Mastering Success: Insights from a Self-Made Millionaire

The Fundamental Differences Between Rich and Poor

There are some key distinctions in how wealthy and less affluent people approach money, time, and personal development:

• Rich people buy time, poor people buy stuff
• Ambitious people buy skills, lazy people buy distractions

While these may seem like four separate groups, they actually represent two key pairings:

1. Rich people use money to buy time, which they can then invest in developing valuable skills
2. Ambitious people use their time to acquire skills that can generate wealth

This highlights an important truth - generational wealth isn't primarily transferred through assets or material possessions. Rather, it's passed down through education, skills, and mindset.

There's an insightful Sanskrit proverb that captures this idea:

"If you have a good son, you don't need to accumulate wealth. If you have a bad son, there's no point in accumulating wealth."

The core message is that skills and character are far more valuable than inherited money alone. A capable, driven individual can generate their own wealth. But someone lacking skills or ambition will likely squander inherited riches.

The Trap of Distraction

Many people who struggle financially fall into patterns of distraction and avoidance. Rather than confronting their limitations and working to improve themselves, they seek out content that makes them feel good in the moment.

This often manifests as consuming motivational videos or posts that promote messages like:

• "You are worthy"
• "You deserve success"
• "You are entitled to wealth and abundance"

While positive affirmations can be helpful in moderation, an overreliance on this type of content can reinforce entitlement and prevent real growth.

The reality is that you are only truly "worthy" of what you have already earned and achieved. If you're working a minimum wage job, that's what you've proven yourself capable of so far. Harsh as it may sound, you aren't automatically entitled to more until you develop the skills and put in the work to earn it.

Gratitude is far more beneficial than entitlement. When you feel entitled to success, you're rarely grateful when good things happen. You simply feel you deserved them anyway. But cultivating genuine gratitude for what you have can significantly boost your happiness and subjective wellbeing.

The Importance of Focus

One of the biggest traps aspiring entrepreneurs fall into is trying to pursue too many ventures simultaneously. There's a common belief that "7 income streams make you wealthy" - but in reality, this often just spreads you too thin.

Early in my career, I made this mistake. At my peak, I was juggling 9 different businesses:

• A chiropractic agency
• A dental agency
• A gym turnaround business
• 6 gym locations

I had partners in each venture, but I was still the primary rainmaker responsible for bringing in customers across all 9 businesses. This level of fragmentation severely limited my ability to gain traction in any one area.

The truth is, when you're required to work inside multiple businesses, you can really only dedicate yourself fully to one job. True wealth often comes from owning assets that generate passive income. But to acquire those assets, you typically need to focus intensely on one venture to generate the necessary capital.

Defining Focus

Focus is an abstract concept, but we can measure it concretely by:

1. The number of things you say "no" to
2. How few things you say "yes" to

The most focused person says yes to only one thing and no to everything else. This level of single-minded dedication is often what separates highly successful entrepreneurs from those who struggle to gain momentum.

Thinking 100X, Not 2X

Another key mindset shift is to aim for exponential rather than incremental growth. Instead of trying to double your business, look for ways to grow it 100X.

I had dinner with a friend who is the CEO of a public company. He had grown their market cap from $200 million to $1.2 billion in less than two years - truly exponential growth. When I asked what his primary focus was, he said:

"I'm shaking hands, kissing babies, going to events all the time. I'm doing 66 events this quarter alone."

He was personally traveling to all of these events, despite having a family at home. This level of dedication may seem extreme, but it highlights the intensity required to achieve massive success.

Many people want the outcomes that highly successful individuals have achieved, but they want to get there their own way. They want the rewards without making the same sacrifices or trade-offs. But success at that level comes with a price tag.

Just like you can't haggle over the price of shoes in a store, you can't dictate the "price" of success. You either pay it or you don't. Complaining that it's unfair or too difficult doesn't change the reality.

The Power of Intense Work Periods

One exercise I recommend to dramatically accelerate your progress is what I call the "12x30":

Work 12 hours a day for 30 days straight with no days off.

