9 Brutal Truths of Money

I'm going to share with you the untold truth about money. I personally use all these principles to go from broke 17-year-old to making my first million at 27 years old. And I still use these principles to generate wealth and create abundance in my life today. The first principle is to pay yourself first. My first company, the paycheck came in and I put 60 to 70% in savings and forced myself to live off the rest. It was a forcing function for me to pay myself and to then try to find ways to reinvest and grow. So I remember one of my companies, I started with my co-founder, Ethan, he wasn't paying himself enough. And then he didn't have the time to do business stuff. I remember one time I asked him to come to the office and he said he was too busy doing laundry. The CEO of a company couldn't come to the office to brainstorm, to whiteboard with me because he couldn't pay for wash and fold. When you pay yourself first, it then forces you to cut your costs that aren't efficient because you need the capital to grow. If you just keep pouring everything back into the business and you're paying yourself nothing, you actually have a fake business. It's not real. You're not paying yourself what you deserve for the value you've created. So you want to take the profit out of the business first, then operate from the rest. I know a lot of people will say, no, leave the money in the business. It doesn't force you to put your prices up, to figure out your cost structure, to be more efficient in your workflows. I know this might be controversial, but constraints breed creativity. All the best innovations came from constraints, not having all the resources in the world. When you're starting out, you want to put the most amount of money aside for the next principle. You are the most important asset, not a house, a car, a watch, an investment, you. Which leads us directly into principle number two, which is to invest in your skillset, not your lifestyle. It's not your salary that makes you rich. It's your spending habits. My dad used to say this to me a long time ago. It's not what you make, it's what you spend. If you spend a million and $1 and you make a million dollars a year, you are $1 poor. 25% of millionaires actually live month to month, but rich people don't just save money. The untold truth is they reinvest that money in themselves to get better. The world will pay you based on the value you create. The way you become more valuable is to invest in your skillset so you can solve bigger problems. If you're an accountant, managing people's books, that's not very valuable. If you're an FP&A, financial planning, an analyst, that's more valuable. If you're a tax strategist, that is the most valuable. If you combine all of that in your deal maker, people are going to pay you 10% of the total deal. It could be a $100 million deal and you get a check for $10 million. How do you get that valuable? By investing in your skillset. See, money is a byproduct of your energy. Investing in yourself to have a better mindset, mental energy, physical energy, the time in the day, the skills to move faster, that's going to make you more valuable. Most people say, well, no, I just save my money and I get my 5% a year and I'm going to be rich that way. No, you can literally have a million dollars in 12 months by paying somebody that's done it before to teach you how to do it. It happens all around and nobody talks about it. That's why you want to invest in your skillset. So where should you spend that money? Number one is books. Think about this. For $30, you can buy a book that somebody spent their whole lifetime unpacking their best practices that you can learn in six to eight hours, 10 pages every day, reading for a lifetime of knowledge. That's how you win. So number one is books. Everybody can get them. They're free if you get a library card. Don't make the $30 the barrier of you moving forward. Number two is online courses, and they can range from $50 to $100 up to $3,000. I've spent $8,000 for an online course, but what I learned made me 100,000. So was it worth the trade? Yes. They teach you specific skills that you can use to level up your earning power, becoming more valuable. You essentially want to buy the top courses for the skill. Just ask groups of people what the top courses are and just buy those ones. If you can afford it, start at the top. Number three is events. $500 to $1,000 to attend an event could change your whole life. And it's not only the skills you'll learn, because you will at those events, it's the networking. It's the other people. If you go to an event and meet one or two other people, they could become allies, friends, peers that are on that same journey that you're on. Not only will you learn faster because you can learn from their opportunities, but you'll also have somebody to call when you get in a pickle. That is invaluable. Number four is group coaching programs. And these can range from $1,000 to $5,000 up to $50,000. They all depend, but the more you invest, the higher quality of the knowledge, the faster you can move. There, you're not only going to learn the skills, you're not only going to get the network, but you also get some accountability because you have coaching to show you what it looks like to bring you into their world and literally unpack their world for you to see. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Once your mind expands, it can't contract. And group coaching programs are one of the best ways to do that. Number five is one-on-one coaching. Now this is an advanced move, especially if you hire somebody that's really skilled, but getting in front of a person that has been there, doing it, operating today to be able to show you how to do it can be the biggest ROI on your time and your money. I've always had personal coaches because I like speed. I want to talk to the person that's worth half a million dollars that's built a massive media empire so that I can calibrate my ideas with their strategy. And I don't ask them what they've done. I say, if you were me based on my resources, what would you do today? Think about being someone that wants to go to the Olympics. If you met somebody that was going to the Olympics and asked them who they coach with and they said, well, I don't have a coach. Would you take them serious? If you're serious, sometimes you got to go all in on working one-on-one with a coach so that you