Transcription
Ten years from now, you could still be at the same desk earning the same paycheck, wondering why you never got ahead. And the truth is, it won't be because you're lazy. It may be because nobody ever taught you the millionaire habits.
These are not pseudo habits. You don't have to wake up at 4 am and drink 37 gallons of water. These are real, proven habits that compound over your life. And wait until you hear habit number 9. It's the one that very few people talk about, but in my experience, it separates people who stay stuck from those who truly break through. Let's get started.
Stop saying you like to learn. Everybody says that. "I like to breathe oxygen." You know what most people mean when they say they like to learn? They mean they follow motivational accounts on Instagram, and they save quotes they don't look at again, and they watch YouTube videos at 2x speed while scrolling Twitter. That's not learning. That's entertainment.
People who are successful do not merely dabble. They invest in themselves, and they can prove it. So, let's take a look at your time. Show me your calendar. Let's take a look at your spending. Show me your money. If you are serious about learning, it will show up on your calendar and in your spending.
I had a reader who bought one of my courses, actually went through the material and applied it, and landed a $20,000 raise. They spent money. They spent time, and they made ROI, return on investment. Compare that to the person who says, "Yeah, yeah, I'll get to it someday." Oh, I'm reading this quote from Albert Einstein. Ten years later, they're still at the same desk, same paychecks, same excuses.
The truth is, successful people who you admire are probably spending time on improving themselves. It could be learning about business. It could be improving their fitness. They could be doing it through books, coaching, courses, classes, networking. It's all part of a system. It's not random. It is intentional.
And notice that I did not say free YouTube videos, even though you are watching a free YouTube video right now. This is great. It's the first thing. But if you want to truly intentionally improve, you've got to go deeper than YouTube videos alone.
You know, I had this realization a while back when I would go to the gym, and I used to just randomly start doing whatever exercise was in front of me. Bicep curl sounds great. Chest press sounds great. Leg curl, perfect. I had no intention. I had no system. And I was frustrated that I wasn't making progress. But when I look back, it actually makes perfect sense. I wasn't following a system. I didn't have a plan. And so the stuff I was doing was just purely random.
That's how so many of us act when it comes to self-improvement. We watch a random YouTube video. Then we listen to some random audiobook, but there's no plan. There's no intention. Successful people flip that around. They invest in themselves with a plan, and then they use those results to get something they want. Maybe they buy a nice trip guilt-free.
So, let me ask you, where are you putting your money right now? Where are you putting your time? If you are serious, self-development shows up on your calendar and in your spending.
Here's your action step. Comment below with one book, class, or skill that you are actively learning right now and what that is going to allow you to do. And if you don't know where to start, you can go to IWT.com/programs to access my most popular step-by-step online programs.
Okay, maybe you're already putting time into improvement, but are you using it well? There's a common myth when it comes to getting really good at something that you just need 10,000 hours. This is a highly oversimplified rule that just communicates to people, "You just need to keep at it," but that's not true. We don't just need 10,000 hours. We need deliberate, intentional practice. That's a huge difference.
And I saw it in myself. When I used to go to the gym, I didn't know what I was doing. I was nervous. I was intimidated. So usually, I would just go on the treadmill because it felt safe, or I would do bicep curls because I knew how to do them. But when I finally got serious, I hired help. I used my money and my time to make intentional, deliberate practice. I learned how nutrition works. I had my trainer show me what truly intense workouts look like. And I transformed from a skinny Indian guy into somebody who understood fitness.
I want the same for you in whatever part of life you're trying to improve at. You want to get good at interviewing? Don't just do one mock interview with your roommate. Do 50. Record them. Watch them back. Notice where you stumble each time you do it. Improve one thing and log it all. That is what successful people do. They don't treat practice as a box to check. They treat it as the thing that helps them become masters.
I find this is so true when it comes to people applying for jobs. They take the same resume and send it to a hundred different companies. They get rejected over and over and over again, and they never stop to evaluate what's working, what's not, what needs to change. That's not deliberate practice. That's just insanity. Successful people practice deliberately. They get better every single time, and that 1% improvement compounds.
