all your time on defense sooner or later you lose the game. The trick with money and ultimately how to get super rich is to stay on offense.
I know this sounds basic—because it is—but a lot of people have this confused. People are out there trying to save money, talking about how debt is bad and save, save, save. Look, if you don’t have income then there is no money to save, no money to retire, and no money to invest.
There is no chance of wealth without income first.
You might hear people say, “Income is not what you want—wealth is what you want.” But you can’t get to wealth without income.
You need income.
I’ve said that a JOB means “just over broke”, but the truth is a job=income. The reason people get a job is to get income.
Now the question becomes, how much can you incrementally increase that income?
The Best Way to Really Increase Your Income is to Get Great in Sales
The speed at which you can become a millionaire depends on how great of a salesperson you are—even if you’re NOT a salesperson.
As I explain in Sell or Be Sold (which, by the way, you can get a FREE copy of HERE) everything in life is a sale and everything you want is a commission.
I find it comical when people tell me, “I could never be a salesperson, I could never work on commission“, and I’m like, “your entire life is a commission.”
Every moment of every day you spend happy or not happy. Those are commissions. They’re rewards for something you’re doing in your life.
Somewhere along the line, if you want to get married, you’ve got to sell another person on the idea that you’re the right person for them. All the benefits of that relationship are then commissions.
Health isn’t a guarantee. The government might guarantee you health insurance, but they’re not promising you good health because health is a commission for taking care of yourself, taking care of your mind, what you eat, and what you smoke or don’t smoke.
When a person successfully sells himself on eating right, working out, taking care of his attitude, he gets a commission.
For what?
Good health.
So STOP Right Now If You Don’t Believe You’re in the Business of Sales
Get Sell or Be Sold—it will change your perspective on life and help you reach your first million much faster.
The truth is the better you get in sales (no matter what job you have, no matter what industry), the faster you will get to your first million.
If you want to speed up the process, I also created Cardone University to show you exactly how to get better in sales. I’ve worked with Fortune 500 companies like Google, Sprint, Toyota, Aflac, and thousands more—and if my programs work for them, I know my short videos customized for individuals like you, will help you.
But as I mentioned earlier, your goal is to increase your income. This is because saving is not king…
Cashflow is KING.
Notice I didn’t say “cash is king”, I said, “cash FLOW is king”.
There is a big difference between cash and cash flow.
Cash is garbage—inflation eats it.
$1,000 in 1960 would now cost over $8,000 for the same buying power.
This is why saving money is useless. Personally, I don’t save money, I only store it for a short period of time until I can invest it.
Saving cash is like saving a legal pad—it’s worthless because money, like any paper, is only good when it’s used.
If you leave money in savings too long, it disappears.
The infamous cartel boss Pablo Escobar was one of the wealthiest drug lords in history, bringing in $420 million a week in revenue. He spent $2,500 a month on rubber bands just to hold the stacks of bills together, and he wrote off 10% of his cash as lost because rats would eat it or it would be damaged by water or lost.
Saving your money in a bank isn’t much better. It takes 833 years to double your money at today’s bank rates. You’re literally losing money while saving it.
This is why you should only temporarily store your cash, then you need to invest the storage.
The Golden Goose is Only Good as Long as She Lays Eggs.
If she doesn’t lay golden eggs you can kill her for the chicken, right?
Money needs to make babies—it needs to multiply, otherwise, you might as well spend it as soon as possible.
Think about this: If you look at all the cities and all the villages on earth, they are mostly on transportation routes. The bigger the transportation route, the bigger the village. Ports are valuable because they have lots of lines—things move in and out quickly.
The same is true with money. Cash is not king, rather cash flow is king.
All money that cash flows will be worth more in the future, so here’s what to do with your cash:
- Invest in yourself to increase your income
- Invest in your business to increase your income
- Invest in real assets that produce cash flow
Make sure to take your cash and buy things with it that will make you more cash!