get that level of attention, strategy, and speed to execute on your dreams. But you won't be able to spend that kind of money if you're scared of losing it, which leads us directly to principle number three, which is don't fear money. Every human is born with a set of money stories. We adopt them through our environment, through conversations with people we admire, like our parents, like our friends. And all of a sudden, these money stories are dictating our money decisions. I mean, I had this crazy belief that I thought that I needed to go bankrupt if I wanted to be successful because I'd read that the three people I admired at some point in their life all went bankrupt. Dave Ramsey, Walt Disney, Henry Ford, they all went bankrupt. So I used to believe that if I want to be successful like them, I have to just get it out of the way. Think about the types of decisions I allowed myself to make thinking that that was the norm. Good or bad? I'll tell you, they were horrible. I put myself in opportunities that were risky. I was exposed to losing my whole net worth. Luckily, I never went through it, and I saw that I had that belief, and I fixed it. I mean, you might have a belief that rich people are greedy or bad or evil. If you believe that rich people are greedy, bad, or evil, are you going to push really hard to become a rich person? Most people wouldn't. The more you judge rich people and fear money, the more you push it away. So what you want to do is you want to rewrite your beliefs around money. So I love to say things like, I have wealth, I have unlimited resources, I am rich. You don't have money problems, you have mindset problems, and they're reflected in your bank account. It's all about being more resourceful. You want to create from a place of abundance and watch your life transform. Audit your money beliefs. All those should be challenged one at a time. Write them down on a piece of paper and really ask yourself, is it true? Where did that come from? Who taught me this? And knowing what I know today, is that actually true? The untold truth here is that money will only amplify who you already are. If you're not a good person, you won't be a good person. If you're a great person, go get rich because you'll be an incredible person. Which leads us directly to principle number four, which is money is a tool, not the goal. I became a multimillionaire at 28 and then did nothing for almost two years. I drifted. Sure I did some investments, sure I incubated some new companies, but I really didn't do anything. I wasn't living up to my potential because I thought being rich was the point and now that I don't have to work, I'm not supposed to work, but I was miserable. There was no purpose in my life. There was no mission. There was no problems to solve. I didn't feel useful. I realized that financial freedom means nothing. Just like you, money needs to be put to work. If you don't do anything good with the resources you have, you won't get more. What I did is I reinvested in my environment. It turns out starting a business is the best way to do that. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you have 1 million or 100 million. It's who you become in the process. See, money isn't evil. Money is like a fork. It's a tool. It can either nourish you or it could kill you. You decide. Don't make money the primary goal, but a tool to get to your goals. And the easiest way to use this tool is to buy back your time. Which leads us directly to principle number 5 which is spend money to save time, not time to save money. See, broke people spend time to save money. All the time. They're like, I can do that myself. I'll save money. Rich people go out of their way to spend money to save time because time they can't get more of. Money they can go create more of. You can't save yourself to wealth. I know people talk about it all the time, but it's silly. When I talk about wealth, I mean all aspects of your life. The most successful people I know protect their time. Choosing goals to grow them with that time. Do you understand the flow? Is you have to make money trading time to then buy back more time to invest in becoming more so that your time is worth more. The untold truth about rich people is they value their time way more than money. And society doesn't want you to know that because they need you to sit down and do the thing and be a cog in the machine. And that is not how you create true wealth. Which leads us directly to principle number 6 which is 80% done by somebody else is 100% freaking awesome. This is what I believe. I believe having other people support you in your dream is awesome. Learning to let go, 100% required. My dad still mows his own lawn. He buys his own groceries. He cleans his own house. And what's crazy is my dad owns real estate and property and he even mows the lawn at his real estate properties. And I know this may sound controversial to some people who want to do everything themselves, but that's not how you build wealth. Remember one time I said, dad, why do you mow the lawns at your properties? You can pay somebody to do that. He goes, well, I like doing it. Then why don't you do the neighbor's lawn? Well, I don't like to do it that much. He'll never have the time to go look at more real estate deals that could actually make him a lot more than the money he's saving mowing lawns. Here's some big ideas. First off is people don't buy your presence, they buy your standard. So you can have other people go do work for you on your behalf if you teach them, you train them, and you set the standard for your employees and how they show up for you. See, you don't want to build a business that you eventually grow to hate. And that's where most entrepreneurs get it wrong. They think the more they grow, the more painful it's going to be. It doesn't have to be that way. If every time you grow, you start with your calendar and buy back your time. So the more you grow, the more time you get back. You will only make more money as fast as your ability to delegate million dollar companies were not built off $10 tasks. Sure. You got to do them in the beginning, but I'm talking the first few months, not the first few years. It doesn't mean other people need to do everything. You can even use the 10 80 10 rule. The first 10% is ideation, right? You work with the person to ideate what you want to create. The other 80% is the execution that that team member does for you. And the