14 Lessons That Helped Build $1 Billion in Business Success (And I Wish I Knew Them Sooner!)

Today I want to share with you the 14 life lessons I wish I knew earlier. These are the exact lessons that helped me generate over a billion dollars in revenue and I'm heading towards $2 billion. And if I knew them sooner, there's no doubt I would have been way further ahead. I basically want to pull back the curtain and give you the exact strategies I wish I had sooner. You know, these aren't something I discovered and then went and did them. At 56 years old and being self employed for almost 40 years, I can look back now and say, what would I have wished to known sooner? What would have allowed me to go faster, to overcome obstacles, to plow through the barriers and live into my full potential? Quicker and faster. And I promise you, if you listen to all 14 and you put these into your life and they're not difficult, they're small hinges that can swing a big door. I promise you, this could shift everything in your life. So let's get right to it. Number one, audit your inner circle. I know you've heard this before, but you are the sum total of the five people you hang around. You know, if you hang around four people that are always questioning you're the dreamer or why are you working so hard or this is the wrong time and maybe you need a different education. Takes money to make money. If that little chirping is happening in your ears, no matter how strong you are, it will eventually get to you. Even if you just play a little bit smaller, play with a little bit less confidence. We can't do anything in life when our confidence is down. Think about the people you surround yourself. Is there anyone that you make excuses about your goals to? You know Sean Stevenson, they called him the 3ft giant. This was a man who, when he was born, his parents said you might, he might not make it two weeks. Sean was again three foot tall. He had a disease where he broke every bone in his body. Pretty much 173 different bones had broken in his body. And he was the most positive human being I had ever met. He lived until 40. And the crazy part, he only passed away because of a malfunction of a brand new wheelchair that he was testing out. It flipped over on him. So, so sad. But he left this world a better place. And he said something to me once that really impacted my life. He said, don't dare dim your glow to match people around you. Turn it up so bright that they might run away at first, but they'll come back to you. And if they don't, then it Wasn't meant to be. This is a man that would come out on stage and just make the whole audience feel amazing. And when he said it, it landed in my heart. And let me ask you, are you dimming your glow? Are you dimming some things that you want to do, achieve to match the people around you? Are you always hoping that people get you? They're never going to get you. If you're watching a video like this, not just scrolling and watching TikTok, you're watching something because you want to take your life, your business, to the next level. You are rare. Congratulations. We're kindred spirits. Great to have you here. You're an oddball. Good. Guess what, there's no competition at the top because most people don't want to put the work in that needs to be done. Listen, God, or whatever you believe in gave us a different set of glasses. This is my prescription. When I look through it, I have 2020 vision. I could see. It's the same in life. I know where I want to go. I know I have crazy dreams. And I know most people won't get me. Just like a pair of glasses. If I took my prescription and gave it to somebody else who had different eyesight, they might put them on and go, this is blurry. How could you see? It's so dumb. It's no God. Like I said, the universe, whatever you believe in, gave you your vision. You know where you want to go. You need your compelling future. You need to keep pushing forward. And you can't expect others to get your dreams because they weren't downloaded in them. They were downloaded in you. And the last thing I'll say about this is stop waiting for permission. Because the only person you need permission from is the person in the mirror. Number two, solve bigger problems. You know, I think there's an illusion or maybe it's a delusion that when you get successful, problems go away. No, no, no. You just get better at handling bigger problems. So don't look for your problems to go away. You're probably like, oh, you had me until this one. No, you want to be the person that solves bigger problems. Listen, I know if I'm in a room with super successful people, I know the most successful person in the room solves bigger problems than anybody else. Be the type of person that one go, oh, there's a problem. There's a problem. There's a problem, and everybody's looking around. You go, give it to me. In fact, you could shift your mindset to where you look forward to problems because you know, the more you solve, the bigger they are, the bigger the checks. Let me ask you something. Do you think the stress of $1,000, $10,000, 100,000 or a million or 10 million dollar deal or similar, I don't know if I could have answered that. Now that prior to being on the other side of deals that are worth $100 million, here's what I know. My first real estate deal when I was broke and I was flipping cars and driving a tow truck at night and I was trying to make real estate deals happen, I stressed over my first deal, I don't remember how much it was, it was under $5,000. The worry, the sleepless nights to try to make this and putting it together and the effort and the energy and weeks went by, months went by. I finally got the deal closed. It felt like a million bucks. I was successful, I made some, but the stre I