How the Rich Learn Faster, Think Better, and Win Bigger

Your ability to learn is your greatest financial asset. I think just kind of throwing yourself into different situations to learn new things is—

I don't know.

I think that that's just a big part of life.

My attitude is this. If you're going to be a real entrepreneur, you have to be a lifelong learner. I am studying, learning constantly. I never stop. And that's my competitive advantage. Learning is a lifelong thing.

The faster you can understand new ideas, solve problems, and adapt, the harder it becomes for anyone to compete with you. You don't get to like play life in reverse and you have to just like adapt. I think you should start a business if you have something, if you're working on a problem that otherwise would not get solved. And if you don't master that skill now, you'll spend years working harder while someone else moves twice as fast. So in the next 3 hours, you'll learn the exact lessons billionaires, entrepreneurs, and world-class performers used to accelerate their growth and achieve extraordinary success. If you've been before, put a hashtag #Believe in the comments below so I can feature you here in a future video. And if you're new, welcome to Believe Nation, the only channel that helps you believe in yourself daily, one video at a time.

Believe.

SpaceX is about to go public in what could be the biggest money-raising event in all of human history, and most people are going to completely miss what it actually means. SpaceX is going public this month and it could be the largest ever stock market debut. You could own a piece of SpaceX. Because SpaceX has now filed to go public. We've never seen anything like this. The space economy is set to nearly triple to $1.8 trillion by 2035, according to the World Economic Forum and McKinsey. And one company is positioned to own a massive piece of it. This is a company trying to make humanity a spacefaring civilization, and understanding it right now could change the way you see opportunity forever. Let me take you back to 2008, the year Elon Musk almost lost absolutely everything. I remember waking up the Sunday before Christmas.

I remember sitting there on Christmas in 2008 and thinking to myself, man, I never thought I was someone who could ever be capable of a nervous breakdown. I felt this was the closest I've ever come because it seemed pretty, pretty dark.

Most people only know SpaceX as a company that lands rockets backwards and looks completely unstoppable, but it nearly died before it ever truly got off the ground. Back then, SpaceX had tried to launch its very first rocket, the Falcon 1, 3 separate times, and 3 separate times it failed. Each crash burned through millions of dollars Elon didn't really have, because at that very same moment, his other company Tesla was also bleeding cash and teetering on the edge of collapse. The 2008 financial crisis was crashing down. Nobody wanted to invest in a rocket startup, and Elon was running out of money fast. So he made a decision that most people would honestly call insane. He took the very last of his money and bet it all on one thing. What was it? Final rocket launch. There was no backup plan. There was no safety net. If this 4th launch failed, SpaceX was finished, and his dream of reaching space was over for good. On September 28th, 2008, that 4th Falcon 1 lifted off, and this time it worked. SpaceX became the first private company in history to build a rocket that reached orbit. Then, just a few months later, with the company on the brink of bankruptcy, NASA awarded SpaceX a $1.6 billion contract, money that arrived almost literally hours before the lights would have Out for good. Here's how Elon's own mentor once framed the mindset behind it: When something is important enough, you do it, even if the odds are not in your favor. Elon had no money left; he invested everything into that last run, and the odds said he was supposed to fail. But he kept going because the mission mattered to him more than the fear did. And that exact company, the one that almost died on a launch pad in 2008, is now about to become the biggest IPO the world has ever seen. Now you're probably thinking this whole. Thing is just for rich Wall Street insiders. You know, you might be saying a company this enormous is only for the wealthy and the well-connected people, and that there's no realistic way for a regular person like you could even get a piece of it. So why even bother learning about it? The truth is, all progress begins with telling the truth. The rules around who gets to invest in giant companies are changing faster right now than at any point in history, and ordinary people have more access today than they ever had before. But here's the part that I think matters even more. Even if you never buy a single share of SpaceX. Understanding exactly how an event like this works is what prepares you to actually win on the next one. The people who get rich from opportunities like this usually aren't lucky, they just understood the game before everyone else figured it out. So don't wait until you feel ready to learn this, because ready is not a good enough reason. Let me break down the entire SpaceX IPO piece by piece so you're ready no matter what you decide to do with it. First, what an IPO actually is. So let's start with the basics, because this whole thing hinges on one simple idea. IPO stands for initial public offering. For its entire life so far, SpaceX has been a private company, which means only a small exclusive group of insiders, employees, some wealthy investors have been allowed to own a piece of the company. Regular people could not buy in no matter how badly they wanted to be in it. An IPO changes all of that. It's the single day that a private company throws open its doors and sells shares of itself to the public for the very first time. Two Huge things happen at that exact same moment. The company suddenly raises an enormous pile of cash that it can use to fund its next stage of growth, and everyday people finally get the chance to become part owners of the business. So when you hear that SpaceX is preparing to go public, that is precisely what it means. The most valuable private company on the entire planet is about to let the public buy in for the first time ever, and that is exactly why the whole investing world is. Holding his breath, waiting for it. Why SpaceX is worth more than almost anything on Earth. So why is everyone completely losing their minds over this one company? Because SpaceX isn't just big, it's genuinely in a league of its own. By late 2025, SpaceX was valued at around $800 billion, making it the single most valuable private company in the entire world, worth more than corporate giants that have been around for over 100 years. And at its public offering, Elon was reportedly aiming for a valuation getting close to $1.5 Trillion dollars. Trillion dollars. So where does that value actually come from? 2 main places. First, the rockets. So SpaceX now launches the majority of everything that humanity sends up into space, more than any other single country or company on Earth. It basically owns the roads up to orbit. And second is Starlink, the satellite internet service that beams the web down from thousands of satellites to millions of paying customers all over the globe, including remote places that never had reliable internet before. That is a business pulling in billions of dollars a year and still growing pretty quickly. So you're not looking at some hype machine with nothing behind it. It's actually a company that is building a near monopoly on getting to space, and that's actually incredibly rare and incredibly valuable. The quiet money machine, Starlink. Here's a part that most people completely overlook. The rockets, they grab all the attention, right? But the quiet machine that's actually paying all the bills is Starlink. So Think about it this way: rockets are wildly expensive to build and to launch, and most space companies just bleed money doing it. SpaceX figured out something brilliant. It puts thousands of small satellites up into orbit, and now it sells high-speed internet to millions of paying subscribers all around the world, month after month after month. This is called recurring revenue, the kind that investors absolutely love because it shows up reliably whether or not a rocket even launches this week. Starlink already pulls in billions of dollars a year, and it reaches people in rural towns. It ships out on sea airplanes in the sky and disaster zones where no internet service could ever go. So while everyone else is staring up at the rockets, the smartest investors are looking at Starlink and seeing a global utility that is quietly printing cash. That steady, dependable income is a massive reason SpaceX can command such a jaw-dropping trillion-dollar price tag. The rockets capture all the imagination. But Starlink helps pay for the dream. Why this could be the biggest IPO in history. Now here's the part that is genuinely historic. When SpaceX finally goes public, Elon is aiming to raise well over $30 billion in fresh cash in a single offering. To really understand how massive that is, you have to compare it to the current record. So the biggest IPO in all of recorded history happened back in 2019 when the oil giant Saudi Aramco went public and raised $25.6 billion. Before that, the record belonged to Alibaba. SpaceX is setting out to blow right past both of them. If it pulls this off the way Elon wants to, it won't just be a big IPO, it'll be the single largest the world has ever seen, raising more money in one day than most entire companies are even worth. And remember, this is the very same company that was just hours away from total bankruptcy back in 2008. That's the kind of comeback that only happens when someone flatly refuses to quit on their mission on something that actually truly matters to them. It's exactly why every single investor from the giant Wall Street funds all the way down to the people— you watching this video— people are paying very close attention to this stock. What all that money is actually for. So what on earth is Elon gonna do with tens of billions of dollars? This is where it gets wild, because the money is aimed at goals that honestly sound like pure science fiction. The biggest one is Starship, a fully reusable Super Heavy rocket designed to be the largest flying machine ever built. The dream is to make getting to space so cheap and so routine that it eventually becomes almost like catching an airplane flight. Next up is the next generation of Starlink satellites, powerful enough to beam internet straight to a normal cell phone with no tower, no cables, anywhere on the entire planet. And then there's the goal that has driven this entire company the whole time, the one Elon has been talking about for over 20 years now: building a self-sustaining city on Mars so that humanity becomes a multi-planet species and never again has all its eggs in one fragile basket. That's the actual pitch. When you buy a share in this company, you're not just betting on a stock price. You're helping fund an attempt to fundamentally change where the human race is able to live. Now, whether that idea excites you or terrifies you, it's unlike any other company that you could ever invest in. How a regular person could actually get a piece. Okay, so here's a big question on everyone's mind. How could someone like you actually get in on something like this? And this is the honest answer. The biggest, juiciest chunks of the IPO usually go straight to the huge institutions and the wealthiest clients first, long before regular folks ever get any kind of real shot. That part hasn't completely changed. But the generally good news is that access is opening up more now than it ever has before. Some investing apps now offer everyday people a chance to request IPO shares with a very low minimum, or sometimes even no minimum at all. Often handed out through a kind of lottery. And here's the key thing that I really want you to understand. Even if you don't get any shares on day one, the very moment a company like SpaceX actually starts trading on the stock market, anyone with a simple brokerage account can buy its shares right alongside the big players. You can also get a little exposure today through certain funds that already hold pieces of private space and rocket companies. The whole point is this. You have real options, and you absolutely do not need to be a millionaire to participate. You just need to understand which doors exist and be ready to walk through the right one. The risk nobody likes to hype up. Now, before you get too excited and run off, I need to be the honest friend who tells you what's on the other side, because all progress again begins with telling the truth. Buying into a giant, heavily hyped IPO is genuinely risky, and here's exactly why. History shows over and over that the most hyped mega IPOs often drop. In price in the months right after they launch. Once that early excitement starts to wear off— Facebook did it, Saudi Aramco did it— the crowd piles in right at the top and then the price just drops underneath them. This is also something called a lockup period. The insiders and early investors are usually blocked from selling their shares for several months, and the moment that block lifts, a sudden flood of new shares can hit the market and push the price down. On top of all that, Elon will keep very tight control of the company through special voting shares, so regular shareholders won't get much say in the big decisions. And let's not forget the obvious one. This is a rocket company. A single catastrophic launch failure could rattle the stock price overnight. None of this means that you shouldn't invest. It means don't ever bet money that you can't afford to lose, and never ever buy something simply because everyone around you is excited about it. Excitement is not an investment strategy. Why SpaceX is going public at all. There's one more thing that's worth understanding, because going public is truly a double-edged sword for companies. For years, Elon deliberately kept SpaceX private, and he did it completely on As a private company, he could chase crazy long-term moonshots like Mars without a crowd of nervous shareholders screaming at him every 3 months for short-term profits. Staying private gave him a lot of freedom. So why go public now? Because his ambitions have gotten so enormous— Starship, the Mars plans, the next wave of satellites— that even SpaceX needs to raise a truly staggering amount of money to actually pull them off. Going public unlocks that mountain of cash, and it also finally lets early employees and investors sell some of their shares and get rewarded for the years of risk that they took. But it comes with a real cost. Once a company is public, it faces constant scrutiny, relentless quarterly earning pressure, millions of new owners watching its every single move. This is the trade Elon is choosing to make. He's giving up some control and privacy in exchange for just the financial firepower to actually reach Mars. Understanding that tension can help you see what you are really buying into. This is so much bigger than a stock. Here's what I really want you to take away today, because this is far more than just money. Whether or not you ever buy a single share of SpaceX, you are watching history unfold right now in real time. This is the company landing rockets, wrapping the entire planet in internet, and openly planning to put actual human beings on Mars. The whole space economy is racing toward that $1.8 trillion future, and SpaceX is leading the charge straight into it. So even if this particular IPO turns out not to be for you, train your brain to see the much bigger pattern here. The greatest opportunities of your entire lifetime always look completely impossible right up until the exact moment everyone suddenly realizes they were inevitable. Elon saw it when his rockets were exploding and his bank account was completely empty. If you have the ability to spot a wave this big forming early, then You have the responsibility to at least understand it, because being the kind of person who studies these rare moments is precisely what leads to actually capitalizing on the next one that comes along. You are early, and that changes everything. Here's what matters most: you now understand something that most people won't bother to learn until it's far too late for them. You are not behind on this. You're early, and early is exactly where real fortunes get made. That same stubborn refusal to quit that saved SpaceX back in 2008. is available to you in your own life right now. Reading a book a week will not make you rich. Number one, every single day you got to feed and strengthen your mind.

I just read and read and read. I probably read 5 to 6 hours a day.

I was very, very bookish. I was reading all the time.

You need to read the exact books that billionaires actually use to make their biggest decisions. If you're on a desert island and you only have one book, what book would you take? Probably you'd take the Bible. Warren Buffett Gave me a copy of Business Adventures, feeling like with our dialogue about trying to understand the world of business, that I'd enjoy it as much as he had. And in fact, it was phenomenal.

Oh, I knew he'd like it.

I mean, that was written for him.

It was written for me too.

If you're going to run a company, you should read the impacted philosophers. And if you keep filling your head with average advice, you will stay stuck in the exact same spot you are in right now. Listening to advice from other people should be approached with great caution. This is Napoleon Hill's book, Think and Grow Rich. I've been reading this thing now for 23 years. I'll probably read it for another 23 years.

Dr.

Joseph Murphy wrote this book, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, and that's probably one of the best books that you're ever going to find because you're going to learn something about your mind when you read this book. When Warren Buffett was just 19 years old, he was just a regular college kid trying to figure out his future. Then he picked up a copy of the book called The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. That one single book completely changed the way he looked at money. He said it gave him the exact intellectual framework he needed to make smart decisions without letting his emotions take over.

This is a book that first came out in 1949, The Intelligent Investor by Ben Graham. When I read this book, it changed my life.

He did not need a genius IQ to win. He just needed to follow the exact playbook inside that book. And he said he's used it to make billions ever since. Now, you might look at Warren Buffett and think he has some special brainpower that you don't have, making his reading list useless for you. But Buffett himself said that strong character and emotional control matter way more than your IQ. These books are designed to build your discipline, not just test how smart you are. And once you learn how to think like the greatest investor in history, your entire business will change, starting with these 10 books. The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. So Benjamin Graham wrote The Intelligent Investor in 1949. Warren Buffett read it when he was just 19 years old. It gave him his entire philosophy for life and business.

You know, I obviously recommend first and foremost The Intelligent Investor. Well, all of the important ideas in investing really are in that book.

Graham created a character in the book called Mr. Market. So imagine you own a business with a partner. Named Mr. Market. Every single day he comes to your door. He offers to buy your shares or sell you his. Some days he's very happy and quotes a high price. Other days he's depressed and quotes a very low price. Graham says you cannot let Mr. Market's mood change your own mood. You have to look at the real facts of your business. This applies directly to your life and business right now. You are letting outside voices act like Mr. Market. If someone leaves a bad comment on your video, you feel terrible. You want to quit. You're letting their mood destroy your belief. The world's biggest problem, I think, is that people do not believe in themselves enough. So you have to build an iron wall around your mind when people tell you your dream is impossible. They are just acting like a depressed Mr. Market. You must ignore them entirely. You have to stay grounded in your own truth. You are capable of amazing things, but only if you take control of your own reactions. When you master your own belief, Nothing the market does can stop you, but you cannot just rely on belief alone. You also need a strong foundation of facts to stand on, which leads perfectly to the next book, Security Analysis by Benjamin Graham. So before Graham wrote his most famous book, he coauthored a massive textbook called Security Analysis in 1934. He wrote it right after the terrible 1929 stock market crash. Warren Buffett still points to this book as a total game changer for him.

If you're a real student of security analysis and you read and understand That you should do all right.

The book teaches the exact difference between an investor and a speculator. A speculator is just a gambler. They throw money at a stock hoping that the price goes up tomorrow. An investor does the boring work. They read the balance sheet. They look at the actual cash a business makes. They look for safety. You might be acting like a speculator in your own business right now. You're looking for a quick shortcut. You want a viral video to make you famous overnight. You buy expensive courses looking for the magic trick, but real success takes hard work. It takes reps. When I started on YouTube, my first 350 videos were terrible. I was awkward, I was uncomfortable, but I kept going. I did not gamble on a viral trend. I put in the boring work every single day to get better. You have to expect to suck at the start if you want to build an empire. You cannot skip the foundational work. You must analyze your own actions and make Make real improvements every day. Doing the hard work is how you build real value. So look at your daily routines and find the boring work that you're avoiding. But looking at numbers is only one half of the puzzle. To get the other half, you have to look at his next book recommendation, Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits by Philip Fisher. Warren Buffett says his investment style is 85% Benjamin Graham and 15% Philip Fisher.

I would recommend the first 2 books that Phil Fisher wrote. Uh, back around 1960, Common Sense and Uncommon Profits, and the second one, those are very good books.

