30 things I wish I knew before turning 30 (as a millionaire)

I just turned 30 years old yesterday, and I've been able to live the life of my dreams. Build a multimillion dollar business in my twenties, marry the girl I've always wanted. But I've also made a lot of mistakes, and I think if I could do it all over again, I would go back in time and tell my younger self these 30. So the very first thing I would tell myself is, Brian, your biggest insecurity is actually your biggest superpower. Because growing up, I was very self conscious about my body. I was born with a birth condition that made my chest sunken, and it looked like I basically had a big ice cream scoop in the middle of my chest. You can see it right here, right? It's indented. And I would be very afraid of taking my shirt off at the pool, swimming in public with girls that I went to school with, and having friends make fun of me. And unknowingly at that time, I didn't realize that that actually became my biggest superpower because instead of just crying and crying and, you know, wishing that I had a different body, I actually used that as motivation to build confidence by actually saying, you know what, I'm not just going to sit here and let this be my story. I'm going to change my story. And. And I'm actually going to get in the gym, lift weights, start working out, start building my confidence from the ground up. And as a result of that, I started building muscle. And over time, after being consistent, I actually built confidence because I was gaining a skill, I was being disciplined. I was actually seeing results after 90, 120 days. And I started liking myself. I started liking the way I looked. And then I quickly realized that what used to be my biggest insecurity actually became my biggest superpower because that is what catapulted everything else in my life to take off from there. I used that same same habit of working out in the gym and the confidence I had of myself and the way I looked to become a better public speaker, to put myself on camera and to use that as my YouTube journey. My biggest insecurity actually became my biggest superpower because now that's a story that nobody else can tell besides me. And that's what I'll always tell to the day I die, because that is what made me me. The second thing I would tell myself is, dude, stop trying to be cool. Just get better. You know, because I had that insecurity growing up. I desperately, desperately just wanted to be cool. You know, I was always trying to hang around the cool kids at school and do what the cool kids were doing. I just got cool by actually doing the things that were eventually going to make me cool, like building a business right from the ground up, hiring a team and actually doing good work for clients and getting great results. And that ultimately led me to now have the status that I was desperately hoping and searching for back then. And had I just done that sooner, how much better would I have been? The third thing I would tell myself is that, dude, you do not need to wear a suit to become successful. In fact, a lot of us growing up look up to the people in the suits on Wall street, the lawyers, the bankers, and we think, man, if I wear a suit, that's how I can become successful. And that's actually what I used to believe. You see, I was inspired by the TV show Mad Men in college at Arizona State University. I would watch that show and I would say, man, I don't know what this guy does, but I want to do that too. I started having that culture and started business when we started growing the business from the ground up. One day I just woke up turning 30 and I was just like, I'm not going to do this anymore. So just realize that you don't need to wear a suit or to look successful to become successful again. Focus on your skills, okay? Focus on growing and becoming better. That's the only thing that really matters. The fourth thing I would tell myself is the happiness you're searching for is in the work you're avoiding. To find happiness, you have to have a big purpose. So big that you wake up every single day and you're okay with the day to day struggles, you're okay with the day to day challenges. And more importantly, the actual work that you're doing is going to lead to the happiness that you want. It's probably right in front of your nose right now. That thing that you've been putting off, that task that you've been delaying that due date, you've been moving, it's right there. Check it off, complete it, do it today, get it done. Get closer to the thing that you said you were going to do. A lot of people nowadays are preaching, start a business, start a business, start a business. But again, the best piece of advice I ever got was work to learn, not to earn. Because unlike most people nowadays, I actually spent the first three years of my career developing skills. I knew that I wanted to have my own online business one day, but I didn't have the skills to do it. So I had to learn the skills and the way I learned the skills was by actually getting jobs that would teach me those skills. If you're looking for work to do and what meaningful work should be to you, look at your end goal and reverse engineer the skills you need to have and start working at a job that can teach you those skills while you earn money and and learn those skills on the jobs instead of learning through trial and error on your own. Starting a business and wasting a bunch of time and money and potentially discouraging yourself from actually growing that business because you don't have the skills to actually run it. Work to learn not to earn. One of the best investments you can make in your 20s is in your self education. Buy more books. Read the books you