last 10% is the integration, whereas where you take that work and you integrate it into final pieces. So you're still involved. There's so many opportunities you can do personal and professional, I mean, even personal cleaners to clean your house, mow your lawn, run errands, meal prep, use apps, order stuff, wash and fold. The world we live in has people all around you that can help you buy back your time. It's just, can you learn to let go? Which leads us directly to principle number seven, which is be incompetent. I recently had a short go viral where I said, if you want to be rich, be lazy, but if you want to be wealthy, be incompetent. What people didn't realize is that if you can do something, you'll always do it. Your number one Achilles heel as you grow a business is the thing you're best at because it's the thing you're going to judge the most that somebody else can do for you and that you're going to easily jump back in if something goes wrong. If I had a restaurant and the chef quit, I'm not going to jump into the kitchen and start cooking. I would go find a chef. But if I was a chef that owned a restaurant and the chef quit, guaranteed they'd jump into that kitchen and they start cooking. Some of them get stuck in that kitchen and don't have the time to actually grow the restaurant and they wonder why they go out of business. This means you're going to have to learn how to work through people. And the key is to be selective where you involve yourself in the process. You don't need to have all the answers. Some of the smartest people in the world aren't rich. The beliefs are flawed. That's why you can hire top talent, MBAs, consultants that are not entrepreneurial because they don't want to take risks. You be that person. Hire them to come in and bring all their brains to the problem and then you can create the scenario where everybody wins. The untold truth about money is that some of the richest people on earth aren't that smart. You'll meet them and you'll be like, what's so special about that person? They were willing to take risks. They were willing to convince somebody else to join their team. They got out of that person's way so that person could create value for them. They created the scenario where everybody could make money, including themselves. They allowed everybody to participate and to others, they look not very smart and to the person that knows, genius. What matters more is who you surround yourself with, which leads us directly into principle number eight, which is your network is your net worth. Rich people are extremely careful with who they spend time with. They want to be around people that are going to push their thinking, give them energy and introduce them to new opportunities. You've probably heard that it's the five people you spend the most time with. I consider it the five people's opinion you allow to influence you. You can choose who are the people that I admire their results and I'm going to give them their opinion over me, right? Some people call it the power of attorney when you give somebody else the ability to sign for you. I want you to pick the people who you give the power of opinion to that whenever you make a decision, you think, I wonder what those people would think about that decision. Not your family members, not your friends, the people that you admire, those relationships, even if they're virtual at first, are incredible opportunities for you to calibrate your decisions. If you want to go fast, be around people that are moving fast. You need to look at who you're spending time with and unfortunately cut back on the anchors holding you back, which leads us directly to our last and most important principle, which is clarify your purpose. Remember that story of me doing nothing for two years? I was miserable because I had no purpose. The cool part about purpose is that you get to define your own at any moment. Right now, you can choose what you want to go create. I remember reading this parable and he's talking about the power of purpose and tells this story about this guy that's walking down this dirt road and he comes across some guy that's kind of in a mood and he's smashing on rocks and he says, Hey, you know, what are you doing? I was like, Oh, I'm just making bricks. He's like, Oh, that doesn't sound too fun. So he keeps walking a little further and he comes across another guy smashing on some rocks. He says, Hey, what are you doing? He goes, I'm making a wall. And he was kind of happy. He's making a wall. Oh, that's cool. Still smashing on rocks. He's walking down the road a little further. He comes across another building, comes across a guy smashing on rocks, says, what are you doing? He goes, I'm building a temple for everybody in my community to be able to worship their God. And the guy said it with so much pride and excitement. All three were doing the same work, but all three had different purpose. And that is the power of purpose. Everybody's going to go through pain. Everything is going to be hard, but suffering is optional and suffering is because you have no reason you have no purpose. Anytime I've done things like Ironmans, ultra races, CrossFit competitions. If I knew why I was doing it, the training, the practice and the competition was easier because it had purpose. The bigger the purpose you have will destroy any obstacle in your way while you're building your wealth. For me, it's my Kings Club program, helping troubled youth. I will go out of my way in my calendar to go spend time with kids, to mentor kids, and I will move mountains to make that happen because that is my personal truth and my purpose. The biggest untold truth about money is that building wealth from nothing is playing the long game and most people would give up if they don't have a purpose that they're chasing. Purpose is the fuel, purpose is the drive, purpose is the direction, purpose is the why. You need a big bag of why sometimes to remind yourself why you're getting up so early and keep slugging away at it. Without understanding the reason you're doing something, it can just feel like effort. As soon as you have purpose, it feels like a mission, like your life's calling. You know what the coolest thing about having a calling is, is that inside of it, it's got the word all in. You gotta go all in on your purpose. If you want to learn the 40 brutal truths I wish I knew in my 20s, click the link and I'll see you on the other side.