went through and when I look back, there was as much stress associated in that deal as a 20 million dollar deal or a 50 million dollar deal that I might do now. So if you're gonna have the stress, you might as well solve bigger problems, go after bigger things. Because again, like I said earlier, there's not as much competition at the top. There's not as much competition when people trying to solve bigger problems. We're all worried about the little things. You know, when I pass somebody in a car and maybe I swerve a little bit and they flip me off or they yell, I think to myself, ah, poor thing, they don't have bigger problems to solve. My wife will laugh at me. If I order a medium rare steak and they bring me well done chicken, I just eat it. I got bigger things to worry about. Took a little while to train that, but once I did, life was never the same. Number three, it's on me. I think that's one of the most liberating things in the history of the world. Knowing that your success and your failure is just all on you. If we just realize no one is coming to save us, no one is going to wave a magic wand and fix it. No one's going to make life easier for us. If you just expect it and if things go wrong, then maybe you chose the wrong people to do business with. You chose the wrong, but you didn't follow the right model, you didn't learn from the right person, you hired the wrong person. If you take complete ownership of the wins and the losses, like I said earlier, it's the most liberating thing in the world, you see, we can gain skills through taking our own uncomfortable action. Whether we fail, whether we win, whether we, whether we lose, we gain that experience and that is ours. So we can have ownership of the win, ownership of the loss, and best of all, the ownership of the experience. Because you're just as Winston Churchill says, the definition of success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. Well, when it's on you, you can never lose your enthusiasm because you know, you're just growing. Number three, remember, it's on me. Number four, who is steering your ship? I really want you to think about who is guiding your emotions. If you had to answer what the most costly advice in the world is, what would you say? What's the most costly, most expensive advice in the world? Yeah, bad advice. It's your broke friend telling you how to get rich, your single friend telling you how to fix your relationship. And if you're listening to them, then you're subtly letting someone else steer your ship. Listen, no matter where you live in the world, the last few years have been a little insane. I think we can all agree on that. The uncertainty is high. If you watch the news obsessively, Is someone else steering your ship just a little bit? Have you ever watched the news and got done and felt good about your decisions, Felt good at life? I have not seen the news in a decade where I got done and said I feel amazing. I hope my wife watches this so she can feel as inspired as me. No news robs your confidence, therefore the news is steering your ship a little bit. I don't want anybody else's hands on my wheel of life. Do you have a co worker that every time they chirp in your ear, you doubt yourself? You wonder if you should go for the, you know, if you have a career for your promotion, but if you have your own business, you have somebody that's working with you, you're starting your own business, they're always telling you what's wrong. They always see the glass half empty. But if you're listening and letting that settle in even 5%, they got the hands on the wheel too. What about inner self doubt and fear? Or. And a lot of times people call it imposter syndrome. Are you looking through the lens of what failed in the past or what maybe you procrastinated in the past or you didn't act quick enough or you didn't take that opportunity? So you're putting everything through that lens. You're letting a past experience that's gone, you can't go back. You can't change the past. You're letting a past experience steer your ship today. You're letting a past regret repeat itself because that past regrets got the hands on the wheel. Are you looking into the future and painting a picture of something hasn't even happened yet. You're pretending to be a life reader when you never know where things are going to go. They're never as bad as you seem. As they seem. They're never as good as they seem. But if you're thinking about that future too much and what could go wrong? Well, the future steering your ship a little bit. So I guess, I guess we can just obsess and start today by saying, hey, I'm going to take command of my ship. I'm holding the wheel. Anybody comes on, you hit their hands. There's nobody else steering the ship than me. And if you figure out what inspires you, what motivates you, what drives you, the real purpose on why you're doing it, the more confident you'll be that this is my ship. And sometimes you got to get lost. That's okay. Sometimes you got to know what not to do to get to where you need to go. So number four, who's steering your ship? Don't let anybody else's hands on your wheel. Number five. Selling is service. When you realize that that your product or your service or your company solves a problem for someone, then you're not selling your serving. And let me back up a little bit. Selling a service only comes when you truly love what you do. When you truly love what you provide. So I'm going to disclaim this by saying if you don't absolutely love the product and service you're selling, make sure you go do spend the time, effort, energy and money to develop something you know solves a problem or helps fuel a goal of the person who buys it. Simple as that. If you know it serves the greater good, then how cool