While this may sound extreme, pushing yourself to this level for a concentrated period yields several powerful benefits:

1. You realize you're not as fragile as you thought
2. You discover how much more you're capable of working
3. You see how much faster you could be achieving your goals
4. You experience rapid daily improvement
5. You build the confidence that you can access this intense "gear" when needed in the future
6. You gain perspective on how hard others may be working to get ahead of you

Most importantly, you accomplish more in that single month than you likely did in the previous quarter.

Of course, some will protest that they already work this much. In most cases, they don't - at least not with the same level of focused intensity. Others may say they work similar hours but take occasional days off. But that misses the point of pushing through resistance and building momentum.

Personally, I've found that working 6 AM to 6 PM daily is my baseline. Many days extend to 15-16 hours when factoring in evening events and dinners. The key is to be "on" and fully engaged during that time - not just physically present, but mentally sharp and productive.

Being on camera or on stage for extended periods is even more demanding than solitary work. You can't take mental breaks or coast - every second of reduced performance is a missed opportunity.

I've gone through periods of working 15-16 hour days for 9 months straight. I would wake up at 4 AM to prep, run gym classes from 5 AM to 8 PM, then handle admin work until 10-11 PM before starting over. It was exhausting in a way that a single good night's sleep couldn't fix.

But going through that forged an unshakable confidence. I know with certainty that I have the capacity to be truly relentless in pursuit of a goal. I've proven to myself that I can push through fatigue, overwhelm, and adversity.

That's the real value of these intense work periods - you gain experiential knowledge of your own capacity. When you face future challenges, you can look back and say "I've been through worse. I can handle this."

It's the difference between a rookie and a veteran. The veteran has weathered storms before, so they stay calm under pressure. The only way to develop that level of poise is to put yourself through the fire.

Understanding Work Output

We can think of work output as a function of two key variables:

Work Output = Volume x Leverage

Volume represents how many times you do something. Leverage is how much you get out of each repetition.

Early in your journey, you need to focus heavily on volume. Do things over and over to build skills and experience. As you improve, you gain more leverage - each repetition yields greater results.

Over time, you can achieve 100X the output through a combination of:

1. Dramatically increasing your volume of work
2. Improving your skills to get more leverage from each action

This compounds over time as your increased volume builds skill, which increases your leverage, allowing you to handle even more volume, and so on.

A Personal Example

When I decided to grow my personal brand, I consulted with a large, successful brand for advice. They had me pull up my social media profiles and compare my output to theirs.

It quickly became clear that they were producing literally 10X more content than I was across all platforms. The volume discrepancy was stark.

Once I increased my content production to match their volume, my skills improved rapidly. Now we're able to maintain that high volume while getting even more impact from each piece of content.

I had a similar conversation recently with a billionaire friend who was frustrated with his lack of traction on social media. When I showed him the volume disparity between our content output, he immediately understood. He was posting 7 pieces of content per week while we were producing 450.

The lesson was clear - you have to massively increase your volume of output to see exponential results.

The Illusion of "Natural" Talent

Many people assume that high performers have some innate gift or talent. But in most cases, their apparent ease comes from thousands of hours of deliberate practice.

I used to think I was naturally gifted at languages because I picked them up quickly. But a professor pointed out that I grew up in a bilingual household - of course languages came more easily to me. I had forgotten all the early exposure and practice that gave me that foundation.

The people who seem to have natural talent in a field have usually just forgotten all the work they put in to develop that skill. They may have started earlier or had environmental factors that supported their growth.

Once you realize that excellence requires time and repetition, it becomes clear that the sooner you start, the sooner you'll develop high-level skills. Don't wait for inspiration or perfect circumstances - start putting in focused work now.

The Importance of Urgency

One of the clearest predictors of entrepreneurial success is how quickly someone takes action. There's often a direct correlation between the speed of implementation and overall results.

You can dramatically improve your effectiveness by shrinking the gap between having an idea and taking concrete action to execute it.

