How I Brainwashed Myself To Be A Millionaire By 30

If I lost everything tomorrow and had to start from zero, this is how I would become a millionaire. I built a nine-figure company from the ground up and watched hundreds of people go from broke to financially free. And the difference between people who stay stuck and people who get rich isn't intelligence and it's not opportunity. It's knowing and applying the things that actually move the needle and make you money. So if you're tired of not having your dream life, here are the five steps to build wealth from scratch and finally start living the life that you want. Step number one is to stop being scared of money. Fear of money comes from one thing, not knowing your numbers. Every morning, I log into my bank accounts, not because I'm obsessive, but because money is data and data tells you if you're on track or if you're off track. When you avoid your bank account, you create anxiety. When you actually check it daily, you start noticing patterns. What's draining you? What's growing? And what can you do to optimize? You cannot scale what you don't measure, but most people don't do that. They avoid their bank accounts because they're scared of what they'll actually see. So if you don't know what's coming, what's going out and what's left over, you're always going to feel behind. You're never gonna feel like you're in control. So starting today, look at your accounts every single day, categorize what you're spending money on and know exactly how much you actually need to cover your lifestyle. At first, it will feel very uncomfortable. Do it anyway. This is how you take control. The very first time I did this, it took me three hours of going through every single recurring payment that I had, things that had piled up, $10 subscriptions, $5 subscriptions here and there, things that weren't actually useful for me. But I took responsibility for what was going in and out of my bank account. And once you've gotten rid of all of the things that don't actually create value for you in your life and that are draining you financially, you can then start to focus on bigger problems. And your biggest problem is that you are not making enough. The next thing you need to do to build wealth from scratch is this. If you want more money, you have to stop working harder and start solving bigger problems. A barista works all day and makes minimum wage. A business consultant works all day and solves a million dollar problem and makes six figures. Both people are working hard, but only one is working on high value problems. I used to get so frustrated at myself for not making more money until I realized that the problems that I was solving were small and somebody else could solve them very easily. If somebody were to replace me tomorrow, could they do what I spent my time on that day? The answer was yes. I was coordinating things and organizing things. And although valuable in my role at that moment, that value did not equate to hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. And so I had to take a hard look at my skillset to recognize that I couldn't be in the rooms making the decisions that were important or spending my time focused on more complex problems because I didn't have the skills yet. And when I recognized that I didn't have these skills, the first thing that I started to do was read books about the skills that I wanted to have. And most of those skills come from actually learning about money. If you work in a business and you don't understand what a P&L is, you don't understand what a balance sheet is, you don't really have a conceptual idea of what flows in and out of an organization that makes it profit, you're always going to be stuck solving low value problems. So learn those things so that you can start to understand how you add value to the overarching equation of the business, which is the business's financials. The mindset shift is that effort does not equal income. Value does. The market doesn't care how many hours you worked. It cares about the results you're able to deliver. So here's how you can make more money while actually working less. Ask yourself, what problem can I solve that is worth 10 times more than what I'm making right now? And then spend the next 30 days learning how to solve that problem. That is where your income jumps to the next level. Step three is to invest in yourself. The fastest way I went from financial anxiety to financial freedom was pouring money into training, coaching, and mentorship, all related to self-developing. Every time I've invested in learning how to lead better, sell better, or communicate better, my income has multiplied. And I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on my education and my self-betterment, but it has given me millions in return. Most people wait until they have extra money to invest in themselves, but that's entirely backwards. You invest in yourself first, and then the money comes. Eight years ago, I bought a course on how to create and launch courses. I invested $5,000 on this course, and my intention with this course was to make hundreds of thousands. Well, turns out, I actually made millions of dollars through the skills that I learned about how to structure courses, how to launch courses, how to get people interested in courses. And the course itself is today sold for over $10,000. So I spent $5,000 and now sell something over and over and over again for $10,000. That is the power of investing in yourself in a specific skillset. If I would have never