Fisher wrote this incredible book in 1958. While Graham only cared about the math and spreadsheets, Fisher cared about the actual people running the business. Fisher created a brilliant strategy he called the Scuttlebutt Method. So to use this method, you don't just read financial reports, you go out into the real world, you talk to the company's customers, you talk to their suppliers, You talk to their competitors. You find out the real story behind the scenes. So you can apply the Scuttlebutt Method to your own network right now. You can't build a massive company hiding behind your computer screen. You need to get out there and talk to real people. Your environment is perfectly designed to keep you exactly where you are. So if you want to level up, you must change who you talk to. Seek out mentors who are 10 steps ahead of you. Ask your customers what they actually hate about your industry and then fix it for them. Get in the room with people who force you to play a bigger game and think more legendarily, right? The right conversation can completely change your life. So you have to step out of your comfort zone to find the real truth. Reach out to 3 people today who can help you grow. But even when you do the right research, you will still face massive failures, which is exactly what the next book Prepares you for. Business Adventures by John Brooks. In 1991, Warren Buffett met Bill Gates for the very first time. Gates asked Buffett for his favorite business book. Buffett loaned him his personal copy of Business Adventures. This book is a collection of true stories about Wall Street. The most famous story in the book is about the Ford Edsel. Ford spent $350 million designing a new car. They thought they knew exactly what the public wanted, but they refused to listen to the real feedback. The car ended up being a massive failure and Ford lost a fortune. You are going to face massive failures on your journey too. It's a guaranteed part of the process. You will launch a product that nobody buys. You'll get a video that gets zero views. I lost a ton in my early career too. I almost quit on my business partner. It was incredibly painful. But your purpose comes through your pain. You cannot let a failure destroy your momentum. You have to look at your mistakes, learn the lesson, and try again. The greatest entrepreneurs in the world have failed more times than you have even tried. So do not hide your failures. Use them as motivation to become smarter and stronger. Write down your biggest failure today and extract the lesson that it taught you. You just have to make sure that you are not taking advice from the wrong people along the way. Where Are the Customers' Yachts? by Fred Schwed. Okay, so this is the book Warren Buffett calls the funniest investment book ever written. Fred Schwed published it in 1940. The title comes from an old story about a man visiting New York City. The visitor looks out at the harbor and sees He sees dozens of beautiful, expensive boats. His guide tells him that those yachts belong to the Wall Street bankers and stockbrokers. The visitor then asks a very simple question. He asks where the customers' yachts are. The joke is that the advisors get rich, but the people taking the advice go broke. So you need to be very careful about who you listen to right now. The internet is full of fake experts trying to sell you a shortcut. They'll promise to make you rich overnight, but they're only getting rich by selling you their stuff. You do not need another massively expensive program to succeed. The boldest ideas you have are in your head right now, and they're the right ones for you. You just need to trust your own gut and take action. Stop outsourcing your belief to other people. Stop waiting for someone to come and rescue you. You need to be the hero of your own story. So take one of your ideas and start building it today instead of just buying another book. The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. So this massive book was published way back in 1776, but Warren Buffett still quotes it today. Adam Smith is known as the father of modern economics. In this book, Smith explains a concept called the invisible hand. He says that when people work to create value for others, they naturally end up building wealth for themselves. He uses a famous example of a pin factory to show how dividing up work makes everyone more productive. So he showed that you do not get rich by forcing people to pay you. You get rich by trading something valuable that improves their lives. This is the exact definition, I think, of being built to serve. If you are unhappy in your business right now, it's because you are not serving enough people. If you're broke, it's because you are not providing enough value to people. So it's time to stop thinking about how much money that you want to make. You start thinking about how many problems that you can solve for others. When you focus entirely on making your customer's life better, the money will naturally follow to you. So wake up every single day and ask yourself, how can you serve? Give away your best advice for free. If you do that, your business will grow faster than you ever imagined. But to serve at a high level, you have to overcome your own inner fears, which brings us to our next book, Personal History by Katharine Graham. Katharine Graham was a legendary publisher of the Washington Post. Warren Buffett invested in her company and became her close friend and mentor. Her book tells a story of how she took over the newspaper after her husband died. She was suddenly in charge of a massive corporation. She had to lead the paper through the incredibly stressful Watergate scandal, and she eventually won a Pulitzer Prize. But in her book, she admitted she was absolutely terrified at the start. She constantly felt like an imposter. She did not believe she was smart enough or tough enough to lead. You might feel the same intense fear right now. You look at your goals and you think that they're Maybe too big for you. Your brain will try to protect you by giving you smart reasons to quit, but you must take action anyway. Katharine Graham did not wait until she felt confident. She took the job while she was still shaking. So if you lack belief in yourself, you must borrow belief from other people. Find a mentor or watch a video. We make them every day here. Someone who inspires you. Let their confidence carry you until you build your own. You will never feel fully ready. So you must start before you are ready. Building that momentum is the only way to find your true value. The Theory of Investment Value by John Burr Williams. So Warren Buffett read this book early in his career, and he says it gave him the exact mathematical formula for investing. John Burr Williams published it in 1938. He explained that the true value of any stock is based on the cash it will generate in the future, discounted back to today. He proved that a business is not just worth its buildings or its inventory. A business is worth its future potential. You can apply the same math to your own life right now. So you're not just defined by your past mistakes. You're not defined by your current bank account balance. Your true value is based on the incredible potential that you have in the future. But to reach that potential, you have to think long-term. So we stop getting frustrated because you didn't get that quick win this week. Look 10 years down the road. Build habits today that will pay off massively in your future. You must protect your daily routines because they compound over time. The actions that you take right now are creating your future value. So you can write down your vision and stop sweating the small stuff in the way. To make sure you take the right action, you need to upgrade your mental software every day, which brings us to our next book, Poor Charlie's Almanac by Peter Kaufman. This book is a massive collection of speeches and wisdom from Charlie Munger. Charlie was Warren Buffett's business partner for decades. Buffett says Charlie completely changed the way he thought about investing and life. Munger believed that you cannot just use one tool to solve every problem. He said you must build mental models in your head. So for example, he used a model called inversion. So instead of asking how to succeed, he asked how to guarantee failure. And then he just avoided doing those things. He pulled knowledge from psychology, history, math, engineering. You need to take control of the mental models you are feeding your brain right now. Most people, they wake up and they immediately scroll through negative news or toxic social media. They fill their heads with garbage and then wonder why you feel stuck. You need to protect your mind. Start your day by listening to people who inspire you. Change the morning routine today. Read books that challenge your thinking. Watch content that makes you want to play a bigger game. The Believe Walk Challenge. Wake up, get outside for 15 minutes, put something on in your ear that makes you believe in yourself more. When you consistently put greatness in your head, greatness will eventually come out of you too. You need to train your mind to see opportunities where other people, they just see obstacles. But all the mental models in the world mean nothing if you fail the final test. The Smartest Guys in a Room by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkand. Warren Buffett highly recommends this book to show what happens when incredibly smart people make terrible moral choices. This book tells the full story of the Enron scandal. The executives at Enron were brilliant. They had the best degrees from the best schools. They knew how to make massive amounts of money, but they completely lacked integrity. They lied to their employees, they lied to the public, and they lied to themselves. Eventually, the entire company collapsed, losing $74 billion, and the leaders went to prison. Intelligence will not save you if your Is broken. You must figure out your one word. You need a core value that dictates every single decision you make. My word is believe. Every video I make, every business I start, every conversation that I have, I try to align it with believe. If you chase profits while ignoring your core values, you will eventually lose everything that actually matters. You want to wake up every day proud of the person that you see back in the mirror. So stay completely honest with yourself and your customers. When you build a business on the foundation of truth, you build a business that will last for generations. The greatest investment is in yourself. So you already have everything you need inside of you to win. Your past does not define how high you can climb right now today. So take the first step right now and let your momentum carry you forward. Protect your mind, serve others deeply, and never stop chasing your ultimate potential. Most financial advice is designed to keep you trapped In the middle class forever. Where are you going to spend your time? Your energy is one of the most important decisions you get to make in life.

I went to school and what they pounded in me was the poor person. You got to get a job. You got to get a job. You got to work for money. You got to save money and you got to invest in the stock market and all this stuff. That's why people are poor.

So at 25, I recommitted to my education. But this time I started studying not things that were in books, but people that had actually created wealth. The wealthy don't follow standard budgeting rules. They focus entirely on buying assets that print cash even while they sleep.

The poorest people on Earth always are going after this stuff versus cash flow.

When you learn as an investor over multiple decades is the only thing that matters is free cash flow.

That's it. If I earn $10,000 or $3,000 or whatever extra money, whatever the number is, $1 I would take the entire amount of money, I'd go buy an asset that pays me cash flow, and I would always live off the cash flow, not the cash.

If you don't unlearn those old money rules today, you'll guarantee a future full of constant financial stress and zero control over your own time. You have to prioritize your time really carefully.

I have been a Warren Buffett fan in the business realm.

I've been a Warren Buffett fan since my early 20s.

I read the things he writes.

Momentum requires you always do the next thing to keep the momentum going. And the reason you get yourself in a passionate place is so that you change your life. And the only thing that changes your life is making a decision. Think about the famous parable of the pipeline. So 2 men are hired to carry water from a river to the village. The first man works harder, carries more buckets, and makes a decent daily wage. But the second man spends his nights building a pipeline. It takes time and he makes less money at first, but once the pipeline is finished, water flows automatically. He gets paid while he sleeps, and the bucket carrier loses his job. You have to stop carrying buckets and start building your pipeline. Now, you might be thinking right now, I don't have the time to build a pipeline, because you're too busy carrying buckets just to pay the rent. But the truth is that the longer you use that excuse, the heavier those buckets will get until they finally break your back. You don't need thousands of dollars to start building your asset. You just need a plan and a little bit of belief. Here's the exact step-by-step system to stop trading your time for money and finally build your pipeline. Shift your focus from consuming to creating. So when you sit on the couch and watch television, you are putting money directly into someone else's pipeline. The entire financial system is built to make you a consumer. Corporations hire the smartest marketers in the world to keep your eyes glued to their screens so you will spend your money. Banks hire brilliant people to create programs that entice you to borrow their money. You are acting as a consumer, and the consumer is always the person who pays the bill. If you want to change your financial destiny, you must become a creator. You have to create an asset that other people want to consume. So you need to decide what kind of asset to build. And I believe it starts with your own life. I think your purpose comes from your pain. So if you think about the hardest moments in your life, think about the struggles that you fought through, the moments that you wanted to give up on everything, and the problems you eventually solved. You survived them. That's awesome. Now you have the exact blueprint to help someone else who is currently going through that exact same pain. If you struggled with debt and you found the way out, your purpose is to teach others how to escape debt. The blueprint is your first asset. You do not need to be a certified guru. You just need to be one step ahead of the person you are trying to help. When you package your knowledge into a service or product, you stop consuming and you start creating. You move from the side of the equation that spends money to the side of the equation that makes money. And the data proves that this shift Your life dictates your wealth. Tom Corley spent 5 years studying the daily habits of the wealthy and the poor. He found that 67% of self-made millionaires watch less than 1 hour of TV per day. By contrast, 77% of poor individuals watch more than 1 hour of TV every single day. The wealthy use their free time to build their pipelines. They create assets and package their knowledge. The poor use their free time to escape from their bucket-carrying jobs. You have to stop escaping your life and start building a life you do not want to escape from. The average person spends over 6 hours every day staring at a digital screen. That is over 40 hours a week of mindless consumption. That is an entire full-time job dedicated to watching other people win. You have to protect your free time. You must shift your core identity from someone who just buys things to someone who builds things. And when you make that shift, you stop waiting for that weekly paycheck and you start building your automatic cash machine. Stop trading your time for dollars. So you've been taught your entire life, from school to work, to work hard for a steady paycheck. You trade 40 hours of your life and receive a fixed amount of cash in return, right? The massive problem with this traditional model is that your time is limited. You only have 24 hours in single day. If you always just strictly trade your time for money, you immediately hit a financial ceiling that you cannot ever break through no matter how hard you work. The wealthy do not trade their time for money. They trade value for money. They focus their energy on building systems, digital products, or investments that operate independently of their physical time. So you need to detach your income from the hours on the clock. You can look at the story of a friend of the channel, Ali Abdaal. He was a doctor in the UK. Doctors make good money, but they're still carrying buckets. They only get paid when they physically show up to the hospital to treat a patient. Ali realized that as a doctor, he could only help hundreds of patients, but he wanted to reach millions and detach his time from his income. So he started creating YouTube videos about productivity and studying. He built digital courses and systems, and today he's a multimillionaire entrepreneur. He's helped millions of people optimize their lives, and his videos print money for him while he sleeps. He moved from carrying buckets as a doctor to building a pipeline as a creator. This is how the financial system actually works for the rich. A comprehensive study by the IRS showed that over 70% of millionaires have at least 3 streams of income, and most of those streams are passive or portfolio income, not earned wages from a regular job. So you must start building your streams of income that do not rely on you physically punching in a clock, right? If you only have one stream of income and requires your physical presence, you are constantly just one bad day away from being flat broke. If you get sick or you lose your job, the money completely stops. You have to insulate your life against financial disaster by building digital assets that duplicate your human effort. So if you film a great video teaching your best strategy, That single video can be watched by a million people. You did the work one time, but you get paid for it repeatedly for years. Model the success of people who are already winning. So you do not need to figure out how to build a wealth pipeline all by yourself. The biggest mistake you can make right now is trying to invent a new way to make money entirely from scratch. You do not need to be a completely original genius to become rich. The proven path to immense wealth has already been safely carved out by thousands of people, millions of people before you. Success leaves clues. You just need to find the wealthy people who have the exact results you want and study every single thing that they did. But you must copy their rise, not just the result that they're at today. People look at what successful people are doing right now and try to copy that exact same thing. That is dangerous financial advice. You have to look at what their actions and daily habits were like before they made it. So when I was 19, I had a biotech software company. I did not have any clue what I was doing. I was making $300 a month. I was eating canned beans for lunch every day just to survive. I desperately wanted to quit, and I did quit for one day on my partner. I had zero momentum, like it was just nothing was working. Then I decided to stop guessing and start modeling proven success. I looked at Bill Gates because he had a software company, Microsoft. I said exactly how he built Microsoft in his early struggling days. He did not build his empire by doing everything himself. He built it by forming strategic partnerships with hardware companies like IBM. So I took the exact same proven strategy and applied it directly to my little tiny software company. And we made a partnership with an established company that already had paying customers that I needed to survive. And my first deal was $13,500. That single shift, it saved my business. It eventually allowed me to safely sell that business for life-changing profit. You do not have to be born genius to get rich. You just have to be a highly dedicated student of success. According to detailed data from SCORE, entrepreneurs who actively work with a trusted mentor are exactly 5 times more likely to successfully start a profitable business. In addition, exactly 70% of those mentored businesses successfully survived past 5 difficult years. You don't need a physical human mentor sitting next to you in your living room, although that's awesome. You can find amazing mentors in business books, in audios, in YouTube videos like this. That's why I do these videos every day. Find someone who's built the exact cash pipeline you want. Study how they struggled at the start. Study how they overcame their biggest fears. When you carefully model the proven success of the greats, you safely shortcut your own steep learning curve. Build momentum because perfection is a financial trap. The number one excuse you will use to avoid building your asset is that your idea is not completely ready yet, right? You tell yourself that you need to do far more research. You will complain that your website is not flawless or your digital product, it needs one more special feature before you launch it. This is the danger that tells your brain to keep you safe and keep you in your comfortable bubble. Perfectionism is just fear, your fear of being seen. And if you wait for your new asset to be perfect, You will painfully carry those buckets for the rest of your life. You are secretly afraid of what your old high school friends will think. You are afraid of what your parents will say. It's time to let go of that paralyzing fear right now. You have to expect to suck at the very beginning. Expecting to suck, especially at the start, does not mean that you actually suck as a human being. It just means that you do not have yet the necessary skills developed. Yet is the key word. When I started making my early YouTube videos, They were terrible. I was awkward. I was shy. My first one, I have a suit on. It was deeply uncomfortable for me staring at the camera lens. It took me 350 videos, public videos, before I could watch myself back and not be completely embarrassed, right? 700 videos until I finally watched a video that I genuinely felt a little bit of inspiration by what I was making. When I posted that first video, I left it up for a year, and in that year I got 3 comments, right? From my mom, my older sister, and then some random person saw my video, right? In, in a full year, one new comment. But that random comment, I was thrilled when I saw it. I realized I actually reached a human, like one person. If I had stubbornly waited until I was perfectly polished from my post, my first video, I would be absolutely nothing today. I would not have the subscribers. I wouldn't be talking with you guys right now. I wouldn't have a business that helps me build and grow and make a real impact. The science clearly shows that waiting for perfection actively harms your personal financial progress. The American Psychological Association published research showing that perfectionism is strongly directly linked to severe daily procrastination, crippling anxiety, and total mental burnout, which means the longer you obsess over making your pipeline flawless, the longer you stay paralyzed in fear. You just need to bravely lay your first pipe today. It might leak, it might be crooked, but you can fix it tomorrow. The only way to win the money game is to start rapidly building momentum before you actually feel ready. You will easily learn far more from your first 10 messy public failures than you will ever learning and reading 100 books on business strategy to be safe. Make service your ultimate financial strategy. There's a massive lie in the modern corporate world that says You have to be greedy and selfish to get rich. The real truth, I think, is the exact opposite. If you blindly chase money, you will eventually run out of energy completely. You're going to burn out. If the only reason you're doing this for money, you will burn out. The free market will instantly see right through your selfish money intentions. Money is simply a natural byproduct of massive value that you deliver to the world. You are fundamentally built to serve. It's what I believe. If you're not happy with your current financial situation, it is simply because you are not actively serving enough people at a high enough level. When you shift your mental focus from asking, how can I make a million dollars, to asking, how can you deeply help a million people, your entire financial trajectory changes. So money can't be number one on your priority list, but it also can't be number 1,000 on your priority list either. Money is absolutely essential. Good luck getting your car to drive without having any money to buy fuel for it, right? Money needs to be in your top 5 priorities. It just can't be number one. Number one has to be the specific mission You are on. Your brand new pipeline has to be perfectly designed to strictly solve really painful problems for real people who are suffering and struggling. Think about the biggest companies in the world and what they sell. They all got incredibly wealthy by making daily life easier, faster, or better for their customers. When you actively serve at a massive scale, normal people begin to completely trust you. When they trust you, they gladly hand their money over to you without hesitation. And the business data strongly backs this concept up. A massive detailed study by Deloitte found that purpose-driven companies consistently witness much higher market share gains and grow 3 times faster on average than their direct competitors who only focus strictly on the cold hard profits. When you just make your pipeline about serving others and solving their deeply painful problems, the free market consistently rewards you with massive financial returns. If you feel totally stuck right now, you need to go out of your way to just help one single person today. Confidently teach them the one specific valuable skill you already know. Build your global financial empire on the solid foundation of actively making other people successful. When you make other people rich, healthy, or happy, you automatically become incredibly wealthy in the process. Protect your belief system at all costs. You can easily have the absolute best financial strategy in the world. You can have the perfect pipeline blueprint all mapped out on your wall, but if you do not have the core internal belief to execute the daily plan, you will stay broke forever. The single biggest problem in the world, I think, right now is people do not believe in themselves enough to take a massive personal risk. When you start bravely building your asset, people will immediately tell you that your idea is crazy. Your closest friends will loudly tell you to play it safe. Your family will tell you to just just keep happily carrying your wooden buckets like a normal, reasonable, responsible person. And if you listen to their doubts, you will instantly adopt their limiting beliefs and you will permanently quit on your dream. So you have to fiercely protect what goes into your ears and into your eyes every single day. Your daily mental environment completely dictates your financial outcome and destiny. I actively make my daily YouTube videos strictly for myself first. I put my own videos on Trying to inspire me in the morning. I call it my believe walk. I get outside, go for a walk, and listen to a video. I want Warren Buffett in my ear. I want Steve Jobs in my ear. I aggressively listen to their powerful voices every day because I need to borrow their belief until my own belief internally is strong enough to take massive action. You must consciously design a specific protective environment that forces you to constantly level up in your life. Research from the National Science Foundation shows that the typical average person has up to 60,000 separate thoughts per day, and 80% of those thoughts are entirely negative. That's crazy. Your own brain is already heavily fighting against your own future financial success. You can't afford to ever let those negative, small-minded people aggressively pull you down even further. You need to actively choose to consume inspiring content that makes feel powerful, capable, and ready to completely attack your financial goals. When you can fortify your own mind with that belief, nothing can stop you from finishing your cash pipeline. So we need to heavily guard your internal belief exactly like it's your most valuable financial asset, because it is. The truth about who you are. The only thing keeping you broke is the story you keep telling yourself. And so after this video, now it's time to stop playing small and start demanding the life you deserve. Your wealth pipeline is waiting for you to lay the very first pipe today, so get to work right now and go build your asset. Ownership is infinitely more important than fame. I own half of Sony's publishing, and, and I'm leaving them, and they, they're very angry at me because I just did good business, you know. Michael was very canny in the He's portrayed as sort of a bit elfin and fragile, but actually he was a very— he was quite a ruthless businessman at times. Michael Jackson bought the ATV music catalog for $47.5 million in 1985, securing the rights to 251 Beatles songs. And that exact investment grew to a total valuation of $1.5 billion. I used to work with him and he'd say, I'm going to get your records, you know.