Here's your action step. Write down one skill that you're working on right now. I want you to write down how many reps you've actually put in. For example, how many times have you sent your resume out? Then, I want you to add another column in this table. What are you improving each time you send that resume out?
By the way, if you want structured practice with accountability and you want to earn more money, you can check out my Earn 1K program. It is designed to help you launch your first profitable business fast with step-by-step reps, and we show you exactly what to improve each time.
A lot of people that I coach start off playing defense with their money. They wait until the end of the month. They look at their credit card bill. They go, "Oh, I guess I spent that much." That's defense. That's reactive. Successful people play offense. They don't wait to be surprised. They negotiate. They automate. They get aggressive.
Let me give you an example. One of my readers called up their landlord and negotiated $175 off their rent. $175 is not just a one-time win. Every single month for as long as they live there, they've negotiated that savings. That is playing offense, and that compounds into thousands of dollars over time.
Think about the objection. Think about the voice in the back of your head. "My landlord won't do that. They won't even pick up the phone." Many of us will complain about how expensive everything is, but we won't take 10 minutes to call our landlord or learn how to negotiate rent, or our cable company, or our credit card. Why? We have a lot of reasons, but deep down, a lot of us are afraid. Afraid of looking cheap, afraid of hearing "no," and so we stay quiet.
Meanwhile, the people who play offense are running circles around them. They're not afraid of hearing "no." They've heard "no" more times than anyone else because they've simply taken more swings than anyone else. They negotiate raises. Most of the time, they get rejected. They get blown out, but it just takes once to get that raise, which then compounds for the rest of their life. They automate their savings so it grows while they sleep. They set up their conscious spending plan so they know exactly how much money is going to investments and savings and guilt-free spending.
Do you see the difference? They are not reacting. They are directing their life. So, when I say play offense, I don't mean hustle harder and wake up three hours earlier. I mean be proactive. Think of yourself as the director of your own life. Identify the big wins that matter in your life, and you have to be brutally honest. Then go out and change them.
One of the most frustrating things that happens when I speak to couples on my podcast is how small they are often thinking. They are literally spending months agonizing over, "Should they get a Glade plug-in?" We're talking about $10 or $20. But successful people are asking $30,000 questions. "Should our investment contribution rate be 7% or 9%? Can we negotiate our salary? Can we start a side business? Can we cut our fixed costs down by 3% and redirect it to savings?"
I hate when people play small when they could actually live a bigger, richer life. I consider it a tragedy. And in fact, once you build the skill of doing it, it becomes fun. You don't have to dread having these arguments over a $5 beef jerky. You actually get excited because you know that you are focusing on things that matter. You're proud because you went on offense and got results.
So, let me ask you, are you playing defense right now? Are you waiting for opportunities to maybe hopefully someday come to you? Or are you on offense, actually creating them?
Here's your action step. Pick one area of your money life where you've been playing defense and decide how you are instead going to go on offense this month. If you are not sure how to do this, I've got two options for you. The first thing is just to say, "What would somebody that I admire do? How would they approach this?" They probably would not wait. And second, if you need a system to do this, grab a free copy of my Conscious Spending Plan. I put the link to the template in the description. It is the same framework that I use with my own students.
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I think a lot of people, especially in America, have a very cynical view on money. They spend it with guilt, they look at their credit card, and they feel ashamed. A lot of this boils down to a combination of a puritanical streak that runs through America and not understanding how money works. If you are sitting there looking at your bills and you're agonizing over how much you spent at Target last week, you are playing way, way too small. It's funny that very few people agonize over how much they invest or their asset allocation. No, "I spent too much on Tide at Target."
Successful people understand that money can be a tool, and they know that understanding how money works, including how to spend it, is one of the best skills they can learn. Let me give you an example. One of my friends spends $21,000 a year going out. $21,000, and they do it guilt-free because everything else in their financial system is optimized. Rent, savings, investments. They know exactly what they can afford to spend on going out, and it is important to them, so that's what they spend it on.