is this? You could this guy be a little hokey to some of you, but you could fall in love with your prospect or your future client, right? Because if you fall in love with your future prospect, then you can fall in love with the product you have and then you fall in love with the results they get. So if you fall in love with the person, the product and the results, then you realize that not selling is actually doing someone a disservice. Because if you don't get them to say yes to your product, two things happen. They don't get any product. They don't solve the problem or fuel the goal. Or worse yet, they buy from a competitor who doesn't care as much as you, who doesn't have a product as strong as yours. You see, so many times in life, I've been blessed to have the biggest launches in the history of the world. The last 11 launches have had an average of a million people registered. We've done incredible things, my partner Tony Robbins and I. What I've done with Matthew McConaughey and so many incredible humans on this planet. People are always like, why are you so good at selling? Why are you so good on camera? It's one of the top things I get asked and I think people are fed up with me saying, because I fell in love with my client, because I want to care more, because people need another level of service in today's world and I feel bad if I don't get a yes. I think they're waiting for something different than that. But this is one of the greatest secrets ever. Hence why I'm pounding this one in. Love your clients, and I promise you, your marketing and sales will exponentially grow. Selling is service when it's done right. Number six, be bold. This one I could just leave right there. When I look back where I hesitated, where I lost my confidence, where I was waiting for all the I's to be dotted and all the T's to be crossed and the stars aligned and everybody in my life saying, yes, this is a wonderful decision, when I was waiting for that and I didn't do it, when I wasn't bold, when I didn't jump out of the plane and grow wings on the way down, I missed out on incredible opportunities. I missed out on some of the things of where the world was going, where my company should have been going. So if I'm speaking to my 20 year old self, what am I saying? Be bold. You know, courage. I heard Tony Robbins say this once. Courage is not moving forward with the absence of fear. Courage is moving forward when you're scared, but you do it anyway because you know the only way through it is through it. I didn't ski my whole life and my kids were 15 and 17 and asked to go 14 and 16. Wanted to go skiing for the first time. I go skiing with a dear friend of mine and he makes a mistake. He thinks he's bringing us to the easy slope and he brings us to a really tough one. And we're on the mountain and we're coming down and we're falling and we're falling and we're falling. And my poor daughter at 16, she never gets emotional. She's on her butt sitting in the snow, crying. She's like, I can't get down. I want to walk down. I hate this. And I felt so bad. And my dear friend Randy, who's incredible human who took us there, and he felt horrible. He said, my daughter's name is Brianna. They call her Bree. He said, bri, I know this isn't easy, but sometimes the only way through it, through it. And what he meant was, the only way down is down and it's going to stink sometimes. But we have to be courageous. And when my daughter got down to the bottom, what did we do? We went back up. And we went back up. By the end of the day, she was skiing. Not amazing, but had the time of her life. But if she would have given up, if she would have stopped, if she would have got the snowmobile to take her down or skier to take her down, she never would have experienced that. She still skis to this day. We have to be more bold. We have to be more courageous. We have to stop hesitating. If you took a minute right now and really thought the opportunities missed, the times you said no, time you played small time, you settled. The time you were supposed to say yes and you didn't, the time you should have said no and you didn't, what will it take for you to be bold, to be courageous? Because whatever that is, if you got to go to the dark side and remember everything you lost, be bold. If you can think about where you want to go and you're not going to get there unless you're. Unless you take action, be bold. All I know is your family needs the best, boldest, most courageous version of you. So number six, once again, it's time to be bold. Number seven, know your ideal client. But if I was going to make that longer, I'd say know your ideal client better than anyone else does. If you have children or nieces or nephews or a loved one in your life, when are you the most connected? When does someone trust you? When does someone open up to you? Right when you know them better than anyone else. Right. When you know their goals and their dreams. Hey, if we're friends and I know your goals and your dreams, if you opened up to me and I knew everything you desired, doesn't that make us bond a little more? What if I know your fears and your worries? You need to know your clients fears. You need to know their worries better. Then we can add that to it, know their goals better than anyone else, know their fears better than anyone else. Because then you have the opportunity for people to know, like and trust you. Not gaming the system. We've already decided that if we serve them with the greatest product in the world, that means that we need to get them to say yes so we can serve them. So you need to know their goals, you need to know their dreams. And if you don't know it, a lot of times it's you of a few years ago, right? You might, you might be a later version of your