actually buy before moving on to the next book. Buy more courses. Invest in your self education. Join a coaching program to stay accountable to your goals, to actually achieve the goal for your business that you have. Right? Get around the right community, join a mastermind. Pay to go to that event, pay to go to that workshop, pay to go to that conference. I promise you, you'll take away one, two, if not three things that each of those things that will allow you to stay in the right mindset, stay focused on your goals, and more importantly, learn or meet one person or one thing that can help you get closer to your dreams and you never regret. Investing in yourself. That's the number one asset you have. The first five years in business aren't where you get rich, they're where you get good. You may have the skills, right? You may have worked to learn, not to earn. You may have invested in your coaching course or education and your self development. You may have done all those things. But until you start the business and actually do it for yourself, that's where you actually acquire the real skills. Now when you do start that business, just like I've learned now, the first five years, they're not where you get rich, they're where you get good. Your income will rarely ever exceed your level of personal development until you keep growing, keep learning, keep striving for more, and keep consuming the right information. You'll never be able to make the income that you want. A lot of people nowadays, especially people that are broke, they want to make a lot of money, right? But you and I, we both realize that we have to invest our time, energy and resources into getting the right information, access to the right people, access to the right information to be able to learn the things we need in order to make better decisions and as a result, make more income. There's nothing more expensive than a cheap resource. For example, I have this mountain valley spring water glass bottle in my hand. This is the highest quality water you can buy and you can drink, in my personal opinion. And it's expensive. Why? Because, well, this is taken from the springs in mountains where the water is pure and clean. There's nothing more expensive than cheap resources. Not just with your water, not just with your clothes, but also with the books you buy and also with the courses you buy online. You can buy that free thing, but again, you won't really pay attention to it because it's free. When you pay, you're pay attention. And more importantly, the highest quality resources usually last a lot longer nowadays, especially in today's current economic climate, political climate, there's a lot of agendas being pushed, a lot of people programming you and me to believe certain things, what's okay, what's not okay, what you can say, what you can say. And for me, I personally don't agree with a lot of those things. And I don't want my future kids to be raised in an environment where we don't have strong faith based values written in the test of time that have been proven to be true time and time again. And luckily I've been reading this to get back on track and I would recommend you do too. If you are not religious, don't even worry about that. The mornings for me are mind work, right? You're working on your mind, your mental state. You're getting in the right state of mind to be able to attack the day with the most energy you could ever possibly have. Get your mind right first. Read the Bible, pray or read a book, meditate, whatever it may be for you. But I promise you, if you focus on yourself first and you work inward, it'll be a lot easier to do the outward work that's required of you throughout the day. You'll have more energy, you'll have more peace of mind, you'll have more clarity. Before you sleep, make sure you unplug your router. So one thing I do every single night as I open up this cabinet and if you zoom in here, you can see our router, right, Our WI FI router. This is the thing that we all get access to that gives us access to the Internet. I'll come in here and I'll unplug it, Boom, take it off and I'll sleep without it. Why? It'll help you sleep better. It'll help you fall into a much deeper sleep, relax, recover and perform better. You'll never regret a good night's sleep. Now, in my 20s, one of the worst things that I ever did was stay up, stay out, and be with people that were not going to serve me long term. Nowadays, at 30, I'll say no. And more importantly, I'll get a good night's sleep and prefer it over staying out, staying up late, and doing things I'm probably going to regret in the morning. Your body will thank you. I'm telling you, get a good night's sleep. You'll wake up feeling refreshed and you don't really care about what you might have missed out on the night before. Stretching is a scam, by the way. What I've actually learned, thankfully, through training functional patterns, is that stretching just makes your muscles looser. For example, take this band, right? What happens when you stretch a band right? It becomes less strict, it becomes less tight, and, and that may feel good momentarily, but if you overstretch it and you continuously stretch it day in and day out, your muscle will have a harder time getting back to that strictness, the tenseness that you need when you want to actually develop core strength and functional fitness and more importantly, have your body working as a system. Stretching is a scam. I do not recommend it. And trust me, if you stop doing it, you'll also see why I stopped doing it, too. You should be planning your weekends. And it's been a game changer. Because now, just like we plan our weeks, we have a plan for the weekend Sundays. We also make a