Think of it this way - a hypothetical "god-like" figure would have zero gap between thought and reality. They could imagine something and instantly bring it into being. While we can't achieve that level of power, we can work to minimize our own action gaps.

Some practical ways to increase your speed of execution:

• When you say you'll do something "by the end of the week," ask if you could do it by the end of the day instead. This alone can increase your pace by 7X.
• Push yourself to complete "end of month" tasks by the end of the week (4X faster)
• Tackle "end of day" tasks within the hour (24X faster)
• For any task that would take 5 minutes or less, do it immediately

My wife Leila is a master of this. When I mention an idea in passing, she'll often have it completely handled within 60 seconds. She refuses to keep small tasks on her plate, delegating or completing them instantly.

This bias towards immediate action is a superpower. It allows you to make progress and gather feedback far more quickly than your competitors.

Embracing Difficulty

There's a pervasive idea, especially in social media circles, that you're young and have plenty of time. This gives people permission to delay taking hard action. But it's a harmful illusion.

The reality is that tomorrow isn't guaranteed. I recently saw news of an acquaintance my age - someone who was fit, had a family, and seemed to be doing everything right - who suddenly passed away from stomach cancer. It was a stark reminder of how fragile life can be.

We tend to assume we'll live to 100, but statistically, only 3 out of 10,000 people reach that age. It's far more likely that you'll die around the median age of 74 (for men in the US). That means at 37, you're already at the halfway point of your life.

And due to the way we perceive time, the second half goes by much faster than the first. When you're 5, a year feels like an eternity because it's 20% of your entire life experience. At 40, a year is only 2.5% of your life - it feels like it passes in the blink of an eye.

So if you adjust for the accelerating perception of time, your life's midpoint isn't 37 - it's closer to 21. This is why childhood memories often feel so much richer and more vivid. The first 20 years contain half of your perceived life experience.

Given this reality, it's crucial to:

1. Recognize that tomorrow isn't guaranteed
2. Accept that nothing worthwhile comes easily
3. Understand that developing valuable skills takes significant time

Rather than seeking shortcuts or easy paths, embrace the difficulty. Realize that the challenges you face are forging you into a stronger, more capable person.

The Nature of Hard Times

When you're consistently growing, you'll consistently experience some level of pain or discomfort. That's why they're called growing pains, not growing joys.

But remember - the alternative to growth stress is the stress of stagnation or decline. You'll experience stress either way. The biggest problem is believing that having problems is itself a problem, or that being stressed means something is wrong with you.

Being stressed often simply means you're alive and engaged in meaningful pursuits. Having problems means you're actually doing something of consequence.

Here's a perspective that can help reframe how you view challenges:

Imagine talking to the creator of the universe before your birth, choosing the person you want to become:

You: "I want to be the most courageous." Creator: "Then I will give you monsters to terrify you, so you can conquer them."

You: "I want to be patient." Creator: "Then I will make you work harder and longer, so you can learn to wait."

You: "I want to be wise." Creator: "Then I will give you failures that crush your spirit, so you can learn the value of judgment."

You: "Sounds like a rough life. Can't you just give me a good life?" Creator: "Just as we measure the quality of a blacksmith by the strength of his steel, I measure you by what you are at the end, not by the fire and hammer it took to make you. A good life isn't one that's easy - it's one that makes you into a good person. And that, my child, is a hard life."

This reframes hardship as the very thing that forges your character and capabilities. The difficulties you face aren't obstacles to your growth - they are the mechanism of your growth.

Finding Fulfillment Through Challenge

After I sold my gym business, I took about a year off. During that time, I experienced a lot of existential angst. I realized that the most reinforcing and fulfilling part of my life had been the work itself.

Without that sense of purpose and progress, I felt adrift. This led me to develop a core thesis for my life: Hard work itself is the goal. Emptying the tank each day is the point.

In the moment, you often feel tired, bored, or resistant to doing another repetition or working another two hours. But looking back, those are the days that feel most fulfilling. It's the times when you pushed past your perceived limits that you're most proud of.

