Stop Wasting Your Life - 7 Things I Quit to Go From Broke to Millionaire

Stop wasting your time. I'm going to share with you the seven things that I quit to go from broke to multimillionaire. When kids come up to me in my supercars, they always ask, what do you do? But I always share with them. It's not what I do, it's what I don't do. Welcome to the Martell Method. I went from rehab at 17 to building a hundred million dollar empire and being a Wall Street Journal best selling author. In this podcast, I'll show you exactly how to build a life and business you don't grow to hate. My best selling book, buy back. Your time is out now. Grab a copy@buybackyourtime.com or your preferred online retailers. Starting with number one, don't spend time with people who suck your energy. I call them energy vampires. So I grew up with this friend that I've known since elementary school. And I realized that he'd only ever call me when he needed something from me. Never called me when I had something to share that was good. He never called me when he heard that I was having a hard time. He never called me for any other reason. Then he needed somebody to help him move something or maybe borrow some money or he was bored. And I realized that is not the kind of friend I want in my life. So I just decided to stop responding to his calls to create some space to not respond so quickly. I asked myself one day, what does a great friend look like? And it occurred to me there was no part of the characteristics what a great friend would act like he was acting. And yet I just believe because I sat next to him in math class that I had to be friends with him for the rest of my life. That's crazy. Spend time with people who want more for you, not more from you. There's a lot of people out there and if they're not a good friend when you're winning in an ear when you're not doing well, you don't want those people in your life. And that's why I call it a friendventory. You wanna audit the people around you and cut them out if they're not supporting your dreams, if they make it hard for you to win. Why would you want those people in your life? And the cool part is if you say no to somebody, you eventually say yes to a new friend. You create the space for somebody new to come into your life that can support you and propel you forward. The way I think about it is today's energy shapes tomorrow's reality. So I have to protect my energy. If you want your life to get better, you have to change your energy. You have to show up with more positivity and opportunity and POS expectation. That's how you change your life. And the truth is, is your environment is everything. Think about it. You could have the most positive attitude and wish that everything is hot. But if I put you in a commercial freezer, you're going to freeze to death. Your environment sets your internal thermostat, not your positive attitude. So make sure that you really audit the people around you. If you want to stop wasting your life, the first thing you need to do is cut out everyone sucking your energy. Which brings us to number two, which is don't ask for advice from people who haven't done what you want to do. I had these people that come up to me at the gym. They see me working out and they start to try to give me advice on how to work out. And I look at them and I'm not being rude, it's just if I do the push up the way you're telling me, will I look like you? Because you don't look like my trainer. My coach Alan looks like Superman. That guy I listen to all day long. Somebody else I don't. Not because I'm trying to be rude, but because what if I listen to them and they don't mean to be harmful and then they cause me to get off track. So here's some of my life principles. I don't take fitness advice from a fat life coach. I don't take business advice from a business coach who has no business business. I don't take parenting advice from Elon Musk. The Guy's been married three times, he has 12 kids, he's a world class engineer. If I was building a rocket or any company, he's the guy I want to talk to. How to be in a marriage and how to have great relationship with their kids. No, you got to choose. So this is where everybody makes the mistake because they don't know anybody else. So when they have big life decisions, they usually turn to their parents. The challenge with that is the strategy is flawed. Because if your parents haven't achieved the thing you want, then they're going to give you the advice that got them what they've got. And if it isn't where you want to end up, then you're just going to follow what they tell you to do to get to exactly where they're at. If you want to be an Olympic athlete, go get advice from Somebody who's been to the Olympics, not the person that's a weekend warrior. Surround yourself with people who have what you want and don't be afraid to ask them questions. Success leaves clues if you know how to ask to figure out what the clues are. Same thing goes for your friends, your co workers, your boss. If the person hasn't done the thing that you want to do. If you don't admire the area of the life that you want results in, don't internalize their advice. Which brings us to point three, which is don't blame anyone or anything for your situation. When I was younger, I used to blame everyone for anything. Any situation that