learned that skillset, that revenue would not exist inside our business. But this is where you have to be careful. You see, most people make the mistake of trying to learn everything, a little marketing, a little coding, a little design, but dabbling doesn't build wealth. Mastery does. You see, I've chosen to master skills one at a time. The first one was leadership. Then it was communication. Then it was courses. Then it was sales. And I take it step by step. I don't try to get better at all of those things all at once. But those skills have been worth millions of dollars to me because I didn't learn everything all at once. Instead, I went deep on the skill that mattered the most for achieving my goal today. So here's your action plan. First, choose the right skills. Then find the best coach. Commit to it for the next 12 months and master it. Every other skill for the next 12 months can be outsourced, automated, or just entirely ignored. Focus is how you win. So don't spread yourself thin. Pick your lane and dominate it. If you're uncertain as to which skill to pick, the best place to start is mapping out your goals. And I have a process called personal, professional, and financial goal planning that allows you to get clear. If you want my framework, find me on Instagram at Natalie Dawson. Send me a DM that says PPF and I will send you my template absolutely for free. Now to step four. You have to stop thinking paycheck to paycheck. Here's the five-step system to escape the paycheck to paycheck cycle. Step one, know your fixed expenses down to the dollar. Step two, define your financial target today. Write down the exact number that you need to live the life that you want. Step three, what do I need to build, create, or launch in order to hit that targeted number? Step four, what can you do today that adds additional income to you? Ideally, this is connected to what you're already doing. I am not a fan of side hustles or these additional streams of income. Find where you can add value where you're already at that allows you to get paid more. Step five, immediately reinvest that portion of your extra income into skills or tools that make you even more valuable. You can't cut your way out of survival mode. You have to grow your way out. Making more money is a wild cycle that just continues to repeat itself because whether you are making $3,000 a month, 30,000 a month, or 300,000 a month, if your target income is more than what you're currently making, you have to add a skill to yourself, something that you don't currently know how to do in order to have an increase. So at every point in my career, I've had a phase of learning something new while I'm doing what I'm currently doing in order to get to my next level of targeted income. The skills range from learning how to create courses, learning how to communicate, learning how to do social media, learning how to invest. All of these skills, when focused on in very short sprints to get a significant amount of education, have allowed me to stair-step my income to continue to make more because I'm adding value to myself while still operating inside of my current role and not just letting go of what has allowed me to get to where I'm at. I use my extra time to add skills, which then continues to compound. People who have never made money try to budget their way to wealth, but you cannot save your way to being rich. You need to increase your earning capacity. Saving protects what you already have, but if you don't have anything, that's not very valuable. Creating more income, if you invest it correctly, multiplies it. So if you make $3,000 a month and you save $300, you're disciplined, but you won't build wealth. But if you focus on a specific skill that you can add to yourself that will allow you to make more money, that skill could let you go from charging $3,000 a month to $10,000 a month, and that's how you start to create wealth. So generating income has to come first. The last step might be the most important part, because once you start making more money than you're used to, you will be in danger. You see, when you grow up without money, you don't get the right financial education. So as soon as you make money, it is so easy to just start spending it on all of the wrong things. Do not do that. Instead, start investing in scalable assets, not depreciating distractions. Prioritize equity, business ownership, brand building, real estate over luxury consumption until your cashflow from your investment comfortably supports both. So what not to do is buying symbols of success before you've built the systems of success. And here's a rule that I've used from Grant Cardone, the two times rule. You see, if you can't buy something two times in cash from passive income, then you shouldn't buy it. So if you want a $50,000 car, you should only buy it if you have $100,000 that you've made in passive income, not earned income. If you can't afford it twice from those assets that are working for you, you're buying it too early. So before you buy anything, stop and ask yourself, is this a scalable asset? Does this fall into the two X rule? If not, invest in something else like your education, like your own skills. Make decisions based off of your data, not your emotions, because wealthy people are obsessed with making the best financial choices, and now you can be too. If you apply these five steps, you will be ahead of 99% of people when it comes to building real wealth from scratch. If you liked this video, subscribe and watch the next video.