I'm going to get—

no, he's gone, please.

I'm gonna get your songs. I'm gonna buy your songs.

And I'd say, love it. You know, I thought it was a joke. Anyway, he ended up doing that. So I mean, I can't blame him. You know, they're out there on the market. Robert sold him the, the music catalog that was in the company which we, we bought in the UK. It owned the Beatles music.

If you only focus on getting attention instead of owning your own intellectual property, you'll always Always be an employee of the platforms that control your audience. Michael is a creative genius, and he's a very astute businessman.

In recent years, Jackson has focused a lot of his time on transforming himself from being king of pop to a captain of industry.

In 1981, Michael Jackson was hanging out with Paul McCartney. Paul casually explained how he started buying up publishing rights after losing control of his own Beatles songs in the 1960s. Paul told Michael that publishing. Not touring or selling albums, was where the real long-term money lived. Michael didn't interrupt, he just listened and absorbed everything. That conversation planted a seed in his mind. 4 years later, Michael outbid Paul McCartney himself to buy the ATV catalog for $47.5 million. He realized that if you don't own the rights to your art, you don't own your future. But before Michael ever bought the Beatles catalog, he started small. He learned that the publishing rights to some of his favorite artists were up for sale. One of his very first major purchases was buying the rights to the music of Sly and the Family Stone in the early 1980s. Michael recognized that great songs, it's like real estate— they pay you rent every single time they play on the radio or in a movie. He stopped thinking like a pop star and started thinking like a real estate investor building a digital empire. By 1995, Michael Jackson didn't just want to be an artist, he wanted to be a music executive. Sony Music wanted to buy his ATV catalog, but Michael refused to just sell his assets for cash. Instead, he forced a massive corporate merger. He combined his catalog with Sony's publishing division to create Sony ATV Music Publishing. He didn't just get a massive payday of $110 million, he became a 50% owner of the 3rd largest music publisher in the world. He proved that true wealth comes from partnering as an equal, not just selling out. Now, right now you might be thinking that it's a great story, but you don't have $47.5 million sitting in the bank. You might think you need to be rich to start owning your intellectual property, but you don't. You can start building your empire today for free. Every video you record, every newsletter you write, every digital product that you create, that's an asset that you own 100%. You don't need to buy someone else's catalog when you can build your own from scratch. The secret is knowing exactly which daily habits turn your ideas into valuable assets. So today I'm going to show you the exact habits Michael Jackson used to build his empire so you can do the exact same thing in your business too. Habit number 1, Obsess over the details. Michael Jackson didn't become the biggest pop star on the planet by accident. He worked harder than anyone else in the room. When he was recording, he showed up 2 hours early just to sing vocal scales. He obsessed over every single note, every single dance step, and every single beat. Most people, they want the massive reward without doing all the boring work. You might look at your favorite creators and think they just got lucky. You don't see the thousands of hours that they spend practicing behind the doors. So you have to care about the tiny details of your craft. If you ignore the small things, your customer, they're gonna notice. Excellence is a daily habit of doing the unglamorous work when nobody is watching. You can't just throw things together and hope that it works out for the best. You have to study your industry inside out. You need to review your own performance with a highly critical eye. It's the tiny small adjustments that separate the good from the great. If you want a million subscriber channel, or you want a massive business, you treat your daily tasks with absolute respect. Habit number 2, put in the reps. So understanding the details is only the start. You have to put in the actual reps. When you are just starting out especially, you will not be perfect. You have to expect to suck at the beginning. Doesn't mean you suck as a person. It's just part of the process. I made 350 public videos on my YouTube channel before I could even watch my own content back without feeling just completely embarrassed by what I made. I hated my early videos, but I kept going. I made 700 videos before I finally made one that inspired me. It's like, I'm starting to get good at this. You have to give yourself permission to be bad so you can eventually get good. Michael Jackson rehearsed his moves until his feet hurt. He put in thousands of repetitions. Don't wait for the perfect time because perfect doesn't exist. Just hit record, write the post, put your ideas out into the world. The more you do it, the better you will get. Action cures fear. Every single time you repeat a task, you build a tiny bit more confidence in your ability to do it the next time. You can't think your way through success, you have to work your way there. Habit number 3, invest in your own vision. One of the greatest habits Michael Jackson had was betting on himself. When he wanted to make the music video for Thriller, his record label said no. Epic Records thought a 14-minute short film was a massive waste money. They refused to give him the budget. Most people, they would have just accepted that rejection, but Michael Jackson did not back down. He decided to fund the project himself. He created a documentary about making the video and sold the broadcasting rights to MTV and Showtime to cover the enormous costs. In your business, you have to be willing to invest in your own ideas too. You need to be able to make big decisions with your heart and the small decisions with your head. Your brain will tell you all the reasons why your idea is gonna fail, but your heart knows what you are meant to do. So stop waiting for an investor to discover you. You already have the power to fund your own dreams. When you put your own money and your own time on the line, it forces you to take your vision a lot more seriously. Habit number 4, focus on the story. Michael Jackson hated the term music video. He always called his projects short films. He didn't just want to sing a song, he wanted to tell a story that would capture the imagination the entire world. He understood that people connect through storytelling. When you're building your business, you can't just sell the facts and the features. You have to sell a story. You have to connect with your audience on a deep emotional level. It's about the quality of your thought, not the quality of your production. So if your message can change one person's life, then it's a message that's worth sharing. Figure out what problem you are uniquely qualified to solve. Tell your story and share why you started this business, why you you care so much. People buy from real people who share their values. When you master the habit of storytelling, you turn casual viewers into more loyal fans. You give them a reason to care about your journey. Habit number 5, serve the audience. Your ultimate goal is bigger than just making money, right? Michael Jackson poured his soul into his music because he wanted to bring joy to his fans. He also donated millions of dollars to 39 different charities through his Heal the World Foundation because he understood that true influence comes from serving others. You're built to serve. Every single piece of content that you create should be designed to help someone else. When you focus on who you're serving, you stop worrying so much about yourself. You stop worrying about the pimple on your nose. You stop worrying about how you look on camera, if your lighting is perfect. Focus on the impact you want to make. Make content that leaves the viewer better than they were before they found you. If you only care about getting famous, your audience will feel that selfish energy and they leave. But if you wake up every day trying to solve their problems, helping them, they stick with you forever. Habit number 6, control your environment. Michael Jackson knew that protecting his creative energy was the only way he could keep producing masterpieces. So he built his own private sanctuary to isolate himself from the endless noise of the media and the public. He understood that your environment dictates your success. So right now, your current environment has been perfectly designed to keep you exactly where you're at. If you want to grow, you have to change what you let into your mind. Most people wake up and they immediately start scrolling through negative news. You cannot build a positive business with a negative mind. So what do we need to do? Shut down the negativity. Fill your environment with things that push you forward. Listen to videos of your favorite entrepreneurs every single morning to hear their voices telling you about what's possible. Guard your focus. If your friends constantly drag you down, you can spend less time with them. Your energy— treat it like it is a highly valuable, non-renewable resource, and you can't afford to waste it on toxic distractions. Habit number 7: turn your pain into power. In 1979, Michael Jackson released his Off the Wall album. It was a massive hit. It sold 20 million copies. But when the Grammy Awards were announced, the album only received one nomination. Michael felt completely insulted and devastated. But instead of quitting, he used that massive disappointment to drive his next project. He promised himself his next album would be so big that they couldn't ignore him. The next album was Thriller. He turned that deeper pain into power. So in your life, your purpose comes from your pain. That's what I think. The things that you've struggled with the most are the exact things that you are meant to help other people overcome. If you went through a terrible business failure, your purpose can be to help other entrepreneurs avoid that same mistake. Channel your frustration into your work. Every rejection can push you to work a little bit harder because you're solving it for other people too. Let the sting of being overlooked drive you to create something that forces people to pay attention to you. Habit number 8: stand out radically. Michael Jackson knew that blending in was the fastest way to be forgotten. He purposely created a visual style that nobody else had. He wore one single white glove. He popularized the moonwalk. He didn't care if people thought that he looked strange. He only cared about being completely unforgettable. So if you want to succeed in a crowded market you have to be radically different. You can't just copy what everyone else in your industry is doing. If you look the same, you sound the same as your competitors, your customers will have no reason to choose you. Why would they pick you? You look the same. You have to become an impossibility to your younger self. So the version of you from 10 years ago should look at the version of you today and be completely shocked by how bold you've become, right? Stop playing it safe. Safe is boring and safe doesn't get noticed. Lean into your unique quirks. Let your true personality shine so people can come to you. Habit number nine: Study the greats. Even at the height of his fame, Michael Jackson never stopped being a student. He constantly read books about history and psychology and famous showmen like P.T. Barnum. He wanted to understand exactly how the greatest leaders and entertainers captured human attention. You have to make a daily habit of. Learning from people who are light years ahead of you. If you only surround yourself with people who are at your current level, you will never stretch your imagination. So read the biographies of billionaires, watch interviews with industry leaders, absorb their mindsets until their way of thinking becomes similar to your way of thinking. When you study the greats, what, what I believe is you borrow their belief. That borrowed belief will carry you through on the days when your own confidence is running a little bit low. So make a habit of researching the legends in your field so you can reverse engineer their success. And habit number 10, commit to the long game. True greatness takes an incredibly long time to build. Michael Jackson started performing with his brothers when he was just 5 years old. He spent decades refining his voice before he ever became a solo superstar. He played the long game. Most entrepreneurs, they quit right before they're about to win. They launch One product, and when they don't become a millionaire in 30 days, right, you give up. You have to be willing to grind for years without seeing massive results. My YouTube channel grew incredibly slowly at the start. It took me 5 years of posting to get to a couple thousand subscribers, but I didn't stop. I focused on building momentum every single day. Momentum is the most important force in your business. Keep pushing your limits until the very end. The only way to guarantee failure is to stop walking, right? Stop taking the path. And I'd like to show you how to lock in unstoppable mindset forever. Your daily commitment to greatness. You have everything you need inside you right now to build a life of massive impact. So stop waiting for permission and start taking the action you know you need to take. Keep showing up, keep doing the work, and never let anyone talk you out of your vision. The traditional advice to save your money is completely broken.

Savers are losers. Is depositing 5% This is not money. This is called toilet paper. We print money to pay our bills. Our money is fake. We have fake teachers.

Every time the government prints more cash, the dollars sitting in your bank account lose their actual value.

The way they solve their problems is they print money.

That troubling news about inflation. Modern monetary theory says printing money has no consequences.

I own gold mines. And I own silver mines. So when the dollar crashes, I get richer.

If you don't shift your mindset to buying real assets right now, you will struggle to afford your basic lifestyle in the future.

So I warn people all the time, don't save this, save silver, Bitcoin, Ethereum. You gotta change your thinking, you know, get rid of those— that mantra, go to school, get a job, work hard. If you're working for this garbage here called paper, you're about to get wiped out because this has no value This is not even valuable as toilet paper. It's a little too small.

Robert Kiyosaki, he learned this the hard way. Back in 1971, the government changed the rules of money. They took the United States off the gold standard.

I have directed Secretary Connally to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold or other reserve assets.

Robert noticed that his poor dad kept trying to save cash, but his rich dad started buying real estate and gold.

I've never lost money in real estate. I've made fortunes in it.

His rich dad told him that the moment money stopped being backed Backed by gold, it just became a piece of paper. If you hold onto paper, you will lose. You have to trade your paper for things that hold real value. Now you might be thinking, Evan, I don't have millions of dollars to buy real estate or gold. I'm just trying to pay my rent right now. And that's exactly why you need to start thinking a little bit differently. You don't need to be rich to start. You just need to stop letting your cash sit still. Even starting with $100 invested consistently in the right assets. Change your whole future. So how do you actually start making your money work for you today? I'm going to show you exactly how to do it. The hidden cost of holding cash. When you leave your money sitting in a bank account, it actually shrinks. You might look at your balance and see the exact same number, but what that money can buy goes down every single day. Inflation eats away at your purchasing power constantly. Since 1971, the purchasing power of the dollar. Has dropped over 86%. So you can't save your way to financial freedom. If you leave your cash sitting still, you guarantee that you'll lose it. The banks take your deposits and use them to buy assets. They pay you a tiny fraction of a percent while they make massive returns. So you've got to change how you look at money. It's not a safety blanket. It's a tool. You must put your money to work like you use any tool. When you hold cash, you're choosing to stay still. You're choosing to lose. You must start buying real assets that hold real value. You can buy real estate, stocks, invest in your own business. The specific vehicle doesn't matter as much as the mindset shift. You need to stop hoarding and start moving. Your money needs a job to do. If it sits there, it gets lazy and loses its strength, right? You've got to keep your money moving so it multiplies. Shift your focus to cash flow. Most people invest hoping the price goes up. You buy stock for $10 and hope it goes to $20. That's hoping for capital gains. The wealthy don't do this. They invest for cash flow. Cash flow means your assets pay you every single month. You buy a property, you rent it out, and you get a check. You buy dividend stock and it deposits cash directly into your account. When you focus on cash flow, you stop caring about market crashes. If the value of your property drops, you don't panic. You still get your rent check every month. When you start your own business, you need to focus on immediate and consistent cash flow. You can't just build a brand and hope money comes later. You need cash flow so you don't burn out. Once you've got a steady stream of income paying your bills, then you gain total freedom. You can make decisions based on what you actually want to do, not what you've got to do. You stop operating from the scarcity mindset because scarcity makes you say the wrong things and makes you make bad choices. Abundance comes from having cash flow coming into your bank account. You build a machine that works even while you sleep. The power of good debt. So your parents probably taught you that all debt is bad, and that's only half of the story. Bad debt actually does keep you poor. Good debt makes you rich. Bad debt is borrowing money to buy a new TV, a fancy car that loses value the second you drive it away. You're paying interest on something that becomes worthless to you. Good debt is borrowing money to buy an asset that pays for itself. So if you use a loan to buy an apartment The tenants pay your mortgage, the tenants pay your taxes, the tenants pay your interest. You get the profit that's left over. That's using other people's money, debt, to build your wealth. You don't need to save up the entire purchase price to buy an asset. You just need enough to get started, and then you use good debt to leverage your position. Now, this requires financial intelligence. You actually need to educate yourself on how to spot a good deal. But once you understand the math, Debt becomes your biggest advantage. The wealthiest people in the world carry massive amounts of debt. They just know how to structure it so the debt makes them richer, not poorer. You can do the exact same thing if you change your perspective. Stop running away from all debt and start learning how to use good debt to your advantage. Buy assets that multiply your time. So your time is your most valuable asset. You can always make more money, but you can't make more time. So you must start using your money to buy back your hours. Research shows that people who spend money to save time are significantly happier. As an entrepreneur, this means you stop doing tasks that someone else can do for you at a lower rate. If your goal is to build a million-dollar business, you can't spend your days doing $15 an hour tasks. You need to hire people. You invest your money into building a team. That team becomes an asset that multiplies your impact. Now, you might hesitate because you think you can do it better yourself, right? You might want to save the money and keep it in your pocket, but playing small is what keeps you stuck. So you trade your cash to get your time back. Then you use that freed up time to focus on the big ideas that'll actually grow your empire. You become the visionary leader instead of the bottleneck behind everything. Stop spraying your money everywhere. When you start investing, you might feel tempted to put a little bit of money into everything. You want to diversify because you think it keeps you safe, but spreading your money too thin guarantees mediocre results. Think about running marketing campaigns, right? You might get some bad advice telling you to spend your budget across all the platforms. That just gives you artificially inflated views that don't actually convert into real sales. Instead, you get real results when you target your spending strictly on in-feed ads. Investing works the same way. You need focused, targeted investments. So you must find the specific assets that you actually understand. If you don't know how cryptocurrency works, don't put your money there just because everyone else does. Put your cash into the exact spots where you know it'll perform. You must study the market. You must become an expert in your chosen lane. When you focus your investments, you can track them closely. You know exactly what's happening with your money. You don't let it wander off into areas where it gets lost in the noise, right? You become a sniper, right, with your finances instead of just using a shotgun. That level of precision is what separates the wealthy from the average. Eliminate, automate, delegate. You also need a strict process for how you handle your business and your money. So we start with eliminate, then automate, then delegate. So first you look at everything that you spend your money and time on. You eliminate the things that don't bring any real value. You cut the bad expenses. Next, you automate everything you possibly can. You set up automatic transfers to your investment accounts. You let technology handle the repetitive tasks in your business. And then finally, you delegate the rest. You hand off the important tasks to experts who can do them better than you. This process forces you to stop being a control freak It forces you to trust other people and trust the systems that you built. When you apply this to your finances, your wealth grows on autopilot. You don't need to wake up every day and make 100 different decisions about your money. The decisions are already made. The system is running. You just get to sit back and watch your assets produce cash. You step into the role of a true leader. You stop working inside the machine and you start owning and building the machine. Stop perfecting and start moving. The biggest thing holding people back right now—it's not a lack of money; it's a lack of momentum. You overthink every single decision. You wait for the perfect moment to start a business or make an investment. Let me tell you this from my own experience: I lost a forty million dollar deal when I was in my twenties because I tried to make everything perfect. I was too slow. I let the opportunity just. Slip through my fingers. Perfectionism destroys your dreams. You've got to get moving right now. Your first investment is not going to be perfect. Your first business idea probably will have lots of flaws. That's completely fine. You learn by taking action. The boldest ideas that you hold in your head are the right ones for you. You just need to trust yourself enough to take the first step. Build the habit of moving quickly. Success loves speed. When you get a good idea, act on it within 24 hours. Put $100 into that asset today. Register your business name right now. Do something that creates physical momentum in the real world. You can adjust your course as you go, but as the expression goes, you can't steer a parked car, right? You need to get your engine running. So start looking forward to your incredible future and take some action today. Your new reality. You've got greatness inside you. Your dreams aren't crazy. They're just waiting for you to catch up. So take one small step To make your money work harder, keep pushing forward, and never settle for an average life. Going back to school to learn a new profession is the worst financial decision you could possibly make right now.

