Transcription
At 24 years old, I became a millionaire, and over these last few years, I learned a lot. First, you are exactly where you belong, and it's all your fault. Seriously, where you are today is 100% your fault, and the sooner you can accept this, the sooner you'll be able to break free and make a positive change in your life.
Growing up as a kid, I always had a victim mentality. I felt like life was happening to me, and I had no control over anything. I grew up broke. I was super short, so I wasn't good at sports, and I never excelled in anything. I felt like I was dealt a bad hand in life, and maybe you feel the exact same way. But guess what? You're exactly where you are today, and you can't change that. But what you can change is your perception of your situation. And once I changed this, I finally started to see progress in my life, not only mentally but financially as well.
When I was 17, I read a book called *The Obstacle Is the Way* by Ryan Holiday, and this book changed my life forever. In this book, I learned about stoicism, which is a way of living in which you simply learn to accept everything that happens to you. You stop labeling things as good or bad and just accept them as they are. It taught me that no matter how bad my situation is, so long as I did a little bit of work every day, I could get out of it. And from understanding this, I started to feel like I had control over my life, control over my thoughts, and I realized I could design the life that I want.
This is the first lesson I wish someone taught me as a kid, because I spent way too many years just drifting through life feeling like everything was out of my control. This is a lie. And the first step to breaking out of this flawed state of mind is simply taking accountability for where you're at today, realizing that you're exactly where you belong, and no matter how bad it is, you can get out. The position you're in today is simply the sum total of all the actions you've taken over the course of your life. And to become successful, the same is true; it's just going to take twice as long as you think. 3, 2, 1. I just wish someone would have told me this 10 years ago when I first started my journey, so I wouldn't have been so hard on myself and actually enjoyed the process a little bit more.
Like, I genuinely used to get so upset when I would see all these young successful kids because I wasn't a teenage millionaire just like them. And I think nowadays this is becoming more of an issue than ever before, and it's a real problem. Let's talk about some of my favorite successful entrepreneurs and when they got rich. This is one of my favorite actors of all time: Samuel L. Jackson. And he didn't become a millionaire until he was 43 years old. Bro was acting in Hollywood for 20 years with no success until one day he finally hit big with a movie called *Jungle Fever*, and this movie brought him in over $40 million. Y'all ever heard of Walmart? Well, this dude right here created Walmart in his late 40s after literally bagging groceries for 25 years, stacking up a little bit of change and putting together this little grocery store that we all know and love. And now his family is literally the richest family in America, with $267 billion, bro.
And lastly, I want to talk about Sean John Combs, also known as P. Diddy, or Diddy, or Love—chill, chill, chill, chill, chill, chill. What you mean, bro? The point is you can't sit here and stress about how long it's going to take. Patience is a skill that has been lost in this instant gratification social media era, and in my opinion, it is the single most important skill when it comes to becoming successful. You might think hard work is actually the most important skill, but in reality, hard work doesn't really matter. Some of the hardest working people in the world are the most underpaid. Think about construction workers who literally go out in the hot sun every single day to build this beautiful world we live in; they're making on average $33,000 a year. Or firefighters who risk their lives every single day just to bring in around $40,000 a year. And then there's me. Last month, I made over a million dollars; it was my biggest month in all the 10 years that I've been doing business, and I kid you not, I worked one, maybe two hours a day.
Now, does that mean that you should only work 1 hour a day? Hell no. What it means is that you need to choose the right vehicle to work on. Last month, I made over a million dollars from this YouTube channel, my investment portfolio, and from selling my software company, Viral Vault. This is a company that I spent 5 to 10,000 hours building over the last 6 years, and I even grew it to the point where it was passively making over $200,000 a month and sold it for a multi-million dollar bag. That is the power in choosing the right vehicle. You need to pick something that you genuinely like and can see yourself doing for years. You need to pick something with a high ceiling that can scale really far, and most importantly, you need to pick something that you see is working for other people right now, because you don't have to be a pioneer.
I know hundreds of millions, all from different parts of the world, all from different backgrounds, yet I don't know a single one who got rich from doing something brand new. For every single Mark Zuckerberg that got rich pioneering a new industry, there's got to be at least 100,000 millionaires who made it by walking a path that had already been laid before them, like this guy. And as a beginner, you need to realize everything's a thousand times easier if you just do this. Nice, thanks, man, appreciate it. Who do you think you are? When I was young, I tried starting all these crazy innovative business ideas, like hosting a music festival, building an iPhone app, or starting my own clothing brand. What made me my first million was starting an online store selling other people's products that were already going viral, and it only took me one year after starting this business to make my first million dollars in sales. There's literally thousands of different things to choose from, so don't overthink it too much; just pick something that is proven to work for other people right now. If you want to become a billionaire, maybe it's different, but if you want to make your first million, just do this.
But if you're watching this video and you have zero or next to no savings, don't start a business. All through high school, I made a promise to myself to never work a job, so I did pretty much every side hustle you could think of just to scrape by and make a little bit of money. And in the end, I graduated with less money than all my friends who actually went out and got jobs. I wish someone told me 10 years ago that it's okay to get a job, even though I wanted to become a successful entrepreneur; it would have put some much-needed money in my pocket, gave me a better work ethic, and if I chose the right job, I know for a fact it would have got me closer to my goal of becoming a successful business owner. Welcome with your mother, H, today. Hi, um, can I please get a Happy Meal and one McFlurry, please?
