I became a millionaire after I learned THIS.

What is up, YouTube fam? In today's video, I want to talk about money, specifically the key things that I learned about money that helped me become a millionaire.

Now, I know that some people cringe when people talk about how much money they have on the internet, but let's be real: when I look at my algorithm and I look at my past videos, all the ones where I mentioned my income tend to get the most views. So I'm just gonna roll with it. But just know that regardless if your goal is to make a million, a hundred thousand, a thousand, five hundred dollars—it doesn't matter. But what I want to share with you today does matter, because it is going to change your entire perception on wealth building. And you know my goal here on this channel is to help content creators get visible and get paid. And a lot of that "paid" stuff is not just strategy, but it's also mindset and how you view and perceive money and building wealth. And that's why I wanted to do today's video, because I want to talk to you guys about all the things that I've learned in the last like 10 years of my life that helped me go from making minimum wage to literally making millions of dollars. And so if you want to learn, then keep on watching.

All right, friends, welcome to my crib. Let's talk about the first thing that I learned about building wealth and income, and that is: passive income takes a ton of work upfront. I don't think a lot of people realize this. Everyone throws the word "passive income" out like, you know, it's just some buzzword that is going to unlock all these streams of revenue for yourself. There's so many videos on the internet that talk about passive income streams, and it leads you to think that you can just press a few buttons and all of a sudden you're gonna make a hundred thousand, ten thousand, five thousand dollars passively per month.

Now, I have been very blessed to make passive income. I make anywhere between a hundred thousand to two hundred thousand dollars a month passively, but I don't think a lot of people realize that it took me years to build up that revenue stream so that it didn't require me to constantly work in order to get that income. All right, so let me give you an example. You could say that I make passive income on YouTube. If I decide not to post any videos, I will still make money. Google will still send me a check every single month for around $5,000, which is unreal. But we tend to forget that it took me a long time to actually build up my channel and get monetized in the first place, and it took a lot of video creation to create videos that can make income on its own, because now it's getting picked up by the algorithm and now it's being ranked on search. So YouTube is a passive income source that I have, but it took a while to build up that one stream of revenue.

The same thing applies for fancy things like affiliate marketing. I make anywhere between five thousand to ten thousand dollars a month passively through affiliate links, but it took me a damn long time to get the traffic and get that consistent traffic in order to even make that amount. It took a lot of years of building up my brand, building up the traffic streams, building up my social media platforms, building up my website, getting the SEO right—you know, it takes a lot of time to build those things up so that it prepared me better for the future in order to even make that income stream in the first place.

Another thing is my online course, the Boss Graham Academy. It's a program, and you know, I make steady income every single month from it—six figures per month, in fact. But it took me a few years to even build up this program. It didn't start with a course; it actually started with me working with one-on-one clients first—me trading my time for money, actually working with clients individually, personally, so that I understood what my zone of genius was, what I was good at, what I wasn't good at, if people were even getting results, what is the process that I want to take people through, what is the niche—all those things. And then once I got really clear on that, just from working with one-on-one clients, I then packaged everything I knew into this course. Then once I made enough money, I then put it on this autopilot sales machine where now I use email marketing, and I have these funnels, and I have all these things that actually sell this program behind the scenes in my sleep, yadda yadda—things that you guys probably learned or watched on YouTube with other people telling you how to make passive income. But it took me like a year to build that up. I was working with one-on-one clients first. And so I think that it's so important to remember that when you're thinking about wealth is that wealth takes time to build, and it takes a lot of effort upfront. It takes a lot of commitment, persistence, work, and you know, potentially trading time for money for the first few months, first few years, in order to build a better future for yourself. You're really planting the seeds of tomorrow today.

All right, so my last sentence totally did not make sense. I do not want to refilm that segment, but what I meant by planting the seeds of tomorrow today is: if your goal is to make a ton of money in the future, and you want to make it passively because you're lazy—I'm lazy; I don't want to work for the rest of my life either—but if that is your goal, you got to realize that you got to put the work upfront.

And another thing too that I learned about wealth and just like life in general and success in general is: we often overestimate how much we can achieve in a year, but we underestimate how much your life can change in five years. And so one of the best advice that I ever got—I don't even know who I got this from; I'm pretty sure I watched a YouTube video—but I know some people who, like, the most successful people, plan out their lives in five-year segments. And I know, I know, even for me, I have no idea what the heck I want to do in five years, and that's okay. But I think it's important to understand: who do you want to become in five years? In five years, who do you wanna be as a human being? It doesn't matter if you're like, don't know the details of where you're gonna work, how much income you're gonna make, and all that stuff, but really challenge yourself to think about it in five-year segments, because that five years, you can plant so many dang seeds in order for you to get as close as possible to who you want to become in five years.