plan to spend time together, me and my wife Jennifer, some quality time as a couple. Plan your weekends just like you plan your weeks, and you'll be much better off, too. Another thing I wish I did earlier in my life was learning how to fight. Because the reality is, if you can't defend yourself, or at least have the confidence to defend yourself in a street fight, how are you gonna be able to protect your family if something does happen? What I am saying is I now have a lot more confidence because I do have at least some knowledge and skills around fighting. And more importantly, I've been training. So I do have the endurance to last a lot longer than the average person, which is really how you want to fight anyways. Number one, you avoid it. Or number two, you just outlast the person because they get tired and they don't want to fight you anymore. And then you can pretty much beat their ass. So fighting earlier was definitely something that I wish I learned a lot sooner, but thankfully now I can do a little something There will never be the perfect mentor. Now, what I mean by that is, early on, I was always looking for the perfect mentor. Someone who could teach me how to be successful, someone who could teach me how to have the body I wanted, someone who could teach me how to have the marriage I wanted, someone who could teach me how to make the money, live the dream, yada, yada. You need to find a mentor for every area of your life that you're looking to improve. What I'm getting at here is there's not just going to be one perfect mentor for you, you. It's going to teach you everything. Sure, he can get you a lot farther, or they can get you a lot farther. But you want to look for areas of your life that you can find multiple mentors. Find the right one for that area of your life and go all in on them. And as a result of that, you'll be able to improve every area of your life because you have a mentor for every area of your life that you're looking to improve. Find multiple mentors to improve every area of your life. Do they have what you want? Do they look how you want? Do they have the life that you want? If so, model them. Another thing I wish I would have started doing earlier, especially in my 20s, especially when I started my business to handle stress was to meditate more. 20 minutes a day. Just focus on the breath going in through your nose and out through your mouth. Meditate 20 minutes a day. You'll be able to control your life. Spend more time in nature. You'll actually make more money. A few months ago, I actually had a very serious eczema breakout. My skin, which you can see, has pretty much fully recovered at this point, was full of just patches, eczema, dry skin. It was due to the stress of scaling up very quickly in our business. The number one thing that helped me cure my eczema, relieve my stress, and come back to actually what matters, spending more time in nature. I went to the beach, spent two weeks out in the sun every single day, swimming for two hours, just grounded on the floor in the sand in nature. Healed my body up like that. I get my best work done on airplanes and when I'm traveling and outside of the 9 to 5 grind. So if you're stuck in a problem with your business, you're not sure how to solve it. I would encourage you to get up, get out and go take a walk, go travel, go somewhere different, go visit a friend, go visit a client, take a plane ride, go somewhere. I guarantee you you'll have creative insights that will inspire you to keep going and you'll find your breakthrough. The quality of your food determines the quality of your energy. Pro tip is to read the ingredients. You want to eat grass fed beef, grass fed and finished beef and meats. You want to eat wild caught fish and shrimps. Salmon, right? Wild caught. Why? Because it's not farm raised. I know it doesn't sound like a big thing or you might think eating healthy is expensive. It's actually not. Because if you think about it long term, if you cheap out again, there's nothing more expensive than a cheap resource. You cheap out on the food you eat long term, it's going to catch up to you and ultimately deteriorate your health. Choosing the right partner is one of the main sources of your success or your failure. Luckily, I've been blessed to have the right partner. Check her out. Look at her. She's like a wild animal in the forest. My beautiful wife, Jennifer. So Jennifer and I have been married for four years this past July 4th. And when I first met her, I just quit working my full time job to go all in on building my agency. She's the right partner because she supports me, she helps me, she cares about me, she loves me and she'll always trust me no matter how crazy my ideas are. When you choose somebody, don't choose somebody just because they're looking good. Don't choose somebody just because they're, you know, they got all the things on paper. Choose them because you can actually see yourself growing with them. So I chose the right one. Yes. What about me? Did you choose me? Yes. We chose each other. Yes. You need to commit first and figure the rest out later. So the way I embodied this was I met her. But before I met her, I wrote down every single thing I wanted in my dream partner. I got crystal clear on what I wanted and who I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. And as a result, God blessed me with her just two months later. Literally. I manifested her right there. Commit first, figure the rest out later. Because I committed to Jennifer. Because I committed to building the business. And I went all in and left no plan B. I was able to be able to just focus on her and focus on the business as a result, to grow it. The best use of money is to create memories