For the first time in modern history, a bachelor's degree is no longer a reliable path to professional employment.

The economy has totally shifted to reward people who can quickly connect AI tools instead of taking four years to get a piece of paper. I've got companies offering. $150K+ for people who can just use these AI tools properly, and I still can't find anyone. They just need normal people who understand how to use AI tools effectively. If you choose the slow path of traditional education, you will drown in massive debt and miss the greatest chance to build wealth in your entire life.

There's no need even to have a college degree at all.

When Elon Musk wanted to build rockets and go to Mars, he did not go back to college. He knew absolutely nothing about aerospace engineering at the time. Most people would think you need a specialized degree to build a spaceship, but Musk knew that going back to school would take away too much time. So instead, he just borrowed old textbooks from his friends and taught himself rocket science. How did you get the expertise to be the chief technology officer of a rocket ship company?

I do have a physics background that's helpful as a foundation, and then I read I read a lot of books and talked to a lot of smart people.

You're self-taught?

Yeah, well, self-taught, yes, meaning, um, I didn't— I don't have an aerospace degree.

So how did you go about acquiring the knowledge?

Well, uh, I, like I said, I read a lot of books, spoke to a lot of people, and, and have a great team.

He bypassed the slow education system completely. He found the raw information he needed, learned it fast, and started SpaceX.

I'd encourage people to read a lot of books, basically try Try to ingest as much information as you can. Also just develop a good general knowledge. Like, try to learn a little bit about a lot of things because you might not know what you're really interested in. How would you know what you're really interested in if you at least aren't like doing a peripheral exploration broadly of the knowledge landscape?

Now you might be thinking, Evan, that's Elon Musk. He's a literal genius. I'm just a regular person with no technical skills, so I can never learn how to connect AI systems. But the truth is you don't need to write a a single line of code to do this, and new AI tools are built for regular people to use using plain English. You don't need a computer science degree, you just need to know what problems businesses are trying to solve. And I'm going to show you the exact skills you need to learn this year to hit that $10,000 a month mark without a degree, and how you can start practicing them today. Master the art of AI orchestration. The number one skill you need to learn this year is called artificial intelligence orchestration. You do not need to be a software engineer to do this. You do not need to know how to write a single line of complex code. You just need to understand how to connect different digital tools together to solve a specific business problem. For the last few years, AI was mostly just a fancy chatbot. You type the question into a box and it gave you a text answer. But the game has completely changed. I really think it started in November 2024 when Anthropic released something called the Model Context Protocol. Think of this new protocol as a universal connecting cable for AI. It allows intelligent systems to connect directly to existing software that a business already uses, so it can securely read your internal files, look at your private customer data, and take action without a human ever having to copy and paste anything. What it means is the era of humans doing manual data entry is completely over. The new era is all about building agentic workflows. An agentic workflow is simply a series of automated steps where the machine does the thinking and the acting for you. So, uh, imagine a local real estate office in your town. They spend 20 hours every single week reading emails from potential home buyers, copying the details into a massive spreadsheet, and then typing out replies with property listings. It's incredibly boring, repetitive, and expensive work. You can step in and use simple visual tools to connect their email inbox directly to their database using this new protocol. The system reads the incoming email, pulls the correct properties, and drafts the perfect reply instantly. You just saved that business owner 20 hours a week. Think about an accounting firm that spends days manually sorting through client invoices. You can set up a workflow that reads the invoices, categorizes expenses, and updates the accounting software automatically. Now, when you first try to build one of these visual workflows, you're going to completely lost, right? You'll click the wrong buttons and the system will completely break. Expect to suck at the beginning. It is completely normal. When I first started making YouTube videos, I was terrible. It took me 350 videos before I could even watch myself without being totally embarrassed. I would press play and just cringe at my own content. It took me 700 videos before I actually patted myself on the back for video and felt proud of my work. So you're learning a brand new language and you have to put in the repetition to get good at it. So don't let the initial frustration stop you right there. You have to stay in the game long enough to figure out how the pieces fit together. Once you understand the basis of connecting these systems, you hold the keys to the kingdom. But having the technical skill is only half the battle. You also need to know exactly where to apply it to make money. Target the human-machine gap. So you might think that because these tools are so powerful companies, they don't need humans anymore. The exact opposite is true. Businesses are totally overwhelmed by all of this new technology. They have absolutely no idea how to use it in their daily operations. According to the LinkedIn Skills on the Rise, artificial intelligence engineering and implementation is the fastest growing skill in the entire world. But right behind it are human skills like operational efficiency and business strategy. Employers are no longer looking for traditional college degrees. They're desperately searching for people who can look at a messy human process and figure out how to make it run smoother with technology. This is exactly where your normal life experiences become your greatest financial asset. So you don't need a background in advanced computer science. You need a background in dealing with frustrating jobs. Think about the most painful, annoying parts of the jobs you've worked in the What were the repetitive tasks that made you want to pull your hair out? Your purpose comes to your pain. The exact business processes that frustrated you the most are the exact ones you should focus on automating for other people. You already understand the problem intimately because you've worked with it. You know exactly where the bottlenecks are and how much time they waste. Now you just apply your new orchestration skills to fix those exact problems for paying clients. Now, if you're struggling to figure out what specific industry or niche to target, First, look at who you're jealous of. Jealousy is a very powerful directional signal. If you see someone making a fortune helping fitness coaches automate their client onboarding and you feel this pain of jealousy, pay attention to that feeling. It means you actually want that lifestyle. It means you are interested in that specific space. Use that feeling to guide your business focus. Stop looking at what everyone else is doing and start paying attention to what actually excites you. And once you find that direction, you will discover that the market is absolutely starving for your help right now. Solve the real business crisis. So right now, massive companies are making a massive mistake, and it's creating a perfect financial opportunity for you. Executives have been reading about headlines on artificial intelligence, and they think it works like magic. They believe they can just fire their staff today and the computer will do all the work tomorrow. The gardener Future of Work Trends report revealed a pretty shocking statistic. In the first half of 2025, only 1% of corporate layoffs were actually the result of technology increasing productivity. Companies are letting people go before they even have the automated systems in place to do the work. They are cutting their teams, realizing the work still has to get done, and now severely panicking. They are stuck in a massive operational crisis. They do not want to hire full-time employees back because it looks bad, but they desperately need the daily work completed. This is the exact moment you walk through the door. You do not ask them for a traditional job. You offer them a permanent solution. You tell them that you can build an automated workflow that will handle their entire customer onboarding process or their invoice data entry or their daily lead generation. You are stepping right into the gap that they created with their own mistakes. You are not an employee. You're an invisible partner who brings efficiency to their daily chaos. So you have to look at this objectively. You are not selling a software tool. You are selling peace of mind to a heavily stressed out business owner. When you realize that fact, the way you talk about your services completely changes. You stop talking about the technical features. You stop talking about the model context protocol or the specific applications that you're going to use. And you just talk about their pain and how your system is going to make that pain disappear. Disappear forever. But selling peace of mind requires a completely different pricing model than what you're used to. Package your skill as a premium outcome. So if you want to hit your financial goals this year, you have to completely abandon the hourly wage mindset. If you charge $50 an hour to build an automated workflow, you will burn out before you ever see any real wealth. You are no longer trading your valuable time for small dollars. You're trading permanent solutions for large dollars. The PwC Global AI Jobs Barometer shows that workers who bring these skills to the table command a 56% wage premium over those who do not. The global market places a massive premium on these specific abilities, so you need to price your services to match that reality. So imagine you find a medium-sized company that is losing $100,000 a year because they can't follow up with their sales leads fast enough. If you build a Workflow that automatically responds to every single lead within 10 seconds. You just solved a $100,000 problem. You shouldn't charge them for the 5 hours it took you to build the system. You should charge them $10,000 for the final result. They gladly pay you the $10,000 to save $100,000. That is just one single client. You only need one client a month to hit your financial goal. But when you try to ask for that much money, fear is going to hit you hard. Belief always breaks down at the next level of success. You believed in yourself enough to learn the new skill, but when it comes time to ask for $10,000, your imposter syndrome will scream at you. You will think you are not smart enough, you're not experienced enough, you're not worthy of that kind of money. And that's the exact moment you have to stand firm. You have to remember the massive value that you are providing. The technical execution might be easy for you now, but it's a complete mystery to them. Your value is not in the physical effort you exert. Your value is in the massive result that you deliver. But you will never get to that pitch if you do not master the art of starting. Take immediate imperfect action. So the biggest trap you can fall into right now is waiting for the perfect time to start. You will tell yourself that you need to watch 50 more tutorials or read another business book or wait until next month when your schedule slows down, right? That's the lie that keeps you broke. The market is moving incredibly fast. If you wait until you feel completely ready, the opportunity will pass you by. The ones who win are the ones who take messy, imperfect action today. So don't worry about having a flawless business plan. The plan is not what actually matters. You just need to focus on the 2% difference. You don't need to have a massive technology agency today. You just need to open the software and create your very first simple workflow. It will probably be terrible. That's fine. The goal is simply to build momentum. Once you take the first physical step, The second step becomes infinitely easier. You'll start to see possibilities everywhere. You'll start looking at every single business you walk into and seeing exactly how you could save them time and money. So you need to pay attention to your environment and your daily routine. Who is in your ear every morning? If you wake up and you consume negative news, you will stay stuck. You need to fill your head with the stories of successful people who took huge risks and won. Make today count. Do not go to sleep tonight without having done One single thing that moves you closer to your goal. I want you to build something today that you would be proud to tell your grandkids about decades from now. So stop waiting for permission. Stop waiting for someone to rescue you. The tools are completely free. The demand is off the charts, and the only thing standing in your way is your own hesitation. All that's left is for you to step into the arena. Your next step to greatness. So you have everything it takes right now inside of you to build the life you actually Trust that your ideas are valid and your effort is going to pay off. Stop playing small and step boldly into the arena. You can completely escape the rat race in just six months if you stop playing by the rules of the middle class. There's a lot of people caught up in a rat race feeling comfortable, and they fear the thought of quitting their jobs because they won't have that steady stream of income anymore. Because that's what we're told: that money comes from an employer. You go to work, you get paid, and that's all we know, and that's all we're conditioned to do. Taking 180 days to master asset acquisition is all you need to replace your salary with reliable passive income. If you stay terrified of financial risk, you will let inflation and taxes drain every dollar that you earn. Do not spend all of that time working for the man, for the next man, making him rich. Do not make a career out of a dead-end job. Because you will be miserable and you will never be happy. Robert Kiyosaki wanted a brand new Porsche. Most people would just save up the cash or take out a massive car loan, but Robert knew that buying a car directly would take money out of his pocket and keep him in the rat race.

3 years ago, I wanted a new Porsche. So let's say this is the Porsche here. My wife says, you can have that Porsche. It's a liability.

Instead, he spent his time finding a mini storage unit That real estate asset produced enough cash flow every single month to pay for the Porsche entirely.

But you can have it as long as I first invest in an asset. So this was a long time ago. My— I invested a few thousand dollars in a mini storage in Austin, Texas, and every month the money from that investment comes in and it paid off my Porsche. So today I don't have any debt for my Porsche. I still have my Porsche, still have it all this time. I still have the investment and I still have the cash flow.