You never truly know how much you have left in the tank until you empty it completely. It's only by pushing to your absolute limits that you discover what you're truly capable of.

In this analogy, we are both the steel being forged and the blacksmith doing the forging. Life provides the fire, but it's up to us whether we stand back and just let it warm us, or whether we step into it and use it to hammer out our impurities, becoming stronger and more refined.

The Reality of Progress

One of the most challenging aspects of pursuing ambitious goals is that progress often happens slower than you expect, then faster than you can imagine.

This is particularly true when developing new skills or exploring new business ventures. You often have to invest significant time and resources upfront before seeing tangible results.

For example, when I decided to add outbound sales as a new customer acquisition channel for my business, I initially thought it would take 12 weeks to get it running smoothly. I had read a book that said it typically takes a year, but I was confident in my marketing and sales abilities.

In reality, it took the full 12 months the book predicted. We didn't get our first sale for 90 days. After six months, we were only seeing a trickle of results. My executive team even staged an intervention, arguing that it was a distraction and we should cut our losses.

But I recognized that this is what "hard" feels like. We had proven the concept could work - we just needed to keep refining and optimizing. After a full year, outbound sales grew to represent 50% of our revenue.

The key is to have realistic expectations about the investment required. If someone told you they could double your business in a year for a $100,000 investment, many would jump at the opportunity. But the reality of that process often looks like:

• Month 1: Lose $5,000
• Month 2: Lose $5,000
• Month 3: Lose $5,000
• ...
• Month 10: Make $25,000
• Month 11: Make $50,000
• Month 12: Make $100,000

Most people give up during those early months of losses. They conclude that "ads don't work" or "outbound isn't for me." But if you can weather that initial period of investment, the returns often come rapidly once you reach a tipping point.

Developing Expertise

One key difference between masters and beginners is that masters have more ways to measure progress and define success.

When you're an expert at making videos, for instance, you recognize all the little milestones and improvements throughout a long project. You can celebrate progress at each stage of the process.

A beginner, on the other hand, only sees the final output. They feel like they're working hard but not making progress because they lack the nuanced understanding to recognize incremental improvements.

To accelerate your growth in any field:

1. Increase the number of ways you can measure progress
2. Celebrate smaller wins along the way
3. Recognize that the work itself becomes more intrinsically rewarding as you develop greater expertise

The Value of Education

Many people balk at the cost of education, whether that's formal schooling or investing in coaches, courses, and mentors. But the only thing more expensive than education is ignorance.

I've invested enormous sums in my own development, far more than most people would consider reasonable. The most I've ever paid for a single learning opportunity was $350,000 for dinner with a billionaire. I had to negotiate hard for that opportunity, increasing my offer multiple times before he agreed.

But I got exactly what I wanted from that dinner. The insights and connections were invaluable for my long-term goals.

Here's how I think about the value of education:

Let's say your income goal is $1 million per year, and you're currently making $100,000. The value of education that could get you to that goal is the difference: $900,000 per year.

So if there's a $50,000 program that could teach you the skills to earn $1 million annually, every year you don't invest in that education costs you $950,000 in unrealized income.

We need to shift from using "poor person language" about education to "investor language." Don't think of it as an expense - think of it as an investment in yourself as an asset.

Just like you wouldn't call a promising stock "expensive" without considering the potential returns, you shouldn't evaluate education solely on cost. The question is always: What's the return on this investment?

Becoming the Best Student

I've always aimed to be the top performer in any program or course I've participated in. Here's the process I use to maximize my learning:

1. Do everything they tell you to the letter the first time
2. Take what works and discard the rest
3. Learn something from everyone, but only internalize what makes you stronger

I like to think of myself as the Sword of Gryffindor from Harry Potter, which was enchanted to absorb only that which makes it stronger. Similarly, I'm always open to new information and experiences, but I'm selective about what I truly internalize.

Even when I've had negative experiences with coaches or consultants, I look for the lesson. What can I learn from this? How can this experience make me better? This mindset allows you to extract value even from situations that might seem like "failures" on the surface.