To increase my income, I first invested in myself by investing in a training program to improve my sales skills. This allowed me to incrementally increase my income at my job.
I then stored the extra income and eventually invested in a new business by becoming an entrepreneur (you don’t have to do this by the way, this is just how I did things).
I kept storing excess cash into I had enough to invest in real estate.
This meant I got a passive flow of income each month without doing any work.
I like to call this mailbox money, and I explain in detail about it in my new book, which you can also get for FREE!
Am I moving too fast?
There’s a lot of information here and I don’t want to overwhelm you. Let’s back it up and go over some simple things I know you can start doing TODAY and review some concepts I’ve already mentioned:
Don’t Be a Pretender Spender!
I didn’t buy my first luxury watch or car until my businesses and investments were producing multiple secure flows of income. I was still driving a Toyota Camry when I had become a millionaire. Be known for your work ethic, not the trinkets that you buy.
Ballers throw money around — because they have lots of it. I’ll define a baller as a person who is living large. Sometimes it’s difficult to know who is really a baller and who is faking it. You see a guy in a Lambo and he may be a baller, but he may be just trying to be a baller. There is a big difference.
The truth is, you can have a Lambo and not be a baller. Many people throw money around when they don’t really have that much of it, or it’s all on credit.
The pretender spenders try to impress everyone by picking up dinner, buying the bottles, buying the big car. Look, if your only car is a convertible you are a pretender. Ballers don’t roll like this.
That convertible will be their fourth or fifth car, they are all paid and they’ve got multiple garages.
A real player is not trying to impress people with sports cars, designer clothes, and VIP tables. The wealthy don’t try and impress people they don’t know. They seek freedom, not friends.
The wealthy are not trying to say “look at me and what I have.” When it looks like they are throwing their money around, it’s all relative. When the wealthy spend money on ridiculous things like cars, boats, planes, and homes, the truth is that no matter what poor investments they make, they can afford to waste money.
You may see me on social media on my personal jet or in my Rolls Royce—but I have already created so much wealth for myself that I can afford to make lavish purchases because it simply doesn’t matter anymore.
So don’t be a pretender spender—hit that $10 million mark first, then get your Lambo.
In the meantime, live below the money you are making. Not because you are depriving yourself, but because you are seeking to use the extra money to start a second flow of income from an investment.
No one has ever done business with me because of the suit I wear, the watch I have on my wrist, or the car I drove. Live below your means until you don’t have to anymore.
Or as I like to say, pay the price today so you can pay any price tomorrow.
Save to Invest, Don’t Save To Save.
The only reason to save money is to invest it. Put your saved money into secured, sacred (untouchable) accounts.
Never use these accounts for anything—not even an emergency. This will force you to continue to increase your income. Still to this day, at least twice a year I am broke because I always invest my surpluses into ventures I cannot access.
Investing is the Holy Grail in becoming a multi-millionaire and you should make more money off your investments than your work. If you don’t have surplus money you won’t make investments.
The second company I started required a $50,000 investment. That company has paid me back that $50,000 every month for years.
When investing, do not diversify.
I know the diversification concept is popular, but it’s wrong.
If you are going to bank a million before you are old and tired you need to pick one or two investment you KNOW are winners and go all in on it. Don’t do the Wall Street thing.
Almost 90% of all my savings has been invested into income property (apartments) over the last couple of decades.
I knew that no technology could disrupt this and that a weaker economy only made the business better. So, I went all in on the thing I understand and that gives me the most chances of hitting multi-million dollar pay-dirt.
Avoid Debt that Doesn’t Pay You
All debt is not bad debt contrary to how many times you have been told this.
Debt that produces income and builds your value or allows you to expand your brand, your enterprise or your name is good debt as long as it produces either more value or more income than it costs.
Make it a rule that you never use debt that won’t make you money. I borrowed money for a car only because I knew I could increase my income. Rich people use debt to leverage investments and grow cash flows.