ideal client. What were your goals and fears? And if you want to know exactly where they are now, go find communities and Facebook groups where your ideal client hangs out and ask questions, obsess, go ride the bus, go talk to somebody in the store, go online, find a group, know them better than anybody else. Because then you get to meet them where they are, not where you think they might be. You see, if you know them better than anybody else and their goals and their fears and you meet them where they are, then your ideal client feels that you understand them. People buy from you, people will learn from you if they feel understood more than they just understand you. Sometimes people want to spout out all their experience. How many times, how many years they've been in business. This is what I've done. This is my reputation, this is my goals. This is a five star rating. Understand me, understand, understand when really people just want to feel understood. Like, I see where you're coming from. I know what you're worried about, I know where you want to go. Number seven, know your ideal client. Number eight, focus on the fix. This is one I've been chirping in the ear of my son Brody. He's 16, getting his license this week. I've been saying that since he was little. My daughter intuitively had it. My son would focus on what was wrong. If the milk spilt. My son would say, why did it spill? Why did it spill? Was it uneven? Whose fault was it? Who would put it on the carpet? And is the carpet absorbent? Is it going to stink? Is it going to get moldy? All these things. My son would want to know whose fault it is and why and all that. When really you just want to focus on the solution. Go get a towel and a new glass of milk. You see, when something goes wrong in your life, yes, you should learn from it, yes, you should see it. But then get out of it and move on and focus 100% of your energy on the fix, on the Solution. That's where all energy should grow. That's the only way to grow in life. You probably have a friend or know someone that was in a bad relationship and it was horrific and the other person was terrible. And they're still single and they're still suffering because they want to know why it happened. How could this person do it? It was so unfair. The truth is, it was probably extremely unfair. They shouldn't have done it, but they did. What you can do is learn how to never allow that to happen again and focus 100% of the energy on the solution. So, number eight, focus on the fix. Number nine, say no more. Not say no more, say quote, no more. I love this. I heard this once and it said, yes, we'll get you out of Egypt, but no will take you to the promised land. You know, as someone who is watching a video and you're here on number nine, it means you've said yes more than most people. Yes to probably missing date night. Yes to probably, maybe if you have kids, missing a dance recital. Yes to overtime. Yes to doing whatever it takes. Yes to borrowing money. You said yes to get here, and I commend you for that. Now it's time to understand what you need to say no to. Because I would bet to say you're the busiest person most people know and they ask you. So here's what I want to say. No more gray decisions in your life. It either serves the man or the woman. You want to become the business you want the father you want to be, thus the wife. You want to be the mom. You want to be the leader you want to be the business you want to have. Your actions either serve and take you towards that version of yourself, or those actions take you away from that. If you get rid of, well, maybe kind of, you know, surfing on my phone a little bit or doing this a little bit, or binge down Netflix a little bit, or hanging out with those negative people a little bit. No, no, no. You want to go to the next level. You know what it's like to generate the kind of money, impact and purpose that you know you can and want to. Then there's no gray anymore. It either takes you towards the person you want to be or it takes you away. Everything else is a no. It's time for you to make a not to do list. You've had a to do list your whole life. It's time to have a not to do list and say no and then open that time up. And that time should be spent on your Business. That time should be spent on taking you from where you are to where you want to be. That time should be spent putting these 14 life lessons into place. So number nine was say no more. Number 10, look for the little things. You know, as I was reflecting on what would be the most important life lessons to share that term, I think I said it earlier, that comes to mind is small hinges swing big doors. And I don't know if I would have caught that in my 20s, maybe not even in my 30s. But what I realize now, it is the little things between the big things that actually move the needle the most in your life. Now it's the little things that also could stop you in your tracks compared to accelerate you forward. So think about, think about routines. What routines do you have that maybe slow down your progress? And they could be adjusted to routines that speed up your progress. Progress, Right. If you have a routine of waking up in the morning and checking your phone and getting sucked into it and surfing on the Internet, that's a routine. You got one. People say you need routines to be successful. No, everybody's got routines. You need a good routine. How do you shift that routine? How do you create a new discipline where you go, hey, when I wake up, I'm not going to look at my phone. I'm going to practice a little gratitude. I'm going to focus on what kind of win I'd want for the day. And then I'm going to go take a walk or go take a run or I'm gonna go to the gym. You see, it's those little things. Because