happened in my life, it was somebody else's fault. I was late for work, somebody cut me off in traffic, didn't get the deal. It's because somebody didn't like me on the call. Nobody else was responsible for my situation. I was the person that became me. I was the one that had the call. I was the one that was driving my car. I was the one that couldn't prepare early enough to show up on time. So what I realized is that when I blamed other people, I lost the ability to control my situation. I can't control other people. I can control me. And if everything is my fault, I have control over that. Blaming other people is another way of just giving away your power. When you take responsibility, you take control. Imagine cooking a meal and it doesn't turn out as planned. Blaming the ingredients won't help. Instead, take responsibility. As a chef, you cook the meal. You can't control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond. The ability to control your emotions, your feelings. It's the number one predictor of success in life. If any person can easily get you on tilt, get you to react, then they control you. And you're not going to be able to manipulate the situation the way you need to get the results you want. If other people can get you upset really easily. One of my favorite quotes that I heard is, we're not creatures of circumstance. We're creators of circumstance. We control the ability to shape our realities. The world isn't as it is. The world is as we are. Because if our internal feelings are set right, then everything external can either feel great or feel really hard. If you want to stop wasting your life, taking ownership of everything in your life will give you power to change it. Before we get back to the episode, if you want to jumpstart your week with my top stories and tactics, be sure to subscribe to the Martell Method newsletter. It's where you'll elevate your mindset, fitness and business in less than five minutes a week. Find it@martell method.com which brings us to number four, which is don't say yes to every opportunity that comes your way. When I started, I used to say yes to everything. I was so worried if I didn't I would miss out on big opportunities because I didn't have a whole lot going in my life. But then what happened is I said yes to so many things that I couldn't actually get anything done. So everything I was committed to got done poorly. And then people started getting mad at me. And I realized that saying yes is easy, saying no is hard. A person that never says no, I can't trust their yes because eventually they're going to let me down. You don't want to be that person. I have a buddy, he always says yes to me. And because he's always saying yes, I can't trust his yes because I'm assuming he's saying yes to everybody else and eventually something's going to fall through the cracks. He can't possibly do it all. Steve Jobs always said, sometimes the most productive thing you can do is to say no. Think of your responsibilities like items in a backpack. If you keep adding more items without removing anything, it becomes too heavy to carry. You only want to say yes to things that align with your goal and your vision. Saying no to a very cool opportunity today is saying yes to your dreams and your goal. If you want to win the biggest way possible and you haven't had success yet, pick one thing and decide to do it for a decade. I call it a dedicate. Decide to go 10 years all in. Put your heads down. Saying no to everything else. Be maniacal, be focused. Decide to be the tip of the spear to become the best in the world at that thing, and trust in the process. If you want to stop wasting your life, saying no will make sure you don't spread yourself too thin. Which brings us to number five, which is don't be a prisoner to your device. I do a youth program called King's Club, and I'm always talking to young men. And recently I was talking to one of them about their number one vice. I was like, what's your thing? What's stopping you? What's making life hard? And he looks at me, holds out his phone. He shakes it. He said, my phone. Every time I know I gotta get something done, I go on my phone, I start scrolling. 2, 3, 4 hours. Later I put off all the stuff I know I need to do and I don't get it done. And it occurred to me the reason why is because he doesn't have a plan for his life. He doesn't know what the scrolling is robbing from him because he hasn't built a real plan for a vision for his life. Think of your attention, your focus like a car on the road. If you get stuck in traffic of notifications and apps and doom scrolling on social media, you'll find yourself going nowhere. Instead of cruising towards your goals, go turn off all your notifications like right now. Your attention is way too valuable. Think about it. Your focus, your energy, your productivity. It's worth way more than a red jewel notification. Some person Snapchat to you. The truth is, if you're addicted to your phone, your life's just not that interesting. Go make it interesting. Go create big plans. Go have a vision for your life that pulls you forward. That scrolling on social media isn't even an option because you're too excited to go create the thing that you see yourself doing in five years. Just have more fun things scheduled in your calendar and if you're really having a hard