and experiences, not buy materialistic objects and possessions. Last year, for example, on New Year's Eve in beautiful Miami, Florida, I brought my entire team from across the world. The Philippines, the uk, all across the United States and Everybody from around the world in our mastermind, the Admin Mastermind, together for New Year's Eve weekend in beautiful Miami, Florida. And I paid $80,000, close to $100,000 on a yacht party for New Year's Eve. And I balled out. Why? Because I knew that if I did that event, not only would I have a lot of fun, but I would have a lot of. I would have a lot of fun because all the people that I loved, my mastermind, all my clients, our family, our friends, our team, would have fun, too. Say yes more. Say yes more. Say yes to that trip. Say yes to that experience. Say yes to that mastermind. Say yes to meeting that person in person for the very first time. Say yes. Go do it. Go experience it. One of the very best things that I did, and I wish I did more of in my twenties was say yes more. Say yes to traveling. Say yes to new experiences. Say yes to meeting new people. Say yes. Because now that I've done a little bit of that in my 20s, I have the experience and the awesome feeling to know that I have friends all across the world. But I have missed out on some things that I wish I would have done, and I wish I would have said yes to those opportunities. Never apologizing for changing my mind. I've made a lot of quick decisions. I pivoted a lot in my life, and I was always very hesitant to do that because I was afraid of what others might think of me. You should never apologize for changing your mind, even if it's as little as saying you want to go do something with somebody. But you realize that that person and that event isn't really going to serve you, to become the best version of you. Now, I know you should say yes to a lot of things. Obviously, I told you that already. You should say yes to a lot more than you're saying no to, especially in your 20s. But if you do decide to change your mind on something you do say yes to, okay, you're gonna change your mind a lot in your 20s. That's when you're figuring this thing called life out. Just don't apologize for it. If they truly love you as a friend, as a team member, as a family member, they'll understand. You never lose. You either win or you learn. It's something I tell me myself, my wife, my team, every single day. And it's something that I wish I would have told myself more often in my 20s because I was afraid of failing. I was afraid of looking stupid. I was afraid of Getting out there and trying, I just didn't want to have the feeling of not being good enough. What I've realized now, later on in life, at the young age of 30, is that that's only way you get better is if you try and try and try and you fail fast. The people that are more successful than you have only failed way faster than you, way faster than you've even tried. They failed more times than you've even tried. Remember that you never lose, because when you learn what not to do, you learn how to do it better. You get data, you acquire information on what didn't work this past time when you tried it. So don't be afraid to fail. Fail fast, because you never lose. You either win or you learn. You only actually, really, truly fail if you quit. When I was growing my business, I desperately wanted to quit many times because I didn't want to be boxed into that narrative of, like, just being YouTube ads expert or guru. And so I wanted to quit many times because I was like, I'm much bigger than that. But I'm thankful I didn't, because almost five years later, our business has grown year over year over year over year. And as a result of sticking to that one thing, that one niche, that one skill set that's allowed me to achieve a business and the life of my dreams. And it's only getting better. And I promise you, it will get better for you too, because you only failed if you quit. Never quit. Never give up on your dreams, never give up on your success, never give up on learning. The journey is the destination. And so while we're here working towards that dream goal where you say, when I have this, I'll be, or when I get there, I'll be, or if it only was like this, I would be. It's, you're never gonna get there, Right? And that's the whole point. Because even when you're there, you'll think about the next thing and the next thing and the next thing or won't be as perfect as you thought it would be. You are the mentor that you've been searching for. You are him. Brian. You know, all my life, I. I desperately have been searching for the answers to life's most pressing problems. Questions. And I found a lot of mentors along the way. I've had a lot of mentors. I still do have a lot of mentors, and I've learned from a lot of really amazing people. But just like I write my dream life on these pages and read them every single day, my morning formula, my highest version of myself and what I love and want my life to look like. Now turning 30, I've realized that I can still have mentors, but the mentor that I've been searching for is me. And one of the biggest tools that I wish I had before turning 30, back in my 20s, was this thing right here, my morning formula, which has helped me get closer to becoming the best version of me. And if you want to get crystal clear on where you're going, and you want to become the best version of yourself, and more importantly, you want to pass down all the things that you wish you could before you turn 30, then I would encourage you to watch this video right here. Create your morning formula today, and read it every single morning. I promise you it'll be one of the best things you do before you turn 30.