Poor people use debt to buy things that make rich people richer.
Most people buy a home, but this a liability, not an asset. A home doesn’t pay you, you pay for it.
People think the only way to save money is to buy a house. Suzy Orman thinks you have no way to earn any real money for yourself, so she advises you to buy a house as the only way to get your money.
The house, much like a college education, has been fed to you as the American dream. Really, it’s a middle-class myth perpetuated by outdated thinking, politicians and mass media.
Work harder and longer than everyone else
The discipline of work as an ethics matter is lost in our culture today. Working hard for a week or so means nothing. It’s vital that you create a discipline to work everyone else under the table.
Success is not a journey for most people, it is a marathon. Prepare every day to go the extra mile, make the extra call, have that extra meeting and you’ll soon be on your way to becoming a millionaire.
Millions of people thank God it’s Friday each week, that’s why there’s that popular saying, TGIF. People live for Fridays when they lack purpose. It means the golden 48-hour window opens for them to “relax” and “take it easy”.
Sundays are rest for those who at least work 6 days. If you aren’t a millionaire you have no business taking weekends off.
If people don’t know you for your work ethic, you’re not working hard enough.
Start Acting Like a Boss
Start acting like a boss in your life and quit acting like money doesn’t matter or that you don’t care. Quit acting poor and quit acting like you are a spectator.
Boss up in everything and especially in the money department. When the bill comes for dinner, boss up and pay the bill, don’t bitch out.
When you see the price of a computer you need, don’t back away, handle it. The cost of goods is not the issue, boss up and produce in your life.
If you don’t start acting like a boss you won’t throw down and invest when it’s time to.
Act like a boss, not like a little whiner, because to get rich and stay rich you will have to make it a priority. Money is like a jealous lover. Ignore it and it will ignore you or worse, it will leave you for someone who makes it a priority.
Money doesn’t sleep.
Money doesn’t know about clocks, schedules or holidays and you shouldn’t either.
Money loves people that have a great work ethic. When I was 26 years old I was in retail and the store I worked in closed at 7 pm; most times you could find me there at 11 pm making an extra sale.
I worked more than the boss.
Never try to be the smartest or luckiest person; just make sure you outwork everyone because being poor makes no sense. I have been poor and it sucks.
I have had just enough and that sucks almost as bad.
Eliminate any and all ideas that being poor is somehow ok. Bill Gates said to a group of college grads, “it’s not your fault if you were born poor, it is your fault if you stay poor.”
Do the Math and Pay Yourself First
What will it take to hit your first million? If you make $50,000 a year and can figure out how to put away 40% of it (that is my saving target) it will take you 50 years x $20,000 per year to get there.
So, you can see you need more income.
If you don’t do the math you won’t even have a realistic understanding of what it takes. The old saying is people lie, emotions deceive, but numbers always tell the truth. Math is a universal language and necessary for you to get where you are going.
When it comes to money you have to quit giving everyone else money and only paying yourself what is left over. Pay yourself first.
Before you make the house payment, utilities, phone bill, the nanny—fund your savings and emergency accounts. I know business owners that pay themselves last. Why would you start a business and pay yourself last? Almost everyone makes this mistake.
If you can figure out how to pay Netflix then simply add yourself to the list and pay yourself like you do others but pay yourself first. Send yourself an invoice each month until you get in the habit of paying yourself first.
I talk more about this concept in this video I recently did with my staff. It’s a bit long but it’ll allow me to explain this idea in more detail:
I hope these tips and videos have been helpful to you. As I stated earlier, my desire is to get you to $10 million as fast as possible.
Begin doing the things I’ve talked about above, and invest in yourself as needed to speed up the process.
Be sure to let me know when you’ve reached your first million. I believe you can get there faster than it took me to get there because I never had someone showing me how to become a millionaire.
Comment below with your millionaire manifesto!
Be great,
GC
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