He got the luxury car and he grew his wealth at the exact same time because he let his assets buy his luxuries. Now you might be thinking, okay, you don't have the cash to buy a mini storage facility or a piece of real estate. You feel like this strategy only works for people who are already rich right now. But lack of money is not the real problem. The lack of financial education is really what's holding you back. You can start building your asset column today with almost zero capital if you're willing to learn. you know exactly what to look for. And I'm going to show you the exact steps to spend the next 180 days building real wealth. Step 1, change your mental programming. You have been programmed to be poor since the day you were born. The traditional school system was designed to train you to be a good, obedient employee. You sit in a straight row, you wait for the bell to ring, you have to ask for permission to speak or to go to the bathroom. This is the exact training you need to work in a factory. It's the absolute worst training if you want to become wealthy and independent. Robert Kiyosaki talks about the cash flow quadrant to explain this. He teaches that there are 4 different types of people in the business world. You have employees and self-employed people on the left side. You have big business owners and investors on the right side. The left side works for money. The right side has money work for them. So your goal over the first 30 days of this 180-day journey is to shift your brain from the left side to the right side. You have to move from being a consumer to being a creator. Consumers spend their money on things that constantly lose value. They buy the newest phone, expensive shoes, massive flat-screen TVs. Creators build things that hold value and generate actual cash flow. So if you want to change your life in the next 6 months, you have to stop doom scrolling on your phone. The average person spends over 2 hours every single day on social media looking at other people live their dreams. Imagine if you took those 2 hours and spent them learning about real estate, stocks, or how to build a business online. You would be a completely different person in 180 days. You are built to serve other people. You have a unique gift and a unique message that the world desperately needs right now. If you spend your time consuming garbage content, you are robbing the world of your gifts. So I keep this giant bag of Doritos back here behind the desk every day. I don't eat them. I keep them there just to remind myself that I am stronger than the Doritos. You have to build that same level of daily discipline to break your old habits. You have to wake up every single morning with the intention to create value instead of just consuming it. That's how you start the journey to the right side of the quadrant. But just having the right mindset is not enough if you do not know what to actually buy. You need to understand the single most important rule of wealth, and it goes against everything your parents ever taught you. Step two: Master the true definition of an asset. For the next thirty days, you're going to look at every single dollar you spend through a completely new lens. You've been told your whole life that your house is your biggest asset. Your parents told you this. Your banker told you this, but they are completely wrong. Robert Kiyosaki shocked the world when he said that your personal house is actually a liability. Here is his very simple definition. An asset is something that puts money into your pocket every single month, whether you work or not. A liability is something that takes money out of your pocket every single month. So when you look at your personal house, you will see it does not put money in your pocket. It takes money out. You have to pay the mortgage, you have to pay the property taxes, the insurance, and the constant repairs that's happening. It's draining your personal cash flow. A rental property that you lease to a tenant for more than your expenses is a real asset. The tenant pays the mortgage, the taxes, and the insurance, and you keep the extra cash flow. This is how the rich get richer. They buy real estate that pays them. They buy dividend-paying stocks. They build software and businesses. They do not buy massive houses and fancy cars with their hard-earned salary. A shocking 60% of adults currently live paycheck to paycheck. They are trapped because they buy liabilities and falsely call them assets. So to escape this trap, in the next 6 months, you must commit to only buying real assets. If you want a luxury item, you must first buy an asset that produces enough cash flow to pay for that luxury item. This rule forces you to become an investor instead of just a consumer. Now, I know this sounds simple, but executing it requires you to completely change who you spend your time with. Step 3, upgrade your circle of influence. You cannot become rich if you are constantly taking financial advice from poor people. Now, if your friends complain about their jobs and complain about the economy and they waste their money in liabilities, they are dragging you down with them. Jim Rohn famously taught that you are the average of the 5 people that you spend the most time with. If your 5 best friends are broke, You will be the 6th. Over the next 30 days of your 180-day journey, you must radically upgrade your environment. Now, you might be thinking you don't know any rich people. You might live in a small town with no local entrepreneurs to talk to. That's no longer an excuse. You have access to the greatest business minds in the history of the world right here in your pocket. You can use your phone to make famous entrepreneurs your virtual mentors by watching YouTube videos. I do this every single morning. I don't wake up feeling I don't mean perfectly motivated every day. I might be tired, I might get stressed, but I go for what I call a believe walk every morning. I get outside, go for at least a 15-minute walk, and I put on something that makes me believe in myself more. I want Steve Jobs in my ear. I want Warren Buffett in my ear. I want to hear how they overcame massive obstacles so I can believe in my own potential more. Robert Kiyosaki says that inside every problem lies a massive opportunity. If you surround yourself with people who only see problems, you will freeze. If you surround yourself with people who see opportunities, you will take action. You need to carefully curate your social media feeds. Unfollow every account that makes you angry, fearful, doubtful. Follow accounts that teach you about cash flow, real estate, business building, stock market, YouTube. Change your inputs and you completely change your outputs. But all the knowledge in the world means absolutely nothing if you do not take this next crucial step. Step 4, build momentum through imperfect action. The biggest thing holding you back from wealth is not a lack of money. It is a lack of momentum. People spend years reading books, taking courses, and analyzing the market. They wait for the perfect time to start a business or buy a property. But the perfect time does not exist. You have to start before you feel ready. You're going to make mistakes. You're going to fail. You have to expect to suck at the beginning. When I was 19 years old, I had a massive choice to make. I was studying finance and I had the opportunity to take a very safe six-figure investment banking job right out of university. It was my dream job. All my friends were taking those safe dream jobs, but I decided to take a huge risk instead. I joined a biotech software startup where I was making only $300 a month. It was incredibly painful. I wanted to quit, but I chose the path of the entrepreneur because I knew I would deeply regret it if I never tried. I didn't know if I was going to win, but I I needed to at least try. I didn't know what I was doing. I had to learn how to model success. I looked at Bill Gates, who started Microsoft, applied his strategies to my little software company, and eventually landed a deal for $13,500. I took action before I was perfectly ready. When I first started making YouTube videos, they were terrible. You can go back and watch them. I made 350 videos before I was not completely embarrassed by them. It took me 700 videos before I actually felt proud of my work, but I kept posting because I knew that consistency builds momentum. Kiyosaki teaches that the primary difference between a rich person and a poor person is how they manage fear. Poor people let the fear of losing money stop them from ever investing. Rich people know that losing money is just part of the learning process. You learn to ride a bicycle by falling off. You learn to build wealth by making small investments, making some mistakes, and adjusting your strategy. Over this 30-day phase, you must make Make your first move. Open a brokerage account and buy one index fund. Go to a local real estate meetup and talk to 3 investors. Film your first video explaining the business that you want to start. It doesn't matter how small the action is. The goal is to break your paralysis and put yourself into any kind of motion. Action cures fear. Once you start moving, you'll realize that the scariest part of the business is actually the easiest part to fix once you change your perspective. Step 5, learn to sell by creating real value. You cannot become rich if you do not know how to sell. A lot of people hear the word sales and they instantly feel disgusted, right? You picture some sleazy used car salesman trying to trick somebody into buying some broken vehicle. But true selling is the— it's actually the exact opposite. Selling is simply serving. If you have a product, a service, or an idea that can genuinely help someone solve a problem that they're facing, you have a moral obligation to offer it to them. You are doing them a huge disservice if you hide your solution from them. Kiyosaki repeatedly states that the ability to sell is the number one skill in business. If you cannot sell, you cannot communicate your value to customers, employees, or investors. Data shows that 20% of small businesses fail in their first year and 50% fail by their 5th year, mostly because they run out of cash. They run out of cash because they do not know how to sell their value. So you have to stop looking at sales as taking money out of someone else's pocket. Look at sales as transferring your deep belief into another person. When you truly believe that what you are doing matters, selling becomes incredibly easy. You are just sharing your passion and inviting them to join you. So spend this phase of your journey practicing your communication. Write down the story of why you want to start your Practice explaining how your idea actually helps real people. Don't use fancy jargon, just speak directly from your heart. People will connect with authenticity. They want to do business with people who genuinely care. And once you master the art of serving through sales, you are finally ready to turn your income into lasting wealth with this final rule. Step 6: Pay yourself first to force growth. This is the final 30 days of your 180-day journey, and this is where you lock in your wealth forever. Most people follow a very simple and very broken formula. They get paid, they pay their rent, they pay the phone bill, they pay the credit card company, and then they try to save whatever is left over. But human nature guarantees that there is almost never anything left over. Your expenses will always rise to match your income. The rich operate on a completely different system. They pay themselves first. Kiyosaki learned this powerful rule from his rich dad. Before you pay the government, before you pay the landlord, and before you pay the utility company, you must put money into your asset column. You take a percentage of your income and you immediately use it to buy an income-producing asset. Now, you might wonder what happens if you don't have enough money left over to pay your bills. This is where the real magic happens. When you pay yourself first, you create a cash shortage for your bills. This creates immense pressure. For a poor person, this pressure causes panic. But for an entrepreneur, this pressure forces genius. Your brain is forced to figure out how to make more money to cover the shortfall. You start a side hustle, you sell items you no longer need, you negotiate a better deal. You will find a way. By paying yourself first, you guarantee that your asset column grows every single month while simultaneously forcing yourself to increase your earning power. This is the ultimate formula for escaping the rat race and building a life of total financial freedom. Your new financial reality. You have everything you need right now to completely change the trajectory of your life. Stop waiting for someone to come and rescue you because you are the only one who could take the necessary steps to fix your future. Trust in your own potential. Ignore the people who tell you to play it safe and take direct action on your biggest ideas today. Now let's learn the biggest pitfalls people make when starting a business. You want to start a business, but you're worried about the economy? You're not alone, and it is possible to succeed. In 2023, a record 5.5 million new business applications were filed in the United States. Even in uncertain times, entrepreneurs are taking the leap. The truth is, tough times can create tough entrepreneurs. But if you're not careful, certain mistakes can sink your business before it gets off the ground. So today I'm going to walk you through the 7 big mistakes new entrepreneurs make when launching during a downturn and how you can avoid them. From mindset and marketing to money management, leadership, and product development, we're covering it all. Avoid these mistakes and you'll vastly increase your chances of not just surviving but thriving. Let's dive in. Mistake number 1: believing the downturn will doom your business. So here's a mistake: starting off with the wrong mindset, believing that the bad economy means guaranteed failure. It's easy to think the market is awful. Maybe I should wait, or nobody succeeds in a recession. This defeatist thinking paralyzes you. If you're convinced you'll fail, you're practically defeated before you begin. Remember, your mindset sets the tone. A negative mindset in a downturn can make you give up at the first obstacle. Here's the reality check: history proves that downturns can be the best time to start. In fact, about half of all Fortune 500 companies. Household names, started during a recession. Hewlett-Packard began in a garage during the Great Depression. Microsoft was founded in the oil crisis of the 1970s. Even Groupon launched amid the 2008 recession. Tough times forced these founders to be innovative and resilient. They didn't say, the economy is bad, let's quit. They pushed forward. As a result, they built some of the world's biggest companies. So here's some science and stats for you. Research shows Hard times can actually spark opportunity. One study noted that rising unemployment in a recession often inspires people to become entrepreneurs seeking to be financially self-reliant. Entrepreneurial spirit doesn't die in a downturn; it gets creative, and customers don't vanish either. Their needs just change. Some of the world's greatest businesses—General Electric, General Motors, Netflix, Airbnb—were born in recessions. Why? Less competition and new problems to solve. A downturn can shake up customer habits, opening gaps in the market that didn't exist in good times. Here's a motivational insight. When you start a business during a recession, you may have fears and doubts, says Timo Wilson. He's the CEO of ASAP Credit Solutions. But with careful planning, the right strategies, and the right attitude, you can turn a bad situation into a good opportunity. So your attitude really matters. If you believe now is a bad time, I'll fail, you will hesitate and miss chances. But if you believe now is my time to solve a problem and serve people, you'll find a way to make it work. So don't let fear kill your dream. Use that fear as fuel to plan smarter. Here's what you can do instead. Embrace a resilient mindset. See the downturn as an opportunity to build something lean and valuable. Focus on what you can control. That's your work ethic, your creativity, your ability to adapt. Rather than dwelling on scary headlines, remember, if others could start great companies in hard times, so can you. Go in with eyes open, yes, but with the belief that your business can succeed. That confidence will drive you to find solutions when challenges come up. In a storm, mindset is your anchor. So set a positive, determined tone from day one. Believe that you can be the exception. And then work to make it true. Mistake number 2 is trying to do everything alone. So the mistake is that you're wearing all the hats and refusing to ask for help. New entrepreneurs often try to be the CEO, the salesperson, the marketer, the accountant, the janitor all at once. You might think no one can do this as well as me, or maybe you don't want to spend money on help. The result, though, is burnout and bottlenecks when you try to do everything yourself. You quickly run out of time and energy. Important tasks slip through the cracks because you're stretched too thin. Plus, you limit your business's growth to the hours in the day. This lone wolf approach might feel heroic, but it's actually a recipe for disaster. So here's the reality check: even the greatest entrepreneurs don't succeed alone. Steve Jobs, who was the visionary behind Apple, famously said, great things in business are never done by one person, they're by a team. Think about that. The guy who built one of the most valuable companies on Earth is telling you he couldn't do it solo. Collaboration is key. Elon Musk might be a genius inventor, but even he doesn't build Teslas or SpaceX rockets alone. He surrounds himself with experts who execute his vision. Why? Because nobody is great at everything. Musk focuses on what he does best and lets talented people handle the rest. If iconic founders rely on teams, so can you. Also consider this: trying to be the Superman or Superwoman can blind you to your own weaknesses. You might be great at product development, but awful at marketing, or vice versa. If you insist on doing it all, the areas where you're weak will hurt your business. 2 heads, or more, are often better than one. Other people bring fresh ideas and skills you don't have. If you shut them out, you miss out on that value. So here's some signs that you're doing this. Are you working 12 to 16 hour days and still feeling behind? Do you avoid delegating because you think others will mess it up? Those are some red flags. Refusing to delegate because no one does this better than me isn't coincidence. It's a shortcut to burnout. The company is your baby, but you can't raise a baby alone. It takes a village. So here's what you can do instead. Build your support system. This doesn't mean you need to hire a huge team on day one. It means be strategic about getting help. Delegate tasks that drain you or that aren't your expertise. If you're not a numbers person, hire a part-time bookkeeper. Struggling with social media? Bring in a savvy freelancer. Find mentors or advisors who have walked this path and can guide you. Their experience can save you from costly mistakes. Remember, asking for help is not a sign of weakness. It's a sign of wisdom. As an African proverb goes, If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Teams can accomplish what individuals can't. Even if you're a solo founder, you can't grow a business in a vacuum. You need customers, suppliers, maybe investors or employees. Embrace the mindset that partnership and delegation are strengths, not burdens. You can practically start by listing tasks only you can do, like setting the vision, maybe product design, and tasks others can do. Then look at that second list and start outsourcing or delegating one by one. It could be as simple as automating your bookkeeping or having a friend or consultant give feedback on your marketing plan. Free yourself to focus on what you do best. That's how you'll grow. Great businesses are built by teams, so start building yours. It'll not only lighten your load, it'll multiply your capacity to achieve great things. Mistake number 3: burning through cash too fast. So the mistake here is spending money faster than it comes in and not keeping an eye on cash flow. This is a huge pitfall, especially in a downturn. Maybe you splurge on a fancy office or hire too many people too soon, or invest in expensive tools you don't actually need. New entrepreneurs sometimes act like every dollar is replaceable, but in a tough economy, fundraising is harder and customers are cautious with spending. If you run out of cash, your business is done. Period. It sounds obvious, but so many startups burn through their runway thinking more money will magically appear. The mistake is not budgeting carefully and not planning for slow sales or emergencies. It's like you're driving a car with a gas leak. You're not going to get very far. So the reality check is this: cash flow is the lifeblood of your business. Here is a startling statistic. 