There is an amazing quote by James Clear, and he wrote the book *Atomic Habits*, and he says that success is not defined by the goals that you set. What he means by that is: when you actually think about Olympians, people who go to the Olympics, all of those people have the goal to win. If you're thinking about candidates who apply for a job, all of those candidates obviously want the job. Everyone has the same goal, just like you and me—we all have the goal where we want to make a lot of money with the least amount of work, retire young, and do all these things. Everyone has that goal; okay, nobody is waking up saying they don't want that. But what's most important is the action that you take today, tomorrow, the next day, the following day, or whatever it is, to actually get closer to that person that you want to become. And I think that's one of the best advices, best, you know, inspirational quotes that I ever read that really helped me understand how to quantum leap my life and how I can be in control of that. And so I just wanted to share it with you guys in this video because it changed my life, and I really hope it changes yours also.

If you are someone who is really interested in learning about my journey of how I went from being a broke-ass minimum wage content creator to suddenly having this incredible life, this incredible audience—you actually being able to find my videos is such a blessing—if you want to know how I did that, then make sure you click the link in my description box below. I used to be a content creator that was so burnt out, giving so much free value away, until I found a way to sign paid clients at the 101 level to start in this training. I'm not only going to share how I did that, I'm also going to share some updated content strategies as well to attract your ideal followers and also turn them into paid clients, as well as other things like creating a social media sales funnel—all those different things to help you monetize the amazing content that you're already creating. So if you want me to help you plant those seeds for yourself, so in the next few years you're able to reap the benefits like I did, then make sure you click the link in my description box below, because I would love to see you at this training. Anyways, let's go back right into the video.

All right, friends, what did we learn so far? We learned that passive income is not as passive as we think it is, and a lot of people on the internet are misleading us, but that's okay because you watch this video and you know that the elbow grease of getting passive income is well worth it. You just need to know what you need to do today and who you need to become in order to get to where you want to go. Check, we talked about that. Now the next thing I want to talk about is really kind of like shortcutting your learning by sharing some of the top moments in my life, the top ideas that I got that helped me completely shift the way that I saw myself, other people, my life, wealth, business, career—everything. And it all came from reading, honestly. And I know, I know, I know, like you might not be an avid reader. For me, if anything, I'm turning 28 soon, and I've probably only read like 15 books in full in my entire life. You know, I'm not the best reader either, but every time I've read something, it has changed my life, and I want to share with you guys my top five books—or maybe six, I don't know, it's like five to six books—that changed the game for me. But beyond that, I want to share with you guys one idea from each book that I took away from that helped me completely shift my attitude, shift the way that I showed up, and the way that I saw what was possible for my life. And so let me share with you those six ideas and those six books that changed the game for me.

All right, book rapid fire time. This book right here, *The Slight Edge*, it completely changed my life. I read it earlier on when I was in college/university, if you're Canadian. And this book taught me the concept of how little actions add up over time and compound into big results. This book helped me get fit; it helped me get my grades up; it helped me get the career that I wanted. And the reason why is because it helped me break down my big audacious goals into small, bite-sized, actionable things that I could do every day. And because I knew the importance of this, I was able to be super consistent. So this is a really easy read, and it really completely changed my life in terms of consistency and discipline.

All right, the second book that I have is this one right here, *How to Win Friends and Influence People*. Not gonna lie, the text is a little bit heavy; it's not super easy to read, but it taught me so much. I think I read this book in high school, in my senior year, and it changed the entire game for me in terms of how I communicate with other people and seeing things from other people's perspectives and always thinking about other people's interests. I used to operate my life in thinking of "What's in it for me? What's in it for me?" This book helped me understand to think about what's in it for other people. It helped me become more charismatic; it helped me land jobs; it helped me network better; and overall, it helped me just get a lot of things that I wanted in my life because I knew how to communicate, and I just knew how to think about other people's interests. And so this book is definitely a good read for me.