if you set that routine up, that discipline up in the morning, I promise you, you'll spend the day in more of an offensive way, not defensive. Right. Wake up. Start looking at your emails. Get sucked into social media like you're in a defensive mode. You're kind of like your energy's, you know, off. So let me ask you, what routines or disciplines could you create today or replace? You got routines and disciplines. Replace them with the ones that serve you. Could you start journaling every day? I journal every day of my life. And when I say journal, sometimes I journal, sometimes I write the 14 things I want to share with you. I write my daily actions, my daily thoughts, my big vision, the future. All those things are in journaling. It's one of my best disciplines in my life. I listen to a book every morning when I practice gratitude and I get up and think about a win for the day, and I go move every morning while I'm moving I'm listening to a book that empowers me. If I don't listen to a business book, a personal development book, a parenting book, a health book, if I'm not listening, I'm not. That I could fall back into old patterns. So I know that's a discipline, that's a routine little. But it's a game changer. It's a needle mover. I'm listening to a book right now. It's helping me be a better leader. And I've been leading people for almost 40 years. Right, little thing. Are there courses that you should be going through? Are there coaches that you should be learning from? Or should you be connected to a group of people that are there to help you go faster and quicker? Right. Get a coach, say, yes, move faster. Are you spending some focus time? Do you have focus time literally on your. I'm looking at my phone on your calendar that says, hey, Tuesdays at 2 o', clock, I spend an hour focusing on the bigger future of my life. Because we never take the time to actually focus. Right. Is there any mindset practices that, you know, somebody is rude to and you go to be rude back? You. You know what, they might be having a bad day. I'm focused on what I lost. Oh, can I focus on what I still have? Oh, these obstacles, could they be opportunities? Right. These are all tiny little shifts in your life. Tiny little things that actually can move the needle in a big way. So look for the little things and how you can shift them from not serving you to taking you towards the man or the woman that you're supposed to be. So number 10 was look for the little things. Number 11, I will persist until I succeed. I got that line from an Ogman Dino book called the World's Greatest Salesman. And it will stick with me for life because I believe the only word the English language that can guarantee success is persist. If you don't stop me if I fail seven times. Thomas Edison, well, they say that he failed a thousand times on making the light bulb. And when he was asked to say, how did you keep going? You failed a thousand times, he said, I just found a thousand ways that the light bulb wouldn't work. What did he do? He persisted until he succeeded. You know, sometimes we believe that the prize is at the beginning of the journey when it's really at the end of the journey. And sometimes we don't know how many obstacles or challenges we have to get through to get to that. You know, you might know somebody that had one or two hiccups and they found wealth, abundance, happy, joy. Good for them. That was their journey. You might have to fail. Question yourself. Do the wrong thing 20 times, 30 times before your treasure is around the next corner. You know, when I look back in my life, there were so many times I was a millimeter away from quitting. I mean that. And I'm not saying look at me, I just kept going. But I did because I didn't like the life I had. I was running away from something that I disliked as a child I didn't like. My parents were married and divorced. Nine times between them. We moved. We didn't have money. You know, we got evicted from our trailer. I lived in my dad's house when he didn't have heat. And we used to have to go in the bathroom so it wasn't so cold in the wintertime. I don't want to go back there. So I was running away from pain. And when I look back at life, I realized I did persist until I succeeded. And there were so many times when I was an inch away from the goal line, I didn't realize it. And I almost quit. That was just one more move before I got in the end zone. Sorry to use a sports analogy, before the success happened. So I want to encourage you to persist until you succeed. It is the greatest gift you can give yourself. It is the greatest gift you can give your family because I promise you, on the other side of maybe the next obstacle, the next challenge, or three more from now, it doesn't just subtly get better. Sometimes it exponentially gets better. So number 11 is I will persist until I succeed. Number 12, know where your focus should go. I gotta tell you, this is a life lesson that came about in the last few years of my life. This isn't one I've been doing forever, and I wish I was. But you need to know where your focus could go. So what does this mean? Time is limited. And if you focus on too many things at once, you'll make too many things a little bit better. And you will never move the needle. You will never reach that level of success that you desire and crave. So I want you to think about what is the main outcome? What is the main needle mover that will shift your business or shift your life? If you have a big business in each department, which every department should have, the thing, the main thing that can move the needle more than anything in your life. What is the main thing that could shift your life? Is it starting the business? Is it scaling the business? If it's in your life? Is