82% of startups that fail blame poor cash flow management. That means 8 out of 10 failed companies essentially ran out of money or couldn't manage it properly. Even if you have a great product, if you can't pay your bills, your company is done. You might be making profits on paper, but if your cash isn't in your account at the right time, you can't operate. A classic example is Toys R Us, a huge company that went bankrupt in 2017. Not because people stopped buying toys, but because they had too much debt and ran out of cash to service it. If a giant like Toys R Us can collapse from poor cash management, a brand new startup is even more vulnerable. So during a downturn, this is even more critical. Banks tighten lending, investors become picky, and customers pay slower or buy less. Money isn't flowing as freely in the economy, so margin for error is thin. Every dollar wasted is a dollar you might desperately need next month. Some entrepreneurs think, spend now to grow fast and we'll figure out revenue later. That mindset has killed countless startups. Yes, you need to invest in yourself, but invest wisely and track every expense to be sure that it's worth it. So here's what you can do instead. Be lean and mean with your budget. Treat every dollar like it's gold. Create a simple budget for your business And track your cash flow weekly. Know exactly how much is coming in and going out. There are great tools, even basic spreadsheets or apps like QuickBooks, that help you see this clearly. Plan for the worst-case scenario. What if sales are half of what you expect? Do you have enough cash to survive a few slow months? If not, you may need to cut expenses or find additional funds before you hit a crisis. It's advised to stash a safety net fund if you can— money set aside for emergencies. This could be personal savings or line of credit you don't touch unless needed. Also, prioritize spending that drives growth or is essential for operations and delay the rest. For example, paying for marketing that brings in customers is good, but paying for a luxurious office space is probably not, especially if you can work remotely. As one business expert put it, lavish office spaces, premature hiring sprees, and inventory mismanagement can leave your budget So in other words, skip the frills. Focus on what keeps the lights on and brings in revenue. Negotiate with vendors for better rates. Avoid taking on debts you don't absolutely need. And keep your personal expenses separate from your business finances. Most importantly, keep an eye on cash flow timing. A sale isn't real unless the money is in your account. If you invoice clients, some might pay you in 30 or 60 days. You must account for that gap. Plenty of profitable businesses have died because they ran out of cash while waiting for payments. Don't let that be you. In a downturn, cash is king. If you manage your money wisely and stay frugal, you'll be in a much stronger position to weather storms and seize opportunities others can't because they blew their cash early on. Remember, your goal is to stay in the game long enough to win. And that means not going broke along the way. Mistake number four is neglecting marketing and your online presence. Here's the mistake: believing that a great product or service will magically attract customers on its own. This is the if I build it, they will come fallacy. Many new entrepreneurs pour all of their energy into making a product perfect, then do little to actually market it. In a downturn, they might cut. Marketing first to save money. That's the big mistake. If people don't know you exist, you have no business, period. Neglecting marketing, especially online, is like opening a store and not putting a sign out front. No one knows you're there. Where is everyone's attention right now? Online. If you're invisible on the internet, you're invisible, full stop. Consider this: your potential customers are on social media, they're searching Google, they're reading emails, they're watching YouTube videos, If you're not showing up in those places, they'll buy from someone who is. Some entrepreneurs also underestimate the importance of an updated website or active social media profiles. Oh, I'll get to that later. Later might be too late because a competitor who engages customers online will grab that market share. In a downturn, trust and visibility are even more important. People are cautious with spending, so they buy from brands they see and trust. If you're hiding, they'll assume you're not a valid option. So here is your reality check. We live in a digital age. 84% of consumers find new products, services, and businesses online through social media feeds, search results, or online recommendations. Let me say that again. 84% of people discover businesses online. That means if you have no online presence or a very weak one, you're missing out on a huge majority of potential customers. As marketing CEO Yassine Aberra puts it, you don't want to be the best-kept secret. You want to be known. Look at it this way. During the last downturn, many businesses survived only because they had an online presence, online sales, social media marketing, etc. Those who didn't were left behind. Even big ventures can fail by ignoring marketing. Quibi, a short-form video streaming startup, had $1.75 billion in funding and big Hollywood names behind it. But it flopped hard because it failed to market effectively and couldn't get users. All that money and talent wasted because they couldn't convince enough people to care. The lesson is that no matter how great your product is, you must actively reach your audience. So here's what you can do instead: make marketing a priority, not an afterthought. You don't need a Super Bowl commercial or a huge budget. Thanks to the internet, marketing can be extremely cost- cost-effective. Start with the basics. Build a solid online presence. Ensure that you have a clean, easy-to-navigate website, or a simple one-page site with your information and what you offer is a great start. Make sure your business can be found on Google. Claim your Google My Business listing if it's a local business so people can find your address, your hours, and the reviews that you have. Get on social media platforms that your target customers are using. You don't have to be everywhere, but choose one or two channels like Instagram, like YouTube, like LinkedIn, TikTok, Facebook, wherever your audience hangs out, and show up regularly. Post content that provides value or insights related to your business. This could be tips, behind-the-scenes looks, customer testimonials, industry news, etc. Engage with your followers, answer their comments and their questions. This builds trust and a community around your brand. Invest time in content marketing and SEO, search engine optimization, So that when people search for the problem you solve, they find you. For example, if you're a graphic designer, you want to come up when somebody searches for logo design for a small business. Maybe start a simple blog or a YouTube channel with helpful content. It can draw people to you. Also, encourage happy customers to leave reviews online. Positive reviews can significantly influence new customers to trust you. During the downturn, many competitors will be tempted to pull back on marketing. If you can lean in, you capture their market share. Marketing doesn't have to break the bank. Using social media is free, and even small targeted ads can go a long way if done right. The key is consistency and understanding your customer. So ask yourself, where do my ideal customers spend time and what message would appeal to them right now? Then put your message out there. Again and again. Remember, people can't buy from you if they don't know you exist. So make some noise. Be proactive in spreading the word about your business. Share your story and what problem you solve. In a downturn, emphasize the value and reliability you offer since customers are more value-conscious now. If you do this, you won't be stuck hoping new customers somehow stumble upon you. You'll be out there attracting them. The businesses that thrive are usually the ones that are seen and heard, so don't be shy about marketing. It's the engine of your growth. Mistake number 5 is skipping market research and ignoring customer feedback. So the mistake is this: you're charging ahead with your idea without checking if anyone actually wants it. This is like building a puzzle with missing pieces. Something important just won't fit. Many enthusiastic founders fall in love with their product or service and assume everyone will love this as much as I do. They invest time and money to launch only to hear crickets because they didn't validate the market need. Equally dangerous is getting initial customers but then ignoring their feedback, basically sticking fingers in your ears to avoid hearing criticism. If you skip research and ignore feedback, you're essentially building your business in a little bubble, or worse, on false assumptions. That's a fast track to failure. Here's the reality check. Know this statistic: 42% of startups fail because there's no market need for their product. Let's let that sink in. Almost half of startup failures happen because they made something nobody really needed or wanted. Why does that happen? Because the founders assumed instead of asked, skipping the step of talking potential customers is a huge mistake. You might have the most innovative solution, but if it's not solving a real problem people have, it's not going to succeed. Enthusiasm is not a substitute for insight. Ignoring customer feedback is just as bad. The market is always moving, and customers will tell you what they like or hate if you listen. Think of companies that failed to adapt. BlackBerry was once a top smartphone maker from Canada. But they ignored the trend towards full touchscreen phones. They insisted people wanted physical keyboards and didn't listen to users who were drawn to iPhones and Androids. The result? BlackBerry went from dominating to basically obsolete because they didn't heed the feedback of the market. That's a billion-dollar example of ignoring customer signals. Now, on a smaller scale, if your early customers keep asking for a feature or complaining about an aspect of your service and you brush it off, you're pushing them away to your competition. Here's what you can do instead. Do your homework before you launch and keep learning after you launch. Before you spend a dollar on building your product or opening your doors, research. This doesn't have to be expensive or formal. Start by talking to people in your target market. They could be friends, acquaintances, online forums. Where are your potential customers hanging out? Ask if they have the problem you think you're solving. Listen to how they describe their pain points. Would they pay for your solution? How much? This is called validating your idea. You might find you need to tweak your concept to meet what people actually need. You can look at industry research trends and even what your competitors are doing and where they might be failing customers. Observe the competition. See if there's something customers complain about in their offerings. That is an opportunity for you. If possible, create a simple prototype or a basic version of your product. This is often called an MVP, minimum viable product, and get it in front of real people quickly. The goal is to gather feedback early before you've invested too heavily. It could be a demo, a sample, or pilot program. For example, if you want to open a food business, maybe start a pop-up stall or catering a small event to gauge reactions. If it's an app or product, make a basic version with core features and see if users actually find it useful. Once you have customers, even just a few, actively seek their feedback. Use surveys, invite reviews, have conversations. Yes, you'll hear things that are hard to hear sometimes. I didn't like this, or it's too expensive, etc. But this is gold. These critiques show you how to improve and what to change to really fit the market. Don't take it personally. This is about making your business better. If multiple people are telling you the exact same thing, like your pricing is too high compared to value, or a certain feature is missing, pay attention and consider adjusting. Be ready to adapt. Sometimes businesses have to pivot, which means changing direction to find the real demand. Here's a very famous example. YouTube started as a video dating site, then pivoted to general video sharing when they saw users wanted that instead. If the data and feedback point you in a new direction, don't be stubborn. Be willing to pivot your idea to meet the market need. In short, stay customer-focused. Your business exists to solve a problem or fulfill a need for your customers. Keep them at the center of your discussions. Regularly ask, is this what people want? What are they telling me? And how can I serve them better? If you build with the customer, not just for the customer, you'll create something the market truly wants. That dramatically increases your chance of success, especially in a downturn. Remember, feedback is a gift, even when it's harsh. Use it to refine your business into one that people can't live without. Mistake number 6 is scaling too fast too soon. So here's the mistake: you're trying to grow your business at lightning speed before you have a solid foundation. This could mean hiring a bunch of employees, opening new locations or spending big on advertising to get tons of customers right away. It's an easy trap. You get a little early success and think, hey, we need to go big right now. Or you might feel pressured to look successful because everyone glorifies fast-growth startups. But scaling prematurely is extremely risky. If your product, systems, or team are not ready, growing fast can cause everything to break. You end up with unhappy customers, overstretched staff, and a business that can collapse under its own weight. Here is your reality check: growing too quickly is a leading cause of startup failure. Over 70% of startups fail due to scaling before they're ready. That's a huge number. It means a lot of businesses might have survived if they had grown at a steadier pace. So why is scaling too fast so dangerous? Imagine you suddenly triple your customers overnight. Sounds great, right? But can you deliver your product or service at triple capacity? With consistent quality? If not, those new customers will be upset and leave, and your reputation will tank. Or consider costs. Scaling often means spending money on inventory, on staff, on a bigger space. If you scale up your revenue slower than your expenses, you can burn through cash, which ties us back to mistake number 3. Many startups take on big expenses expecting future income that doesn't materialize in time. A famous example is fab.com. A once hyped e-commerce startup, they raised over $300 million in investments, which should have been plenty of fuel to grow. And they did too fast. Fab.com expanded aggressively, hiring lots of people and spending big. But they hadn't nailed down the sustainable business model or solid profitability. They grew users quickly but couldn't keep them, and their costs blew up. Within a few years, Fab.com crashed. Burned, selling for a tiny fraction of its previous value. They're a case study now on how not to scale. The lesson: more isn't always better, especially not all at once. In a downturn, the temptation might be a bit less to overscale since you're cautious, but it can still happen. For instance, if you see a sudden opportunity— maybe a competitor went under— and you try to grab all their customers overnight without preparing, you could choke on that growth. Also, chasing growth in a recession by slashing prices or overextending can backfire. Sustainable growth beats rapid, unsteady growth every time. So here's what you can do instead. Focus on steady, sustainable growth. Think of building your business like building a house. You need a strong foundation before you add extra floors. In business, that foundation is product-market fit and solid operations. Product-market fit means your Sure, people truly want what you offer and you can consistently deliver value at a price that works. If you're still getting inconsistent feedback or struggling to fulfill orders on time, that's a sign to stabilize before you expand. Grow in stages, set milestones. For example, when we consistently sell X units a month with good customer satisfaction, we'll consider expanding. Or once we have X amount in steady cash flow, we'll hire another salesperson. This way, growth is tied to real indicators that you're ready. Keep an eye on your metrics: customer satisfaction, repeat purchase rates, profit margins, etc. If any of those are dropping, fix that before trying to scale more. It's like in a game: level up after you beat the boss at the current level, not while you're still fighting it. When you do decide to scale, do pilot tests. For instance, if you want to expand into a new market or release a new product line, do a smaller trial run. See what issues come up, learn from it, improve, then expand further. This way you catch problems early when they're easier to manage. Also, control the pace of hiring. Hire slow and intentionally. One good hire is better than 5 rushed ones who might not be the right fit. Each new team member should fill a clear need. And remember, more employees means more management needed. Ensure you have structure in place so people know their roles and responsibilities. And here's another tip: maintain financial discipline even more when you have more money coming in. Don't assume a good month means it will be good forever. As you scale, continue to forecast worst-case scenarios. What if that big client leaves, etc.? So you don't overshoot. Grow with purpose, not ego. It's not about bragging how fast you grew; it's about remaining in business and thriving years from now. As one startup advisor put it, build a solid foundation. before expansion fever hits. Perfect your core business, then scale gradually, making sure your cash flow, team, and processes can grow together. If something starts breaking as you grow, don't be afraid to pause and fix it. A slower, healthier growth beats a rapid rise followed by a crash. Your business is a marathon, not a sprint, especially in a downturn economy. Pace yourself and you'll go much further. And mistake number 7 is giving up too soon. You have a lack of patience and persistence. So mistake here is expecting overnight success and losing heart when it doesn't happen. This is a mindset mistake that catches many new entrepreneurs by surprise. So you launch, you have big dreams, and when you hit your first serious roadblock or when sales slow down for a few months, you think it's not working, I should quit. In a downturn, this feeling can be even stronger because progress might be slower. But the hard truth is most businesses take time to really take off. If you give up too early, you might be abandoning ship just before it starts to catch the wind. So here's your reality check: building a successful business is a long game. Most small businesses take at least 2 to 3 years to become profitable, and truly massive success often 7 to 10 years to hit their stride. Those overnight success stories you hear are usually myths. Even companies like Facebook or Tesla spent years in development or had several slow years before things exploded. And behind the scenes, there were likely multiple near-fail moments. The journey is full of ups and downs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 20% of businesses fail in the first year and around 50% by the 5th year. Why am I telling you this? Not to scare you, but to highlight that success rarely happens fast. Those that do make it are often the ones who persisted through the early tough years. A great example of persistence is Airbnb. Today, Airbnb is a huge company valued in the billions, but in the beginning it struggled hard. The founders launched during the 2008 downturn, and at first barely anyone was using the site to book rooms. They maxed out credit cards and even sold breakfast cereal in election-themed boxes just to scrape by and keep the company afloat. They literally went door to door to get new users and investors. They faced rejection after rejection. It would have been so easy for them to say, "This isn't working. Let's quit." But they didn't give up. Eventually, they gained traction, got an investor after many said no, and the rest is history. If they had quit in those dark days, we wouldn't even know their names today. Their story shows that you might be this close to success without realizing it, and if you quit, you'll never know. As Thomas Edison famously said. Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. So here's what you can do instead. Practice patience and resilience. So go into your business with the mindset that you're in this for the long haul. That means emotionally preparing for slow periods, for setbacks, and for many iterations. Don't interpret slow growth as failure. See it as learning. Ask any seasoned entrepreneur and they'll tell you stories of how long it took to get their first steady clients or to turn a profit. It's normal. You have to keep pushing and keep improving. Think of entrepreneurship as a marathon, not a sprint. If you sprint too hard and expect to finish in record time, you will burn out. Instead, you keep a steady pace, and when things get tough, you dig deep rather than bow out. One way to stay motivated is to remember your why. Why did you start this business? Is it to solve a problem you're really passionate about? Is it to create a better life for your family? Keep that purpose in front of you, especially when results are slow. That will fuel you to persevere. Also, set realistic expectations and milestones. Instead of, I must make a million in my first year, focus on achievable goals like gain 100 loyal customers or reach a certain monthly revenue that covers expenses. Celebrate small wins— each sale, each positive customer review, each improvement. This will keep morale up. Importantly, be adaptable when things aren't working. Not giving up doesn't mean keep doing the same thing, failing over and over and over again. It means keep trying new angles until it works. Maybe your first strategy, it's not hitting the mark. That's okay, tweak it. Persistence is about being committed to the end goal, which is a successful business, not a rigid path of how to get there. If Plan A fails, go to Plan B, Plan C, whatever it takes. Every time you encounter a Treat it as a lesson. Ask, what can I learn from this? How can I do it better? And then apply it to the next time. Surround yourself with supportive people— mentors, fellow entrepreneurs, friends— who encourage you when you feel discouraged. Sometimes just hearing, hey, you're doing good, keep at it, from someone who's been there can bolster your resolve. And remember mistake number 2: you don't have to tough it out completely alone. Seek advice when you hit a wall. Lastly, keep an eye on the long-term vision. Picture the successful business you want to be in 5 or 10 years. Keep that vision alive. It can carry you through your rough days. In a downturn, conditions may improve by the time you hit year 3 or 5. You want to be there when the tide turns, having built your foundation during the hard times. The founders who persist when others quit are the ones who will be perfectly positioned when the economy picks up again. Don't quit early. As long as you still have resources and ideas to try, keep going. The only sure way to fail is to give up, because success might be closer than you think. Be patient, stay hungry, and keep believing in your dream even when it's not visible yet. Every big success story is written with chapters of struggle. Embrace yours and keep writing the next chapter. So we've covered a lot, from mindset and money mistakes to marketing, leadership, products, growth pitfalls. Avoiding these 7 mistakes will give your new business Remember that every huge company started small and faced challenges. The fact that you're starting a business right now in a tough economy shows that you have courage and determination. That's something many people lack. So give yourself some credit for that. And now commit to following through with smart choices. Success in business isn't about never making mistakes. You will make some, and that's okay. It's about learning quickly and persevering. When you make a misstep, you correct it and keep moving forward. When you fall, you get back up. Each of these mistakes we talked about is avoidable with awareness and action. Now you have that awareness. You're already ahead of many beginners who dive in blind. Picture yourself a year from now running a thriving business, looking back on these early days. The economy might be better, maybe it's worse, doesn't matter, because you built something that can weather any storm. Why? Because you had the right mindset, you built a strong team a network, you managed your money wisely, you continually reached out to your customers, you grew at the right pace, and you never gave up. That is the path to success. So as you step forward, face the challenges with confidence. You know the traps to avoid. Stay focused on serving your customers and improving each day. Keep pushing, keep innovating, and keep believing in yourself and your mission. Downtimes create The best entrepreneurs. Those who can do well now will soar when things get better. The road might not be easy, but it will be worth it. Every setback is that setup for a comeback. Every mistake, a lesson that makes you stronger. You have everything it takes to build your dream. You have the knowledge, the grit, and now the insight into what not to do. So it's time to apply these lessons, start your journey, and make your business vision a Don't wait for permission or perfect conditions. You have the power to create your own success story starting today, even in a downturn. Go for it with all your heart and smart planning. And remember, the only way you fail is if you quit. So keep going, keep learning, and keep believing. Your success story is waiting to be written, so pick up the pen and write it. You've got this. Believe. You scroll through your feed and it feels like everyone else is winning. New funding rounds, skyrocketing sales, big life updates. And here you are wondering, why am I not there yet? You start asking yourself if you're falling behind. You feel that way? You're not alone if you do. In fact, most entrepreneurs feel this at some point. The good news is that feeling behind is often an illusion, and we're going to break that illusion today. By the end of this video, you'll understand why you're not actually behind and how to focus on your own journey to success. The social media highlight reel illusion. Social media is the land of highlight reels. People share their wins, their new clients, their product launches, flashy lifestyle shots, but rarely their struggles. What you see is a curated montage of success. Psychologists even have a term for this: highlight reel syndrome. We compare our behind the scenes to everyone else's highlights. No wonder you feel inadequate. A recent survey by the American Psychological Association found 61% of social media users feel inadequate about their lives after seeing others' posts. So think about that. Over half of people feel less than just from looking at others online. It's because we naturally compare, and when we do, we always see the gap between where we are and where they are. But here's the reality: you're seeing their best moments, not the full story. You see the trophy, not the training. Their wins don't show the The late nights, the doubts, the failures along the way. It's like watching a movie trailer and thinking you know the whole film. You don't. Remember this line: comparison is the thief of joy. Teddy Roosevelt said that decades ago, and it still rings true today. Every minute you spend measuring your life against someone else's Instagram feed, you're robbing yourself of joy and motivation. Don't fall for the highlight reel trick. Social comparison. Comparison theory: Why you feel behind. So why do we compare ourselves to others in the first place? Psychology has an answer. Social comparison theory says that people have an innate drive to evaluate themselves by comparing to others. It's natural; we all do it. We look around and see how do we stack up. In some cases, this can motivate you. For example, comparing yourself to someone a bit ahead of you can inspire you to improve. But more often, especially in entrepreneurship. We do upward comparisons. We compare ourselves to those much further ahead or more successful, and that can often backfire. Studies show these comparisons can make you feel inadequate and discouraged, even lowering your motivation to pursue your goals. So think about it— if you're measuring your startup against the likes of Apple or Tesla, companies decades in the making, of course you feel behind. It's like comparing your chapter 2 to someone else's after 20. It's unfair to you. Instead, realize everyone's journey is going to be different. Some people sprint out of the gate, others build momentum over time. Life is not a 100-meter race with a single finish line. It's more like a marathon where everyone has their own route. When you catch yourself in the comparison trap, pause and remind yourself, their success is not my failure. Use their success as inspiration instead of a yardstick. And most important, Compare yourself to your past self. Are you better today than yesterday? That's the only comparison that actually matters. Each day that you learn a new skill, make another sales call, or improve your product, you're making progress. Count those wins. They may seem small compared to someone else's huge score, but they are yours and they are real. And step by step, they will take you to your own big wins. Imposter syndrome. It lies to you. That feeling in your head that says, I'm not good enough, or I don't belong at the table. Let's talk about that now. Imposter syndrome. It's the voice that tells you that you are a fraud, even when you've earned your place. As an entrepreneur, you might feel like all of these other founders, they've got it all figured out while you're secretly still just scrambling. Here's the truth. Most of them are scrambling too. Imposter syndrome is incredibly common. Up to 70% of people experience imposter syndrome feelings at some point. And get this, 87% of entrepreneurs admit they've experienced imposter syndrome during their careers. Yes, almost 9 out of 10 entrepreneurs you admire have felt like fakes at one time or another. So when that voice in your head tells you that you're behind because you're not as confident or you're not as capable as others seem, know that those others likely have the same doubts privately. Even top CEOs have A survey found 71% of US CEOs have at least some imposter syndrome symptoms. The difference is they don't let it stop them, and neither should you. Realize that feelings like imposter syndrome doesn't mean you actually are one. It often means you're pushing your limits, and that's a good thing. It means you care about doing things well. Imposter syndrome lies to you. It convinces you that others have it together and that you don't. But the reality is they're figuring it out as they go, just like you. So the next time you feel like you're not as good as everyone else, remember these stats. You're in good company with those doubts. Recognize it, but don't buy into it. Instead of thinking, I'm behind because I don't feel as successful as them, tell yourself, feeling this way is normal and I won't let it stop my progress. Every entrepreneur is a work in progress. The ones who succeeded aren't necessarily the ones with zero self-doubt. They're the ones who kept going despite it. The myth of overnight success. When you see someone seemingly skyrocket to success, it's easy to think, wow, they came out of nowhere, I must be really behind. But overnight success is a myth. Almost every sudden success story has years of unseen work behind it. We don't see the first 10 or 20 years of effort, only the last flashy 5 minutes hits when the world notices. As an entrepreneur, try to internalize this: what looks fast in others was usually slow and steady in the making. Look at a couple examples from the business world. James Dyson spent 15 years creating 5,127 prototypes of his vacuum before finally making a successful one. 15 years of experiments and failures for a sudden multi-billion dollar product. Would you have thought he was behind in year 10 with nothing to show yet? Probably. But he wasn't. He was learning. The popular spray WD-40 literally got its name because the first 39 attempts failed. WD stands for water displacement, the 40th formula, meaning the inventors perfected it on the 40th try. 39 failures, then a hit. That's what real success often looks like. Colonel Harland Sanders founded KFC in his senior years. He didn't start franchising KFC until he was 62 years old. All those years before were trials and modest running of a restaurant. Imagine if at age 50 he thought it's too late, others are ahead. We'd have no KFC. His story proves it's never too late to win. And closer to home, my own story. You might see me now with millions of YouTube subscribers and think success came quickly. It didn't. We can pull back the curtain on the early progress. Here's a table that shows my YouTube growth from 2009 when I started, and look at the early years. May 1st, 2009, I had 25 subscribers. 5 years later, 9,414 subscribers. 5 years to not even get 10,000 subscribers. Not exactly an overnight explosion, but I didn't quit. I kept making videos, kept improving, kept building the audience one at a time. By 2018, I crossed 1.3 million subscribers. By 2022, I'm over 3 million subscribers. The early slow growth, just 344 subscribers after 2 years, 2,000 after 4 years. That's, that's normal. It set the foundation for later exponential growth. If I compared myself to other creators, I would've given up in 2014. It's like 5 years in, I would never have impacted millions of entrepreneurs. In fact, in my first year, I only got 3 comments from my mom, my sister, and one random person. It would've been easy for me to feel behind and let others stop me, but I kept going. I also asked for help. After years of slow growth, I found a mentor, who helped guide me. And with that help and with marrying my wife, my channel took off. So the lesson here was those early quiet years, they weren't failures. They were my practice. It was my learning. And every overnight success story has a hidden chapter of grit that nobody sees. So the next time you catch yourself envying somebody's huge success, remind yourself that there's a story behind it. They had challenges. They put in the time, and so will you. Your story is still being written. It might just be chapter 2 for you while they're in chapter 10, and chapters can get really exciting as the plot develops. So stay in the game so that you can experience that part. Delay gratification. Play the long game. Here's a trait that separates successful entrepreneurs: the ability to delay gratification. This means being willing to put in the work now for reward later instead of chasing an instant payoff. If you feel behind because you're not seeing results yet, Take heart. You might just be in the investment phase of your journey. You're planting the seeds that will bloom later. There's a famous psychology study that illustrates the power of patience. In the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, researchers put a child in a room with one marshmallow and told them that they could eat it now or wait 15 minutes and get two marshmallows when the researcher returned. Now, some kids ate the one marshmallow right away. Others waited for the bigger reward. Years later, follow-up studies found. That the children who waited for the second marshmallow tended to have better life outcomes— higher test scores, more education, even healthier BMI. In other words, those who could delay gratification succeeded more in the long run. Building a business is the ultimate test of delayed gratifications. You might work for months or years without significant recognition or revenue, but then reap huge rewards if you stick with it. It's like planting bamboo, the famous story. For years, years nothing seems to happen, then suddenly it shoots up overnight. When you see others winning fast, remember that fast is not always sustainable. Some entrepreneurs do strike quick success, but many of those cases, if not managed, fizzle out just as quickly. Meanwhile, if you are practicing patience and persistence, you're developing your strong roots. Delayed gratification is a superpower in entrepreneurship. It's what keeps you coding your app at night even when nobody is using it Because you believe in the future payoff. It's what makes you reinvest your early profits into the business instead of taking a bigger salary now, because you're playing the long game. If you can do this, you're actually ahead, not behind, in the game of eventual success. You're trading the short-term pleasures that many chase for the long-term victory that truly matters. So ask yourself, are you willing to endure now to enjoy later? If yes, then you have an edge. Every day you make the hard choice to work towards a future goal, you're beating the crowd that demands instant gratification. So keep at it, and when your success comes, it will be solid and earned, and it will last. Practical tips to focus on your journey. Okay, it's time to get practical. How can you stop feeling behind and start feeling motivated by your own path? Here are a few actionable tips for refocusing on your journey as an artist. Number one, limit social comparisons. Actively reduce the triggers that make you play the comparison game. This might mean curating your social media. Unfollow or mute accounts that constantly make you feel less than. Remember that heavy social media use can fuel envy and depression. So set boundaries. For example, check LinkedIn or Instagram once a day instead of every hour. Use that time to work on your business or skill instead. Out of sight, out of mind. If you're not flooding your brain with others' highlights, reels, you're focused more on your own progress. Next, use others as inspiration, not measurement. Change the way you react to others' success. When you see a peer celebrate a win, congratulate them mentally or in a comment, and then learn from them. Ask yourself, what can I learn from their journey? Maybe they have great marketing. Can you pick up a tip? Maybe their product is solving a real problem. Is your product aligned with solving a real need too? Shift from From envy to curiosity. This way, someone else's success fuels you instead of discourages you. Their success does not take away from yours. It's just proof that success is possible. If they can do it, so can you. Next, compare with your past self. The only valid comparison is you versus you. So start a habit of measuring backwards. You can keep a journal or log of metrics that matter to you. It could be revenue, customers, skills learned, et cetera. Each month, review it. You'll see growth that you might otherwise overlook. Maybe last month you had 2 clients and now you have 5. That's progress. Or a year ago, you didn't know anything about marketing and now you can run a decent ad campaign. That's a win. By focusing on your personal growth, you get a sense of achievement. You realize you're actually further along than before, which means you're moving forward, not stuck. So celebrate those improvements. Small wins pave the way to to big wins. Next, define your own success criteria. Take a moment to define what success actually even means to you. Is it a certain income or flexible lifestyle, making an impact in your community? If you get clear on your personal goals, you won't be as shaken by others. For example, if your goal this year is to develop a reliable product and break even financially, then someone else's Series A funding round, while nice for them, isn't your measure of success. Create a vision or mission for your business That's rooted in your values. I like to say that your purpose is greater than your fear. When you focus on your purpose, your why, you stop fearing that you're not keeping up with others. So chart your own course and stick to it. Next, practice delayed gratification. Remind yourself daily that you're playing the long game. When you hit a setback or a slow month, don't see it as failure. See it as part of the process. Develop routines that reinforce patience. For example, set aside time each week to plan long-term like product improvements, or you're learning a new skill that won't pay off immediately but will in the future. Celebrate yourself for putting in that work. You can even gamify it. Give yourself a small reward for sticking to a tough task instead of taking an easy shortcut like you normally do. That builds the muscle of patience. Remember the marshmallow experiment. Every time you choose the second marshmallow later in your business, like investing in R&D or building customer relationships slowly, you are setting yourself up for bigger rewards down the line. Next, seek mentors and peers or community. Instead of silently comparing yourself to high achievers, talk to them or to others on your journey. You'll often find that behind the scenes they're willing to share their struggles and lessons. Getting a mentor is one of the best ways to stay focused on growth rather than envy. My own growth accelerated once I found a mentor and I married my wife. A good mentor will remind you that everyone starts small, and they'll give you personalized advice to get better. Also, surround yourself with fellow entrepreneurs who are positive and supportive. Join a mastermind group or just connect with a couple of business owners that you trust. When you have a community, you realize that nobody's journey is a straight line. You'll see people hit roadblocks. You'll see them pivot, slow down, speed up. It gives you perspective that you're all in this evolving process. This together. Plus, when you do feel down, they will pick you up. Next, focus on what you can control. You can't control how fast someone else grows or what opportunities fall in their lap, but you can control your actions and attitude. So in the morning, ask yourself, what's one thing I can do today to move my business forward? It could be making one more sales call, writing a piece of code, improving your website. By pouring energy into what you can do, you shift attention away from other people. It empowers you. Progress comes from consistent action, not constant comparison. If you focus on daily actionable goals, before you know it, you'll have a lot to show for your efforts. Now, your pace might be different, but progress is still progress. So pick a couple of these tips and start practicing them. Over time, you'll notice the I'm behind voice getting quieter as you build confidence in your own journey. You're on your own timeline. Keep going. Here's the final truth: you are on your own timeline, and that's exactly where you need to be. Life isn't a race against anyone else. It's a journey where sometimes you sprint and sometimes you take the scenic route. Both are fine. Everyone seems to be winning faster than you only because you're looking at them. If you put that same focus back on you, you'll see how far you've come and how much more potential is ahead of you. And when doubt creeps in, remember the facts that we've covered. Most people feel like you do at times. You're not weird or doomed. Social media only shows the good parts, not the grind. And science and stories show that patience and persistence beat rushing every time. So remind yourself of the entrepreneurs who succeeded later or after many tries. Success does not have an expiry date. As long as you're still in the game, you're not behind. You're building. So keep showing up, keep learning, keep improving, keep pushing forward. Your breakthrough moment is coming, and when it does, you realize it was all the previous ordinary days of work that made it possible. Every great story has ups and downs before the climax. This is your story. Embrace your journey, all of it, and trust that your time to win big is on its way. Now go out there and do your thing. The only person you need to beat is the one you were yesterday. Focus on that and you will win. You've got this. You do not need to be a genius to learn as fast as Elon You can learn anything you want for free.