All right, the third book that I have—and yes, I am bouncing around my house to keep this video engaging for you guys—but the third book that I have is *The Almanack of Naval Ravikant*. I have mentioned it many times in these types of videos that I've done, but basically the main idea that I got from this book is that there are four different ways to build wealth. The two more traditional ways to build wealth is through capital and through labor. So capital meaning that maybe you inherited money, or maybe you just have a lot of money to spend that you can invest—that is one way to build your wealth. The second way to build wealth is through labor—maybe you have staff, maybe you have employees, people who are willing to work for you, maybe you have workers under you, whatever else. And then the two other ways are newer ways that a lot of the billionaires and a lot of the millionaires today are making money, and that is media—meaning that people like me were able to actually build brands for ourselves and own the media that we create. People like Joe Rogan, Tim Ferriss, myself—you know, we built our well through having media and having a brand and being able to productize our knowledge with that brand. And then the other way is code. A lot of people like Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, whatever else—you know, they really tapped into the tech space, and they were able to build a lot of wealth through creating code. And the great thing is that I learned from this book is that both media and code are permissionless, meaning that if you have a Wi-Fi signal, a lot of people are able to pick up these skills for free and actually be able to build for free. So, for instance, media in particular—creating a YouTube channel is virtually free. Of course, you have to buy the equipment and everything, but overall it's free. Social media is free in general, so anyone can actually build a brand for themselves. And so that was the main idea that I got from this book, but you know, just so you guys know, I'm giving you guys one idea per book, but all of the books that I'm mentioning have so many more ideas that are absolutely going to change your life.

All right, the next book that I want to introduce to you guys is *The 4-Hour Workweek* by Tim Ferriss. This book I read when I was really miserable in corporate, and basically the one idea that really stuck with me in this book is when he actually gives the example of a train, and he says that a lot of people in our lifetime will want to be the boss of that train; they'll want to be the manager of that train. But the really, like, wealthy people, what they think is: "I don't want to be the manager of the train; I want to be the owner of that train." And I was like, "Whoa, oh my gosh, that is game-changing!" Like, it was such a game-changing concept for me because I never really thought of being an owner. I always thought about being a boss, being a manager, being a VP, being a CEO. But he's so right where I was like, "Whoa, I don't want to just like be an employee for someone else, or I just don't want to be someone who's like the conductor of the train and being the manager of that train. I want to be the owner of that train. Heck, I want to be the owner of multiple trains." And that's what really got me thinking about entrepreneurship, and it really got me to think bigger beyond just working for someone else or working within a company. Now, of course, if you are someone who wants to work within a company, there is a lot of great benefits to that too, but for me at the time when I was miserable in corporate, that was like the one line in that book that was just like chef's kiss for me, and it just changed my entire perspective on my career and what I wanted to do in my life and who I wanted to become.

All right, the next book on my list is *The Mountain Is You* by Brianna Wiest. This is a book that I actually read really recently when I was hitting fan in my business, and it wasn't necessarily anything related to strategy; it was a lot about mindset and how I was dealing with problems and how I was coping. This book really helped me understand what self-sabotage looks like, and it helped me become really self-aware of the patterns that I was causing for myself that would basically set me back a lot in life and a lot in business because of the story that I was telling myself and the patterns that I was sucking myself into and just basically learning about what self-sabotage even is and how to react to it. I think a big idea that I also got from this book was understanding the difference between gut feelings and projections. So, for instance, you know, I would always operate off of my gut feeling, and then I would create a lot of anxiety for myself. But then this book taught me that, "Hey, listen, like if you're getting a gut feeling for something that's happening right now in the present, honor that gut feeling. But if you are feeling anxiety and you're feeling weird feelings about something that hasn't even happened yet and that's far into the future, that's not your intuition; that's not a gut feeling; that is you projecting some sort of insecurity; that is you projecting some sort of thing that's unresolved, and it's clouding your judgment." And so that was one big idea that I got from this book, but of course there's so many other ideas, like I mentioned in these books that have changed my life, but I'm just giving you the CliffsNotes version of the things that really stuck with me. But this is a really great book if you are someone who experiences with self-sabotage, or maybe you're someone who doesn't even know if you're self-sabotaging and you want to learn how you can actually achieve your goals and you know, break through any roadblocks that you're currently going through right now in your life.