Meanwhile, a lot of people spend a lot of money going out, but they do it unconsciously. They're not in control, so they feel guilty and they say things like, "I should be better. I know I was bad last weekend." Good or bad? What does that have to do with it? Did you make a plan? Did you decide what your rich life is, and did you put your money intentionally towards those things?
I don't care if your money wants to go towards freaking $500 puzzles, or you want to take a trip to Mongolia, or you want to go to a state park. It's up to you. You decide. I'm not here to judge, but I do want you to do it consciously and intentionally. Intentional spending means knowing your money dials, the areas of your life that you love to spend on. For some people, that's travel. For other people, that's eating out, or convenience, or health and wellness. You actually do not have to cut those out.
Successful people do not live their life by how little they can spend. They actually dial up the things that they love and they cut costs mercilessly on the things they don't. So when you hear someone brag about how they're cutting out all restaurants this month, what's the point?
So here's your action step. I want you to identify your number one money dial, the thing you love spending on. And share how you would dial it up in the comments below. To get help identifying your money dial, you can grab my free Spending Audit Guide in the description below. And in just a few steps, you'll see exactly where your money's going, how you can cut back on what doesn't matter, and how you can actually spend more on the stuff you love guilt-free.
There are two types of people: problem-oriented and solution-oriented. Problem-oriented people love to talk about their problems. "I can't find a new job. My kids don't go to sleep on time." On and on and on they talk about their problems. And I can understand that sometimes you just want to be heard. But there is a small group of people, in my estimation, like two to 3% of people, who also talk about their problems, but they focus more on the solutions.
"I can't figure out how to get my kids to go to sleep on time, so I joined this parenting webinar to learn how other people are doing it." "I cannot figure out how my money is supposed to be invested, so I bought this book called 'I Will Teach You To Be Rich' and I'm reading it every evening." Think about the difference between people who are problem-oriented, who love to talk about their problems, and the small amount of people who actually focus on solutions.
I have found that people who are successful tend to be solution-oriented. So it's like, "Hey, I don't have enough money right now." Okay, cool. What are the solutions? Could I negotiate my bills? Could I earn a little bit of money on the side? Even $100 of breathing room could change everything for me. The problem-oriented mindset keeps you stuck. The other can build massive amounts of wealth and success.
I think optimism matters here. You have to believe that you can make a change. But if you think about a lot of folks who complain about things but do not take action, I have a lot of compassion for them because a lot of people have gone decades without actually being able to change something in their life. When you're problem-oriented, every obstacle feels like proof that you cannot succeed. It just becomes this negative cycle.
On the other hand, when you get a small win, when you're able to make a small change and actually reflect on it, you start on that path to becoming solution-oriented. And then every obstacle is just another challenge to solve. Think about it. Think about the people you know who have things going on in their life. Not everything is perfect, but they somehow managed to handle it all. It's not that they are magical or that they're some alien from a different planet. They see problems differently than other people.
I remember I had a reader who told me she could not save any money at all. Zero. I looked at her finances. Within a month, she had freed up $250. Same income, same expenses. What was the difference? It wasn't me going in there and doing some abracadabra math. She shifted her mentality from "I can't" to "How can I?"
Again, there is a lot of complexity around being able to make change. Sometimes you're in a system that makes it incredibly difficult. If you're taking care of three kids as a single parent, how are you going to find an hour a week to read a book? That's difficult. And I acknowledge that, but I also want to challenge you to focus on what is practical for you. So if you catch yourself saying, "I can't," maybe reframe it. "I can't right now, but how would I be able to a week from now? A month from now?" Is there a way that I could scope it down instead of having to take a full bite? Maybe just take a little nibble at improving. This is the shift that changes everything.
Here's your action step. Take one complaint you've made this week and rewrite it as a solution. Share it in the comments. And this is going to be really hard for a lot of people because you're going to realize you've gone years talking about problems and never coming up with a single solution. Share your solution in the comments.