It is not a question of learning.

I think just kind of throwing yourself into different situations to learn new things is— I don't know, I think that that's just a big part of life.

You don't need to be a genius in what I do.

The ability to master any new skill in record time is just a simple framework that anyone can copy.

First principles analysis, I think, is something that can be applied to really any walk of life, any, anything. Really, it's really just saying let's boil something down to the most fundamental principles. The things that we are most confident are true at a foundational level.

If you keep trying to memorize information the traditional way, you will fall so far behind your competitors that your business will fail.

I think a lot of things people learn are probably there's no point in learning them. Colleges are basically for fun and to prove you can do your chores, but they're not for learning.

When Elon Musk decided to build a rocket, people. Laughed at him. He did not have a degree in aerospace engineering. He was a software guy, but he did not let that stop him. In a Reddit Ask Me Anything, Elon revealed his secret. He said most people can learn a lot more than they think they can. He views knowledge as a tree. He makes sure he understands the fundamental principles first. He learns the trunk and big branches before he gets into the leaves and details. He mastered rocket science by focusing the core ideas first. Now, you might be thinking that Elon Musk is a billionaire genius with a photographic memory, and you are just a regular person trying to build a business. You think this method only works if you already have a massive brain, but that is completely wrong. The truth is that Elon uses this method to organize his brain because human memory is deeply flawed. When you use this exact knowledge tree method, you level the playing field and unlock your true potential. So today I'm going to show you exactly how to build your own knowledge tree step by step. Identify first principles. You cannot learn fast if you are blinded by what other people are doing. The biggest mistake you make when trying to learn a new business is copying your competitors. This is called reasoning by analogy. You look at what is already out there and you try to make a slightly better version. This is a trap that keeps you slow and average. Elon Musk does not reason by analogy. He uses first principles thinking. So when he wanted to send a rocket to Mars, he found out that buying a rocket would cost $65 million. Most people would just accept that price and give up. Elon did not give up. He broke the rocket down to its fundamental truths. He looked at the raw materials of the rocket. He found out that the aerospace-grade aluminum alloys, titanium, copper, and carbon fiber only cost 2% of the typical rocket price. He learned how to build rockets by focusing only on the raw materials. You must do the exact same thing in your business. So when I was 19 years old, I walked away from a 6-figure finance job. I decided to join a software startup where I was making $300 a month. I was struggling. I was completely isolated and alone. I did not know how to sell anything, let alone scientific software. Instead of looking at my local competitors, I looked at the biggest success that I can find. I studied Bill Gates. I broke down his early strategies to their absolute core truths. I applied his exact raw materials for success to build up my tiny company. Because I stopped copying average people and broke the problem down to its first principles, I landed my first deal for $13,500. So if you want to learn a new skill right now, stop looking at the surface level. Write down the absolute facts of the problem. Strip away the opinions, the assumptions, and the industry traditions. Those are usually the worst. Once you have the raw materials, you can then build a completely new and faster way to learn. But identifying the raw materials is only the first step. You still need a place to put them inside your brain. Plant your semantic tree. Most people try to memorize random facts, tips, tricks. This is why you forget everything that you read. Your brain is not a filing cabinet for random data. Elon Musk explained his secret in that famous Reddit interview. He said you must view knowledge as a semantic tree. You have to understand the trunk and the big branches first. If you do not understand the trunk, the leaves and the tiny details have nothing to hang on to. There is a proven scientific reason why this works. It is called schema theory. A schema is a mental slot in your long-term memory. It acts like a cognitive shortcut. So when you learn the core trunk of a subject, you create a permanent schema in your brain. When you learn a new tiny detail later, your brain instantly knows exactly where to put it. So think about this in real life. So I'm a big salsa dancer, right? I met my wife Nina at the salsa studio that I then later bought and now own. But when I was first starting dancing, I was terrible. I wanted to look cool immediately. I wanted to learn the advanced spins, the dips, the crazy hand tricks, but those moves are the leaves of the tree. If you try to learn the leaves first, you'll fall flat on your face. You have to learn the basic step first— forward and back, side to side. That basic step is the trunk. Once your brain understands the trunk, every single advanced spin becomes incredibly easy to learn. So we can apply this to your business. If you want to master marketing, do not start by learning the latest social media algorithm hacks. Those are the leaves. They will change next week anyway. Learn human psychology. Learn why people buy things. Build your trunk first. And once you have a strong trunk, you need a system that actually forces that information into your daily schedule. Chunk your time and knowledge. You cannot learn a massive subject all at once. Your working memory, it has a strict limit. In psychology, there is a famous concept called the magical number 7. It proves that the human brain can only hold a few pieces of information at a time before it starts to get completely overwhelmed. To get around this, you must use a process called chunking. You break massive amounts of data into tiny bite-sized chunks. Elon Musk uses chunking to manage his entire life. He runs multiple billion-dollar companies by breaking his day into tiny 5-minute blocks. He focuses completely on one single problem for 5 minutes, solves it, moves on to the next He uses techniques similar to the Pomodoro method to maintain his intense razor-sharp focus. And I use this exact same mental strategy when I'm playing games. When I play League of Legends or Minecraft, I don't sit down and just try to win the entire game in one giant move. I break the game down into tiny quests. I focus on finding one resource. I focus on winning my lane in trades. You need to treat your learning the exact same way. Do not sit down and say you're going to learn everything about sales today. You will just get frustrated and quit. Block off 20 minutes, focus on learning how to write one single cold email, master that one chunk, then move on to the next. But even if you chunk your time perfectly, nothing matters if you refuse to take messy action. Force your brain to change. You cannot train your brain just by reading books. You have to actually perform the skill. Your brain is a physical muscle. It uses a biological process called neuroplasticity to adapt to new challenges. Neuroplasticity means that your brain literally reorganizes itself and creates new neural pathways based on your experiences. To force these new pathways to grow, you have to put yourself in uncomfortable situations, new situations. You have to expect to suck at the beginning. When I decided to start my YouTube channel, I was a massive introvert. I still am. I was terrified of getting in front of the camera. I did not know what I was doing. My first videos were terrible, but I didn't quit. I forced my brain to adapt through just sheer volume and repetition. It took me 350 videos before I could even watch my own content back without being completely embarrassed by myself when I was doing it. It took me 700 videos before I finally watched a video and thought, oh my God, I'm starting to get good at this. I built my entire business because I was willing to be bad at something long enough to let my brain learn how to be good at it, right? You can see my whole YouTube journey Go back and watch all the videos on my channel. They're all still there. You can see all the mistakes that I made early on, and you can do the exact same thing. If you want to learn a skill like Elon Musk, you have to embrace the pain of being a beginner. Your purpose comes from your pain. The struggle you feel when you are learning something new is just your brain physically upgrading itself. So stop waiting for the perfect time. Stop researching. Start doing the actual work. Trust that great ideas flow through you and take the first step. Because you have the raw materials, you have the semantic tree, you have the focus to master anything. Now you just need to believe. Your next step to greatness. Everything you want out of life is possible if you just believe in it more. You are entirely capable of mastering any skill you need to build your dream business. Do not let fear or slow learning stop you from serving the world. Take your new knowledge tree and go make something You will never become a billionaire or even a millionaire by following the advice of the middle class. Most people think that extreme wealth comes from luck or inheritance or being in the right place at the right time, but the truth is it comes from having the guts to concentrate your bets when everyone else is diversifying to protect their ignorance. If you keep spreading your focus, your energy, and your money across a dozen different safe options, because you are afraid of losing, you will guarantee that you end up with a life of mediocrity and never reach the massive potential that you were built for. In 2008, Elon Musk was facing the worst year of his life. He had made $180 million from selling PayPal, a fortune that would set most people up for life on a private island. But Musk isn't most people. He had poured almost all of that money into 2 companies that looked like they were about to die. Tesla and SpaceX. SpaceX had 3 failed rocket launches in a row. Tesla was running out of cash and couldn't make payroll. Musk had about $40 million left. He had a choice. He could put all the money into one company to save it, but that would mean the other would definitely die. Or he could split the money between them to try to keep both alive, but risk running out of cash for both and losing absolutely everything. Most people would have walked away. They would have kept the $40 million and lived like a king. Musk chose the hardest path. He split the money. He went all in on both. He literally had to borrow money from friends to pay his rent because he had zero liquid cash left. On Christmas Eve 2008, at the very last hour, a financing round came through for Tesla. Days later, NASA awarded SpaceX a contract. He risked $180 million to get to zero just to have a shot at changing the Today, he's the richest man on the planet. So right now you're probably telling yourself, but Evan, I don't have $180 million like Elon Musk. And that's not the point. It's not about the amount of money. It's about the habit of your mind. You're playing small with the $1,000 the same way you'd play small with $10 million. If you cannot bet on yourself when you have nothing to lose, you will never bet on yourself when you have everything to lose. Today we're going to break down the actual blueprint. I analyzed 50 billionaires to find out what they actually have in common, and it's not what you think. The trap of diversification. The first thing you need to understand is that billionaires do not get rich by diversifying. You have been told your whole life, don't put all your eggs in one basket. That is great advice if your goal is to preserve wealth. It's terrible advice if your goal is to create wealth and build an empire. Warren Buffett, one of the greatest investors of all time, calls diversification protection against ignorance. He says it makes very little sense for anyone who knows what they are doing. If you know how to analyze a business, if you know your market, if you know your value, why would you put your money into your 20th best idea instead of your top idea? When you look at the portfolios of the ultra-wealthy, you see extreme concentration. They find one thing they believe in, usually a company they built themselves or an investment they know inside and out, and they push all their chips into the middle of the table. Bill Gates didn't diversify into real estate and gold when he was starting Microsoft. He was 100% Microsoft. Jeff Bezos wasn't buying stocks in other retailers in 1999. He was 100% Amazon. And the data backs this up. There's a study by Acadian Asset Management that looked at concentrated portfolio managers versus diversified ones, they found that the managers who had the courage to bet big on their best ideas, their top 5 to 10 stocks, significantly outperformed the ones who spread their bets thin. The managers who concentrated their portfolios generated higher returns because they were betting on their conviction, not their fear. You are hurting your own growth by trying to do too many things at once. You have a side hustle and a main job, and you're thinking about crypto, and you're trying to start a YouTube channel. And you're learning Spanish. You are diversifying your energy because you are afraid that if you pick just one thing, it might fail. But by doing five things at 20% effort, you are guaranteeing that all five of them fail. You need to find your wonderful business. Buffett says if you can find just three wonderful businesses in your life, you will get very rich. You don't need 50; you need one. You need. to become an expert in one area. You need to know more about your specific niche than anyone else in the room. When you have that level of knowledge, you don't need to diversify to protect yourself. Your knowledge is your protection. So stop trying to be okay at everything and give yourself permission to be a genius at one thing. Put your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket very closely, like Andrew Carnegie used to say. The power of disagreeableness. If you want to be a billionaire, you have to stop caring what other people think. I don't mean you should be a jerk. I mean, you must possess a psychological trait known as low agreeableness. Researchers from the Socioeconomic Panel in Germany analyzed the personality traits of millionaires and billionaires. They used the Big Five personality model. They found a consistent pattern. Wealthy people score very high on conscientiousness, They are disciplined and they're organized. They score high in openness. They like new ideas, but they score significantly lower than the average person on agreeableness. This means they are not afraid of conflict. They are not afraid to swim against the tide. They do not need social harmony to feel good about themselves. When you are building something massive, people are going to tell you that you are crazy. They are going to tell you that it cannot be done. They are going to tell you that you are wrong. If you have high agreeableness, you will listen to them. You will try to fit in. You will compromise your vision to make everyone feel comfortable. Billionaires don't do that. They are nonconformists. Look at Steve Jobs. He was famous for his reality distortion field. He would demand things that his engineers said were impossible. He wasn't trying to be their friend. He wasn't trying to be agreeable. He was trying to change the world. He didn't care if people thought that he was difficult. He cared about the vision. You have to be willing to be misunderstood. You have to fight for your idea when no one else sees it. You have to be the one who says yes when the whole world says no. This is why so many billionaires are entrepreneurs. You cannot climb the corporate ladder if you are highly disagreeable. The corporate world rewards people who follow the rules and play nice. The entrepreneurial world rewards people who break the rules and create new realities. So you can ask yourself today, where are you compromising your dream just to avoid an awkward conversation? Where are you saying okay when you want to scream no? Stop trying to please everyone. You are not pizza. You are a leader. Lead. The obsession with speed. Speed is the ultimate weapon. If you look at the daily habits of billionaires, they do not waste time. They understand that time is the only asset that they can never buy back. There is a concept called return on time investment, or ROTI. Billionaires are obsessed with this. They aggressively use leverage— other people's money, other people's time, systems, and technology— to make sure that their personal time is spent only on the highest value tasks. When I analyze successful people on my channel, I see this pattern over and over. They don't just work hard. They work fast. Tom Bilyeu, friend of the channel, has a strict routine. He gets up, he works out to build discipline, he meditates to clear his mind, and then he attacks his most important tasks immediately. He doesn't check email first. He doesn't scroll social media. He calls it thinkitating, using his brainpower to solve complex problems before the world can distract him. Most people are moving too slow. You have an idea for a business. You spend 6 months researching a logo, You want to start a podcast and you spend 3 weeks looking for the perfect microphone to buy, right? You're using preparation as an excuse to hide. If you wait until you feel ready, you will be waiting for the rest of your life. Billionaires act on information immediately. When Elon Musk faced that crisis in 2008, he didn't take a month off to think about it. He was on the phone, flying around the world, negotiating deals, moving money, literally working 20 hours a day to save his companies. The speed of his decisions saved him. You need to shorten the gap between the idea and the execution. If you have an idea right now, do something about it in the next 10 minutes. Send the email, buy the domain, post a video, call the client. Stop overthinking. Your brain is designed to keep you safe, not to make you rich. Safety is slow. Wealth is fast. The billionaire mindset is about shrinking timelines If you think a goal will take you 10 years, ask yourself, how can I achieve this in 6 months? Even if you fail, you will be further ahead than if you stuck to the 10-year plan. So a lot of you are waiting for permission. You're waiting for someone to tell you that you are good enough. You're waiting for the perfect time. There is no perfect time. The perfect time was yesterday. The second best time is right now. The ability to handle crisis. You will never reach the top without facing a moment that threatens to destroy everything that you have built. This is the existential crisis phase. Every single billionaire that I've studied has gone through a moment where it looked like it was all over. We talked about Elon Musk in 2008, but look at Jeff Bezos. In the dot-com crash of 2001, Amazon lost 90% of its value. 90%! Imagine looking at your net worth and seeing it drop by 90%. Most CEOs panicked. They folded. They went bankrupt. Bezos did didn't panic. He focused on the math. He focused on one single metric: the cash conversion cycle. He realized that if he could get cash from customers before he had to pay his suppliers, he could fund his own growth without needing banks or investors. He turned Amazon into a cash-generating machine during the worst crash in the history of the internet. He didn't just survive the crisis, he used the crisis to become stronger. This is what Nassim Taleb calls Antifragile. It's not just about resilience, which is bouncing back to where you were; it's about getting better because of the stress. When you are building your business, you are going to get hit. You are going to lose a big client. Your star employee is going to quit on you. The economy is going to tank. Pandemic is going to shut down the world. If you crumble when things get hard, you are not ready for this level of success. Yet billionaires look at crisis as a puzzle to be solved. Not a sign that they need to stop. They maintain an internal locus of control. They believe that no matter how bad the external situation is, they have the power to fix it. They don't blame the economy. They don't blame the government. They don't blame their team. They take extreme ownership. So when bad things happen to you, do you play the victim or do you become the architect of your own rescue? Your pain is your training ground. The struggles that you are facing right now are not there to stop you. They are there to prepare you for the weight of the success you are asking for. If you can't handle the pressure of a $10,000 problem, life will never trust you with a $10 million problem. So embrace the crisis. It is the fire that forges the steel. They solve the biggest problems. Perhaps the most important thing billionaires have in common is the scale of the problems that they So you are paid in direct proportion to the difficulty of the problems that you solve. If you solve a small problem for a few people, you make a little bit of money. If you solve a massive problem for millions of people, you become a billionaire. So look at the billionaires that we've talked about. Elon Musk is trying to solve the problem of fossil fuels with Tesla and the problem of human extinction with SpaceX. Pretty big problems. Bill Gates solved the problem of putting a computer on every desk in every home. Jeff Bezos solved the problem of getting anything that you want delivered to your door in 2 days. These are not small problems. Most entrepreneurs aim too low. They start a business just to make money. They want to just pay their bills. They want a nice car. And there's nothing wrong with that, but it won't make you a billionaire. You have to fall in love with the problem. And to go to the next level, you have to expand your vision. You have to ask, how can I help more people? How can I serve deeper? You need to find your one word. You need to find the core value that drives you. Because when things get hard, and they will get hard, money will not be enough motivation to keep you going. You need a mission. If you're just chasing paper, you will burn out. If you are chasing a purpose, you will be unstoppable. So the billionaires I know, the ones I study, they're not sitting around counting their money. They are working harder than you and me. Why? Because they're obsessed with the problem they are solving. They are built to serve. So if you want to join their ranks, stop asking, how can I make a billion dollars? And start asking, how can I help a billion people? The money is just a byproduct of the value that you create. Focus on the value, focus on the service, focus on the impact. You have Michael Jordan-level talent at something. You have a genius inside of you that is waiting to be unlocked, but you are keeping it small because you don't believe in yourself enough to tackle the big problems. The world is waiting for you to step up. The world has huge problems that need your specific genius to solve, so don't deprive us of your contribution because you're afraid to fail. Go bigger. Your intelligence is the reason you're not successful. Being smart might actually be holding you back. Every day I see brilliant people with sky-high IQs lose to others with half their talent. Why? Because intelligence alone doesn't automatically translate to results. If you keep letting your smartness When your doubts run the show, you'll watch those average people, the ones who show up consistently and push through, leapfrog right over you. And the worst part? The world misses out on your genius. The woman who should have cured cancer might be stuck in a dead-end job because she didn't believe in herself or take action. Think of the tortoise and the hare. The fast, cocky hare, the smart one, took a nap thinking he had the race won. The slow but steady tortoise kept going and crossed the finish line first. In real life, too many smart people act like the hare, so confident in their brainpower that they get complacent or overcomplicate everything while the less assuming tortoises quietly grind out the win. Being the hare might feel good at first, but it doesn't win races. I learned that the hard way. In my early 20s, I had a shot at a life-changing deal, selling my first company for millions of dollars. I was trying to be the smart kid with a detailed plan, and I overplanned everything. I spent months crafting the perfect business plan instead of actually doing something. And guess what happened? A big company came looking to buy businesses like mine, but we weren't ready to move. It came down to my company and our biggest competitor, and we lost. And that competitor of ours got bought for $40 million while I was still polishing my plan. $40 million. That stung. I could have sold my business for $40 million, but I missed my shot because I was being too perfect. That failure woke me up. I realized my smart plan was really just fear in disguise. Fear of making a mistake. Fear of it not being perfect. Perfectionism is really just fear. We call it diligence, but really you're just scared. I decided to become a recovering perfectionist after that. Now, when I get a great idea, I force myself to act on it immediately. Before my brain can come up with 20 reasons to wait. I learned that a half-assed plan that you actually execute is better than a perfect plan that stays in your head. Now, at this point, you might be thinking, Evan, are you saying I should stop being smart? Am I supposed to dumb it down to succeed? No, I'm not saying abandon your brain or act recklessly. I'm saying you have to change how you use your intelligence. Right now, your smarts are running the show and running you into a wall. You probably pride yourself on being the smartest person in the But is that working out for you? If you're so smart, why aren't you where you want to be? The truth is raw intelligence without execution gets you nowhere. You have to get out of your head and into action. Being smart is a gift, but if you don't pair that gift with courage, with discipline, with hustle, it will absolutely hold you back. Don't let your ego or fear of not looking smart keep you from growing. The only thing worse than being seen as not smart is being full of potential and never actually achieving anything. So yes, keep your intelligence, but put it to work for you, not against you. So let's talk about how to fix this. Let's turn your intelligence into an asset instead of a liability. Here we go. Why smart people struggle with success and how to turn it around. Number 1, you overthink everything. Smart people can get stuck in analysis paralysis. Your brain sees 20 angles to every problem. You can imagine every possible outcome. And all that analysis leaves you spinning in circles. Sound familiar? You plan and you plan and you plan and nothing actually happens. Meanwhile, someone with half your brainpower just picks a direction and goes. They get results while you're still in your head. Here's the deal. Thinking about doing something and actually doing it are completely different things. No matter how brilliant your idea is, you must act on it. Studies in cognitive psychology even show that excessive deliberation can lead to worse decisions because you start second-guessing yourself and overcomplicating simple choices. So what's the solution? Decide and go. Give yourself a deadline to make a decision and then execute. Trust your intuition and start moving. You can adjust course as you go. Remember, real progress happens in the real world, not in your head. Don't let overthinking murder your momentum. Number 2. You're chasing perfect and it's slowing you down. This was my curse in school. You might have been the kid who got A's, who set super high standards in life and business. Those high standards can actually cripple you. You rewrite the opening chapter 7 times and never publish the book. You tinker with your product endlessly because it's not good enough yet to launch. Guess what? Perfect is the enemy of progress. Successful people execute and then iterate. Unsuccessful smart people keep polishing a draft that never sees the light of day. Here's how one entrepreneur put it. You can't refine what doesn't exist. You can't improve a product that never launched. Average performers often beat perfectionists because they're willing to put out good enough and then improve later. My own $40 million mistake was due to perfectionism. I waited and wanted the perfect plan, and I was too late. Learn from my mistake. Launch messy, embrace mistakes. Done is better than perfect. And remember that urge to be perfect? It's really fear. Perfectionism is fear in a tuxedo. It looks respectable, even admirable, but it's killing your success. So punch fear in the face by putting out your work, flaws and all. Progress beats perfection every time. Number 3, you rely on talent instead of work. This one stings, but I've seen it so often. Things come easy for you, right? School, jobs, picking up new skills. You're used to being the best with minimal effort. Meanwhile, others had to grind to get good, and the result is you never developed the discipline and habits that success actually requires. Maybe you breezed through school without studying, so you never learned how to truly study or struggle. You prided yourself on pulling off last-minute miracles or acing presentations with no prep, and it worked until now. So when you finally hit something hard, something that doesn't come instantly, you stall or quit because you don't have the tools or grit to push through. Psychology research backs this up. People who think intelligence is fixed tend to avoid challenges that might prove them wrong. But those who believe abilities grow with effort are the ones who persist when things get tough. So natural talent might open the door, but discipline, resilience, and grind get you to the finish line. If you've coasted on talent, it's time to be humble and get to work. Being smart is not an excuse to be lazy. Embrace the beginner's mindset. Push yourself to do the uncomfortable drills, The boring repetitions, the late-night study sessions. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard every single time. Number 4, you get bored and lose focus. So let's get real, highly intelligent people get bored easily. Your brain craves novelty and big ideas. Once you figure something out, doing the actual work feels tedious. You love planning the project but hate the day-to-day grind of executing it. And I get it, but here's the reality. Most success is built in the boring middle. The book that you want to write, 5% is the exciting idea and 95% is sitting down day after day banging out words or editing. And that business you want to build, the concept is thrilling, but actually building it involves 1,000 tedious tasks, paperwork and emails and routines. Not exactly fun or intellectually stimulating. The smartest people often struggle here. Isn't this work beneath me? No, this work makes you. Consistency is the secret weapon of the average. Those who succeed are willing to do the uninspiring stuff consistently without constantly questioning, is this worth my genius? If boredom is killing your momentum, fix it by reframing the boring stuff as a challenge. Can you show up and execute even when it's not exciting? That's your new game. Also, systemize your life. Build routines and accountability that keep you moving forward even when you're not feeling it. The ability to do boring things consistently is incredibly valuable. Master it and you'll leave the dabbling geniuses in the dust. Number 5, you live in theory, not reality. Smart people often fall in love with theories and big picture ideas. You might design elegant strategies in your head, craft perfect models of how things should work. But then here's how things do work in real life, which is usually much messier. If you're too attached to the ideal scenario, you can become disconnected from actual reality. So for example, you might refuse to launch a product until you understand every aspect perfectly, or you insist on a plan going exactly as imagined. And when it doesn't, you freeze. Meanwhile, less brilliant people are adapting on the fly and they're getting results. So what's the fix? Embrace reality and adjust. Don't let your beautiful theory stop you from getting your hands dirty. Dirty. Maybe your strategy should be tweaked. That's fine. Maybe your hypothesis was wrong. Learn and you pivot. Actionable data comes from the real world, not the daydreams. So don't wait for conditions to match your mental model. Get out there, try stuff, and adjust to the feedback. Remember, your ability to learn and adapt beats your ability to pontificate. Stay grounded and stay flexible. Number 6, you undervalue emotional intelligence and help from others. Success is not a solo brain game. It's a team sport. If you're brilliant but can't work with other people, you're going to hit a ceiling fast. Maybe you've told yourself others just slow me down, or no one can do it as well as I can, right? Classic smart person trap. The truth is someone with average IQ but great people skills will outrun a genius who alienates others. Businesses, careers, life, they all run on relationships. If you struggle to communicate, Collaborate or to ask for help. That's a major blind spot. And I used to try everything alone and not admit weakness. It nearly broke me. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone that I was struggling, and that loneliness almost made me quit. I learned that if you don't ask for help, you end up stuck and isolated and far more likely to fail. So don't let the pride or social awkwardness sabotage you. You don't have to be an extrovert or the life of a party. I'm not. Just develop the skills to connect and communicate. Listen more, be curious about others, find mentors, and accept their advice. If you lack some of the soft skills, learn it. Being smart means you can grow here too. Remember, being right isn't enough. You have to bring others along if you want to do something big. And if you have a big dream, you'll definitely need others. So start valuing emotional intelligence as much as book intelligence. It's not soft. It's the glue that holds your success together. Okay, now let's bring this home. We've identified the traps. Over-analysis, perfectionism, coasting on talent, lacking of follow-through, living in theory, and flying solo. These are natural tendencies of a powerful mind, but if you leave them unchecked, they become big barriers. The great news is you can overcome each one. Self-awareness is step 1. If you've nodded along or winced at any of these points, you're already learning where to improve. Step 2 is to work with your tendencies instead of against them. Build systems and habits to counteract your weak spots. For example, if you know that you overthink, set strict deadlines or accountability partners to force action even when you're in your head. If you're a perfectionist, set good enough goals. Deliberately release version 1.0 of a project when it's 80% there, just to prove to yourself the world doesn't end if it's not perfect. If you get bored, gamify the process or tie boring tasks to a deeper mission that actually fires you up. Practice doing things before you feel fully ready for them. This starts to train you to gather real-world feedback. And if going it alone is not working for you, find a coach, a community, a partner who can push you and keep you accountable. And most of all, shift your identity. Don't see yourself as the smart one. See yourself as the bold one, the action taker, the lifelong learner, the resilient fighter. Yes, you're smart. So use that brain to strategize ways to get out of your comfort zone instead of clever excuses to stay in it. My mom used to tell me, if you have the ability, you have the responsibility. If you can, then you must. And that hit me hard and stays with me. Your intelligence is a gift, not just for acing tests or impressing people, but for making an impact. If you're capable of more, you owe it to yourself and the world to do more. I know there's genius inside of you. Everybody has what I call Michael Jordan-level talent or genius at something. Don't let it go to Don't let your dreams go to waste because of fear, laziness, or ego. Break the patterns. Do the uncomfortable work. The world needs what you have, and you deserve to fulfill the measure of your potential. And congratulations, you're one video closer to who you're meant to be. Believe. To learn the psychology of wealth building, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.

I would definitely advise a small startup company to be as narrow and as focused as is possible.

Every day you're going to be faced with 100 things that you could potentially go do, and your job is to pick the one thing that you're going to do.