time, schedule them with other people. If you are committed to go to the gym with your buddy, I guarantee you're not going to miss going to the gym. If it's just you, you'll probably skip out just because you want to scroll on social media, turning off all notification is the simplest and most effective way to stop wasting your life. Which brings us to number six, which is don't read books. Study them. When I started reading, I was so hungry to read books and to get them off my to do list because people are giving me you got to read this, you got to read this, you got to read this. That I would just speed read these books. I didn't write anything down, I didn't highlight anything, I didn't make comments or anything. I was just reading to have read. And then it occurred to me that the real value from a book is not the information, it's the application. It's actually executing the things that you're learning. So I started to develop this muscle, the JFDI muscle. Just effing do it. Which is as soon as I read something actionable in the book, I took action. Even better than that was start to teach other people around me what I was learning. Why in reading, knowing I'm going to teach, I read completely different. Oftentimes we already know what we should have done. We read that book. But did you do the things in the book? So my recommendation is figure out where you're stuck in life and only read books that can help you unlock the next skill you have to acquire the belief around the world or implement a habit in your life that'll get you incredible results. I call it just in time, not just in case you can recommend a book to me, I'll buy it. It'll probably sit there until I have the need and I go, oh yeah, somebody recommended a book on that topic. And then I'll go study it. Same goes for all my information, my YouTube videos, my podcasts, resources, courses I buy, I queue them up and I study them when I have the problem, not just because I bought it. Most people read or consume courses or hire a coach just so they can feel good about themselves. Because the EAs easiest decision to spend money. I call it shelf help. You're just consuming knowledge to put on a shelf, to have a badge that you can tell people, I read that book. But are you doing what's in the book? If the answer is no, stop, study, execute. So if you want to stop wasting your life, take action on the things you learn instantly. Before we get back to this episode, if you prefer to watch your content, then go find me on YouTube. I have this episode on YouTube. I'm Dan Martell on YouTube. Just subscribe to the channel, turn on the notification bell because then you'll get notified in real time. It'll tell YouTube to tell you got a new episode, so you'll never miss anything. Now let's get back to the episode. Which brings us to number seven, which is don't compare yourself to anyone but yourself. I used to compare myself to people my age, people in my city, people that were more successful than me. And honestly, all it did is made me depressed. I was worried I was behind. I wasn't moving fast enough. I didn't think big enough. I wasn't that impressive. Nobody should take the time to talk to me. And then it occurred to me one day that the only person that I'm actually competing against is me from yesterday, me from last year. Because over time, I'm not anybody else. I don't have their brain. I don't have their body. I don't have the relationships. I don't have their environment, their situation. But guess what? They don't have mine. And the only thing I can do is take who I am and ask myself, honestly, am I getting better in my focus on the things that I can control? And if I can get 1% better every day. That compounds like, like mad. Over a year, over a decade. Change your life and comparing yourself to somebody else will just steal your confidence. Think of your experience as a Spotify playlist. Comparing to someone else ignores the value of your own unique taste, who you are, what you love. Focus on curating your own playlist that resonates with you. I always say to people, why would you Compare your chapter three to somebody else's chapter 27? I've been in business for 27 years. If you're just starting off six months, a year, three years in, why would you compare yourself to me? If anything, know that I've been doing this for 27 years. And when you're at 27 years, because you're watching this or you're listening to this, I expect you to be way further along because you have access to people that I didn't have access to. And the biggest thing you can do is just be yourself. It's the most unique thing that you have. Everything that you're insecure about is what makes you you. You may not like the sound of your voice, the way your nose is shaped, the way your ears are shaped. You might think that you're not very smart, but I'm telling you, if you lean into it, that's what makes you you. It's what makes you memorable. Trying to pretend that's not who you are or trying yourself to somebody else or be somebody else is just going to steal all the potential of you standing out in this world. And we live in a world where you want to be unique, you want to be authentic. So take advantage of it. Those are seven things I quit to not waste my life. Thanks for listening to Martel Method. 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