By the way, if one of your complaints is, "I don't have a good business idea. I want to start a business. I want to make more money," I want to tell you about my Earnable program. Earnable is my step-by-step program that helps you start and grow your side business, even if you have no business idea and no experience. Earnable students are out there making a thousand, $5,000 a month, even a hundred thousand dollars using skills they already had, many of them while still working at their full-time jobs. So if you want a proven roadmap, go to IWT.com/earnable, or click that link in the description below.
Oh my God, this one is hard. I am still working on improving this one. Too many of us sit in jobs we don't like for years. We quietly stew about it. We complain to our friends. We scroll about job listings, but we never actually ask for help. Think about it. What was the last time you asked a mentor or a peer or somebody in your network for feedback or advice? For a lot of people, the answer is never.
I was helping someone find a job, and they never directly asked me for introductions. Like, this went on for weeks and weeks and weeks. I was like, "Why have you not asked me to introduce you to these five people? You know that I'm connected to them on LinkedIn." And they just looked completely shocked. "I never thought I could do that."
If you want to succeed, you have to learn the skill of asking for help. I've seen this over and over with my students in Earn 1K. The people who ask for feedback often double their rates, not because they're more talented than anybody else, because they are willing to ask for guidance from their prospects, from their customers, from other peers in the Earn 1K group. The quiet ones, the ones who sit back and hope for the world to recognize them, they just get passed over and they get stuck and they never understand why.
Successful people are not afraid to say, "I don't know. Can you help me? Hey, would you be willing to take 10 minutes on Zoom? I can work around your schedule. I'd love to ask you two questions about your career trajectory." I know this personally because I am in a CEO group where one of the members of the group told me, he pulled me aside and respectfully said to me, "Ramit, this group is about asking for help, and right now you are not demonstrating that skill. You need to ask for help more effectively." Damn, that's the kind of feedback that you just feel in your stomach. He delivered it respectfully, but it was painful to hear, but it's also true. I was not doing a great job at asking for help.
And as I have tried to become more effective at it, I realize, oh my God, this affects me in so many different ways. In my own relationship sometimes, I have to really pay attention to asking for what I want. At work, I need to sometimes be clear about asking for what I want, or sometimes just saying what I want. So I want to share this with you because a lot of us struggle with the same thing. Instead of silently struggling, let me encourage you to send the email, ask the question, make the request. You will be shocked how many doors open up when you just ask.
Here's your action step. Reach out to one colleague this week about getting some career advice. If you don't know where to start, you can use my Job Search Clarity document. It's free. It'll give you clarity on the exact questions to ask when you talk to mentors or peers.
The truth is, no one is coming to save you. No one is going to fly down from heaven and hand you a raise. No one is going to magically create the perfect role for you. And the truth is, if you do not speak up, you will be overlooked.
One of my colleagues, Sheena, did this perfectly. She sat down. She made the case for a new role and her desired compensation. She was clear about it. She was confident. That one conversation changed the trajectory of her career. And please remember, every raise compounds. If you negotiate a $10,000 raise today, over a decade later, that's lots more money than you would have ordinarily had. Oh, and by the way, that raise also becomes the baseline for your next raise.
Or you don't have to do that. When you hear me say, "a $10,000 raise," your first reaction might be, "$10,000? That's so unrealistic. We're meat. You're out of touch." And you just talk yourself right out of change. How many of you just did that? That voice in your head you think is your friend is actually your mortal enemy. It's keeping you stuck. It's keeping you silent. It's keeping you playing small.
Whenever you hear good advice out there, you immediately go, "That wouldn't work for me because..." and you come up with a million logical-sounding reasons. But guess what? At the end of running that exhausting race in your head, you're still sitting at your chair, looking on your phone or your computer, stuck. Ten years later, you look back. "Why did I not get promoted? Why did I not get a raise?"
Here's your action step. Write down three ways you've added value at work this year. That is your starting point for your next negotiation.