Nowadays, I see too many kids that are scared to go and get a job because they want to become an entrepreneur or a content creator, but in my opinion, it's stupid because you can do both. You can work a part-time job during the day to stack up some money, and in your free time, do a side hustle so you can build up a skill that you can get paid for. Skills pay the bills, and the only way you can build a successful business is if you have some startup capital and a set of valuable skills. So I think you should stop focusing so much on making money and focus on developing valuable skills in your free time, because you get paid in proportion to the value that you provide to the world. It's actually impossible to make money; you can only earn money, and the only way to do that is by actually providing, providing value to the world. It's simple: if you can find a problem in the world and get good enough to solve it, you'll get paid.
I made millions of dollars by creating a product that helped people fall asleep faster, helping hundreds of thousands of people start their first online business, and entertaining millions of people here on YouTube. It's not like I'm ending world hunger or anything, but in some way, I'm trying to make the world a better place, and that's the only way you can get money, unless, of course, you steal it. And when you start to look at the world this way, you begin to see opportunities everywhere. Your neighbors have dusty or dirty cars? Well, you can make $100 a day helping them clean them. Is your local pizza shop struggling? Well, you can make $1,000 a month if you help them run ads. Humans are polluting the world at an unstoppable rate that will eventually end up in a calamitous situation that will result in the permanent downfall of humanity as we know it? Well, you'll probably become a billionaire if you can figure out how to solve that. Anyways, there are problems everywhere, and if you can solve them, you'll get paid. That's why knowledge and skills are the ultimate power.
Last year, I had a conversation with one of the richest men in the world; he's literally number 40 on the Forbes list. And I asked him about where he thinks the world is heading. He said, "Well, uh, I mean, there'll be, there'll be crashes, and there'll be a final crash, a final crash from which there is no return." Comforting, right? When that moment, I started panicking, and I asked him what any sensible person would: "What can I do to prepare myself?" And he said, "The only thing they can never take away from you is what you have learned." And in that moment, I realized that nothing in this world is truly ours except for our knowledge and our unique skills that we have to offer the world. And that's why, still to this day, that's all I focus on. I try to learn something new every day by reading and sharpen my skills in the things that I love to do the most, like making videos, working on my business, producing music, and kickboxing.
Look, no matter what stage you're at, this should be your focus: get better every day at a skill that provides value to the world, and make sure you're constantly pursuing knowledge through self-education. Just whatever you do, make sure you choose a path that's actually true to you. This is not me saying you have to find your passion before you do anything, but all I'm saying is whatever dream or path you decide to go down in life is something that you're actually interested in, because it's not going to pop off right away, and it's going to take a couple of years until that thing actually works out. And to get through those years, you genuinely need a love for the game. The worst feeling ever would be to make it to the top of your field and ultimately feel like you wasted your life. You know, I feel this way sometimes, even though I love being an entrepreneur. I grew up obsessed with the arts; I used to enjoy making short films, I used to play instruments for a long time and produce my own music, and, and somehow I ended up becoming this business guy here on YouTube. But it's not too late; in fact, I still make music every day, and hopefully one day I'll be able to break through that arena as well.
It's okay to get lost along the way and even take a few wrong turns. All that really matters is that you know where you're trying to go and never lose sight of that, no matter how far away it seems. And most importantly, you're able to find enjoyment in the process. I just wish I appreciated some of the hard times more when I was going through them. And I know it's the easiest thing in the world for me to say this now in the position I'm in today, but genuinely looking back at those 4:00 a.m. late-night sessions working on my dusty old computer in the laundry room at my mom's house was some of the highest level of motivation and discipline I ever had in my life. I'm still chasing that feeling to this day. No matter what stage of the journey you're in, you have to be able to appreciate it. And I feel like that comes from understanding that money won't fix the way you feel; sure, it might temporarily make you feel better, but the feeling is fleeting, I promise you. To fix the way you feel, you have to learn to appreciate the basic goodness of life. You have to learn to appreciate the simple, mundane things that you're taking for granted every single day.
This is why you could have a billionaire that is depressed, with a broken family that hates him, and a lower middle-class family that's happy and builds a happy home. One is searching for external fulfillment, and the other is simply accepting life in the way that it is. And it's funny because my brain is in a constant push-pull between both of these dynamics. I want more, and I want to be successful, but I also am just trying to enjoy life for what it is and stop chasing all these external things that, in the end, don't really matter, because no matter how much of them I get, I never feel any better. The only time I genuinely feel good nowadays is after a conversation with an old friend, a walk through my neighborhood, a good workout, or there's these new birds in my neighborhood; they're like macaws. I don't know how they ended up there; they escaped from some local zoo. And every day at 7:00 p.m., I see these birds flying outside of my house, and the feeling that I get from seeing those birds is somehow better than the feeling I got when I sold my company for millions of dollars. I don't know; doesn't make any sense. That's the point I'm trying to make here: the best things in life are free, so don't ignore that in pursuit of your goals.
And lastly, stop taking advice. I know you just heard me yap for like 10 minutes straight, but seriously, you should stop trying to take so much advice from other people, because inside of you is really where the most divine wisdom lies. No one knows you like you know yourself, and all of my best ideas have come from following my intuition. Now look, I don't even know who you are; I don't know your name; I don't know where you're watching this video from, but I do know you're a part of the winner circle, and if you're not, make sure to hit that subscribe button. But only you know what you want out of life, and that comes from connecting with your intuition; therefore, you need to cultivate it and protect it at all costs. We all have God within us, and I believe if we serve him every day by taking care of ourselves and doing the right things, he will guide us to reaching our highest purpose in this lifetime. And these are the things that I wish someone taught me when I was first starting in my journey, or maybe they've been inside of me all along. This ain't cheddar; this key take.