The Insatiable Desire to Improve

Many people point to various advantages - connections, money, looks, intelligence - as the keys to success. While these can certainly be helpful, there's one quality that can overcome all of them: an insatiable desire to improve.

Someone who is relentlessly focused on getting better every single day is incredibly difficult to beat in the long run. They may start behind in many ways, but their rate of progress will eventually overtake those with more innate advantages.

Think of life as a race. Some people may start further ahead, but what ultimately matters is your speed of progress. A professional athlete starting 20 yards behind an average person will still win a long race because their rate of improvement and sustained excellence is so much higher.

Too many people define themselves by their starting point or the hand they were dealt. But you can't control where you start - you can only control your rate of progress.

Eliminate words like "fair" from your vocabulary. The universe doesn't operate on fairness. There's simply a starting point and a rate of progress. Focus entirely on what you can control - how quickly you learn, grow, and improve.

Making the Necessary Trade-offs

One of the biggest obstacles holding people back is an unwillingness to make difficult trade-offs. They want the benefits of success without paying the associated costs.

Some examples of these trade-offs:

• Privacy is the price of fame
• Loneliness is the price of ambition
• Pleasure is the price of discipline
• Novelty is the price of loyalty
• Discretion is the price of trust

Many people want trust without being discreet, or fame without sacrificing privacy. They want the thrill of novelty in relationships without sacrificing loyalty. They want the results of discipline without giving up short-term pleasures.

But these traits exist on a spectrum. It's not binary - it's about how much privacy you're willing to give up for how much fame, or how much short-term pleasure you'll sacrifice for long-term results.

Often, people overestimate how much work they're doing relative to what's actually required to reach their goals. They might be putting in a "10 out of 10" effort for a $100k goal, but it's only a "1 out of 10" effort for a $1 million goal.

Recognize that most significant outcomes require meeting multiple conditions. Think of it like a pipeline with several valves - the water only flows when all valves are open. You might be working hard on opening three valves, but if the fourth remains closed, you won't see results.

This perspective helps remove emotion from the equation. Instead of feeling like your efforts aren't being rewarded, you can objectively assess which conditions you still need to meet.

Setting Your Own Standards

At the highest levels of achievement, you move beyond simply meeting market demands or seeking others' approval. You become the source of your own standards.

This might mean:

• Continuing to refine your content long after others would consider it "good enough"
• Writing multiple drafts of a book before anyone else sees it
• Holding yourself to a higher standard than any external critic

J.R.R. Tolkien worked on The Hobbit for a decade before it was published - and even then, it was because a friend submitted the manuscript without telling him. His standards were so high that he still didn't consider it ready.

This level of perfectionism isn't always necessary or helpful, especially when you're just starting out. But as you progress in your field, setting your own exceptionally high standards can push you into rarefied air.

It's about doing what's required, regardless of how you feel about it in the moment. You fuel yourself with the knowledge that meeting these self-imposed challenges will lead to extraordinary results.

Conclusion: The Path to Exceptional Results

Becoming truly exceptional requires a fundamental shift in mindset and approach:

1. Embrace focused intensity over scattered effort
2. Aim for exponential (100X) rather than incremental (2X) growth
3. Be willing to make difficult trade-offs
4. Invest heavily in your own education and skill development
5. Take rapid action and shrink the gap between idea and implementation
6. Recognize that progress often feels slow before a sudden breakthrough
7. Develop more nuanced ways to measure your progress
8. Set your own extremely high standards rather than settling for external approval

Remember that the path to exceptional results is rarely comfortable. It requires pushing through resistance, weathering periods of doubt, and continually refining your approach.

But for those willing to embrace the challenge, the rewards - both in terms of external success and internal growth - can be truly transformative.

Ultimately, the choice is yours. You can settle for comfort and mediocrity, or you can push yourself to new heights of achievement. The path of growth may be difficult, but it leads to a depth of fulfillment that cannot be found any other way.

Article created from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDK4g5na4Jw