it the marriage? The one you want, the one you want to save, the one you feel you should end? Is it being a parent? Whatever that is, you need to decide what that number one thing is and place it at the top of the list. And do not let anything get in its way until it's accomplished. Now, in business, this is a game changer because all businesses have ADD and they focus on too many things at once. That's why businesses fail. Because once you understand that's step one, understand what that main thing or those main things are, then the second thing is, what are the constraints or the problems holding you back from achieving that one thing? Make a list of those constraints, Whatever those constraints are, you make a list and then do everything in your power to solve those problems. You see, if I have a goal and I know the problems holding me back from my goal, then that should be all my focus is, solving those problems. Because once the problems are solved, the goal can be achieved. Then the next part is number three is make sure you have something to measure your progress and then don't stop until you're done. So if you know what's most important, you know the problems are the constraints holding you back, and you work on solving those problems and you're measuring it. There's no way that you can't solve the problem and achieve the goal. So remember, time is limited, focus is everything. So know where your focus should go. Number 13, work on the business you are and the business you're becoming. That rings in my ear because of my partner, Tony Robbins. You see, whatever business you're in or the business you're starting, you need to measure obsessively. You need to obsess on moving forward. You need to not get complacent. You need the processes and the systems, the block in tackling. You need to put those in place, and you need to be always maximizing the business you have. Right? Can we optimize our sales process? Can we optimize our refund process? Can we optimize our marketing and make it more streamlined? Can we maximize our onboarding so when a customer joins us, it's so much easier for them to do business with? Can we make it easier for customer support? All of those things are just part of business. Never get complacent. Always be adjusting and tweaking. But you got to spend at least 25, 20% of your energy on the company that you have to become to keep growing. Let me just ask you something. Is the future coming or is the Future here. AI. Wow. Tech trends, people, shifts in the world. Heck, here in Phoenix, the Waymo Company, I don't know if you have it where you are, but Phoenix is filled with autonomous cars or driverless cars. My son takes him back and forth to practice when I can't pick him up or to a friend's house. Right. The future's here. So if we put our head in the sand and only work on the business we are, then someone else is going to pass us because they're working on the business they're becoming. So if I had to give a percentage, 75% of your energy on the business, you are fine tuning, optimizing, tweaking, adjusting. But you gotta be looking out into the future. Like Wayne Gretzky said, the famous hockey player when they asked why he was so good. He said, most people skate to where the puck is. I figured out how to skate to where the puck is going. Working on the business you're becoming is learning how to focus on where the puck is going, where the business is going, where the world is going, where AI, where trends are going. So number 13 is work on the business you are. And the one you are becoming, number 14, who versus how. You know, when we want to start the business, scale the business, take our lives to the next level, all the things we want to do, our brain automatically goes, how are we going to do that? What new capabilities do we need? What new skills do we need? How do we go from where we are to where we want to be? How do we close the gap? And that's the exact conversation you should be having. You should say, what capabilities do I need to go from here to here? What capabilities do I need to double my revenue, double my income, double the size of my company? Start the company, go to the next level, take life to another level? What capabilities do I need? And I've been thinking this way for about 20 years. I've been doing this exercise that puts me in that space. But for the last five years, things have changed exponentially when something snapped. Because how can cause a little angst? How do I get Instagram to be better? How do I get my social media? How do I double sales? How do I hire more people? Replace the word how with who? Who has already crafted the plan? Who has already crafted the map? Who has already gone through the journey that you want to go through to avoid the pitfalls, to allow you to go faster? Who can condense time? Who can you kind of check to to allow yourself to go faster? Who can you be mentored by? Who could you learn from? Who could you be coached by? I heard the term ages ago pay for speed. I wasn't sure what it was until I really understood this concept. You could condense years, months and besides that you could also allow success to to have such a greater percentage of happening in your life because hope isn't a strategy. So number 14 my most important one understand what capabilities you need to go from where you are to where you want to be. What shifted thinking? What skills do you need? What tools do you need? And then figure out who has already achieved it and do everything in your power to stay connected, to be a part of it, to be coached by them, learn from them to allow you to condense the time it takes from go to where you are to where you want to be. Instead of like this, you can make it like this and increase your chances exponentially.