By the way, if you're watching this far, I have a pretty good feeling about you improving in your own life. You're not a dabbler. You probably want to take action because some of this stuff is a little heavy. So do yourself a favor. Hit subscribe right now because every week I'm sharing strategies that are going to make you richer, more confident, and more in control of your money. Remember, this is not about watching this one video. It's about building a system to help you living a bigger, more impactful life. Hit subscribe right now.
You know what's amazing? I've worked with so many people over my career, both in other jobs and at this company, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, and it is so striking to see the difference between people who have resilience and people who do not. Early on in this business, about 20 years ago, I had a project. I brought on several contractors and I had them do the project in parallel, and then I gave them direct feedback. It was stunning. Many of them simply vanished, disappeared. I never heard from them again, and I couldn't figure it out. The first one, I'm like, "Did they get my email?" The second one, I was like, "What's going on here?" And I realized something after it happened. The feedback was polite, but it was also direct. Many of the people who I gave feedback to had never heard direct feedback on their performance. And you know what they did? They disappeared.
There are so many people who struggle when some little bit of adversity happens. They just give up way too early. They send in two job applications. They don't hear back, and they quit. They try freelancing. They get one "no," they walk away. Meanwhile, the people who keep going are the ones who win.
I've been doing this business for over 21 years. Do you know how many people have said "no" to me, or have said racist things to me, or have said all kinds of crazy things about how much I charge? That's fine. They can say what they want. My business is not to serve them. It is to serve the people who truly care and want to live a rich life. I also think about Sean, one of my readers. He paid off $40,000 in debt in just two years, not because he discovered some magic trick. He kept going when it was hard.
And so all of these things that I'm talking about only work if you stick with it. Deliberate practice only works if you keep showing up. Advocating only works for yourself if you keep asking. And sometimes when you get rejected, you feel that pain in your stomach, you start sweating. You also have to listen to the feedback. Maybe you're actually not as good as you think. Okay, I will accept that feedback. It sucks. It feels horrible, but tell me more. Why am I not good? What would I need to do in order to get good? That is how top performers think. You don't need to be the smartest. You don't have to have the best idea, but you do need to keep going when many others around you will quit.
So here's your action step. Think of one area of your life where you gave up too early. What was it? I want you to commit to revisiting it this week. If you need help building a system that keeps you consistent, you can check out my One Hour Monthly Money Meeting guide. It's free. It'll keep you on track every single month.
This is the most underrated habit of all. You think you're going to build opportunities sitting on your couch freaking watching Love Island. You need to get in the game and be where the action is. If a 25-year-old asked me for career advice, the first thing I would tell them is go to a big city. Go to a big city because there's more people. There's more opportunities. There's more ideas happening, and things move fast.
Now, that could mean moving to New York or LA or Silicon Valley or whatever you want to move to, but it doesn't only have to be physically moving. A lot of us have family. We have reasons that we cannot just pack up and move tomorrow, but it can mean joining the in-person meetup in your industry or showing up at a conference.
I remember something really humiliating that happened. There was a Stanford sociology get-together in New York. I got my master's in sociology from Stanford. I was like, "Cool, let me go." I go there, and people were like, "Uh, who are you?" And everyone knew each other except me. Turns out when they said Stanford sociology, they meant PhD students. So I was the only non-PhD student. Nobody knew who I was. I walked out of there feeling kind of stupid, but also appreciating that you've got to take risks. Okay, what's the worst that happened? I had a few awkward conversations and I left.
And the point is, get in the game. Be there in real life. Scrolling on TikTok is not the same thing as creating opportunities by being around people who are already in motion.
Here's your action step. I want you to research one place where leaders in your industry are gathering and then share comments about how you're going to get there. When I was in college, there was a conference going on, and I couldn't get tickets to go. So I emailed them and said, "Can I come and volunteer?" They said, "Yeah, come on over." And that was how I got into that conference. There are so many ways to get in the rooms and get in the game. I need you to get more creative about how to do it.
Now, if you're serious about becoming a millionaire, watch this video next. It'll show you the exact steps to take to turn these habits into real results. Click here to watch it now.