All right, the next book that I have for you is called *The Desire Map* by Danielle LaPorte. I read this while I was in corporate, and this is the book that single-handedly helped me quit my job. And the reason why is because it helped me understand how to set goals with intention. A lot of times when we set goals, it's based on something physical. So, for instance, we want to buy a house, we want to buy a car, we want to buy the latest iPhone, we want to buy the latest Apple Watch, we want to buy fancy jewelry—all these different things. But what you actually want to realize is that it's not the physical object that you want; it's the feeling associated to getting that object. So, for example, if you want to buy a house, maybe it's not the fact that it's a house; it's the fact that you want to feel safe and secure. Maybe it's not the fact that you want to buy the latest iPhone; it's the fact that you want to feel popular and in the know. Or maybe it's not the fact that you want to go on vacation; it's the fact that you want to feel rested or you want to feel adventurous, whatever that vacation means to you. And so when I actually saw it in that lens, it helped me a lot to identify how I can achieve my goals better. So, for example, I realized that how I want to feel in my life is: I want to feel purposeful; I want to feel limitless; and I wanted to feel appreciated, and I wanted to feel loved. And what I realized is that at my corporate job, I wasn't feeling any of those things. I was not feeling purposeful; I was not feeling limitless; I was not feeling appreciated. And it really helped me understand that that job was not right for me. And I think that this book is really helpful because when you think about instead of chasing objects or chasing a feeling, and that goal is the feeling that you want, you become a lot flexible in how you achieve that goal. Now, for example, one of my goals at the time was: I wanted to feel purposeful in my day-to-day, and I realized that at my corporate job I was not feeling purposeful. So how do I feel purposeful? Okay, I quit my job, and I decided that I wanted to be a content creator. Now, obviously being a content creator, yes, I felt like I was in purpose, but I was also broke. And so I decided to become a coffee barista. And by being a coffee barista, I'm making minimum wage—of course, it was not ideal—but in that job I still felt purposeful day to day because I was working towards a bigger mission, which was getting my YouTube channel set up and creating something amazing for myself and also helping other people in that process. And so it's interesting because if my goal was: "I want to make a million dollars, and I want to be a six-figure content creator, or I want to have this fancy job," if I don't get it, I'm going to feel disappointed. But instead, my goal was: "I want to feel purposeful," and anything that I can do to feel purposeful, I've already achieved that goal. It helped me become a lot more appreciative, and it helped me become a lot more flexible in my approach, and so I was infinitely more happier even if I didn't make the money at the time, even if I didn't have the fancy titles, and even if I was a little bit uncomfortable. And so I just wanted to share this book because it just changed the game in terms of how I set goals in my life, and even to this day I kind of even reread this book to help myself feel grounded again if I do end up becoming a little bit more materialistic or I tie a lot of my goals to finances or objects or whatever else. So I highly recommend reading this book if you are someone who is struggling to find your purpose and struggling to figure out how to set goals with intention now.

So far in this video, I've shared a lot of ideas that have personally shifted the way that I think, my life in general, and have helped me quantum leap like crazy. So if you got to this point of the video, I would love to know how invested you are in your learning. So comment in the comment section below "quantum leap" so that I know you got to this point in the video and that you have absorbed all the information that I've been sharing with you so far.

Not to mention one last thing that I want to talk about is that there's a huge misconception out there that in order to build wealth, you need to invest, you need to do passive income, you need to invest in real estate, you need to start a business, you need to do all these things, buy crypto, whatever else. But the truth is is that the best investment that you can make in order to get a lot of wealth for yourself is investing in you—upskilling your skills and acquiring more knowledge. The more invaluable you are as a human being with your knowledge and your skills, the more opportunities that are going to come to you. For instance, if you work at a company and if you acquire a lot of skills that the company is going to rely on you for, you're able to get way more money at that company, and you're able to use that as leverage to go to another company and ask for more pay. If you are someone who doesn't want to work for a company, well, guess what? Those skills are going to be incredibly invaluable to turn into a service, turn into a business, or whatever you decide to do with those skills and those knowledge that you have acquired. One of the best things that I ever did in my life was investing in myself, whether that was reading the books that I mentioned, listening to podcasts, watching YouTube videos like this one, going a step further, investing in...

Mentors, investing in courses, going to free trainings like this one where I'm personally going to help you upskill in terms of social media, making money online, and citing clients. So make sure you click the link in my description box to attend this training.

But anyways, I've personally done all these things, and that led me to this point. And I am not stopping. Learning does not stop after you've graduated school. Learning does not stop after you have achieved a big milestone. You have to keep going. Because what you have to realize is that every single year the market will always change, technology will change, trends will change, and if you stay stagnant, you will get left behind.

And this is not meant to scare anyone, and you do not have to always be learning every single day, but just keep it in mind to not stay complacent. Very similar to putting all of your money in a checking account, and you're not doing anything with it; you're not growing it, you're not investing it, you're not using it strategically. What's going to happen is that year over year there's going to be inflation, there's going to be a cost of living that rises up, and that pool of money is only going to be less valuable over time. The same thing is going to happen to you. A lot can change, and you want to evolve with the times, and you always want to open your mind to new perspectives.

And so that is the biggest advice that I have for you. I really hope that you guys enjoyed this video. And again, comment the keyword "quantum leap" in the comment section so I know you got to this point. As always, guys, I really appreciate you guys watching this video. I hope you guys had fun leveling up with me and learning my personal ideas that have completely transformed my life. If you like this video, you'll also like these two videos that I have right here as well. And also do not forget to attend that free training that I'm mentioning because I am going live for a limited time only. Link is in the description box below. I appreciate you guys, and I will see you in the next video. Bye guys. You