If I Started From $0 in 2026, This Is What I’d Do to Get Rich | Dan Peña’s

Self-esteem is the key to high performance. It's not work if you love what you're doing. But does that look like your group? No. If you left it to engineers, no car would ever come off the assembly line. Focus on the few, not the many. And most of you don't believe passionately in what you're doing. What gets measured gets accomplished. You just gotta fucking do it. But I'm high on life. I always have been high on life. When they look in the mirror, Brian, they don't like what they see.

He's a Hispanic American businessman, entrepreneur, mentor, and business coach. He's the author of the popular book, Your First $100 Million. He's known for his 7-day Castle Seminar on Quantum Leap Advantage. He's Dan Peña, and here are his top 10 rules for success.

And to practice success before you're successful. One of the stories, and I know Peter remembers it, before I had any money, I used to go to the Rolls-Royce dealers and sit in the cars and smell the leather. Touch the leather, okay. In these days, this is 40 years ago, I went to million-dollar houses and my wife and I would walk through the house and they'd say, when are your parents getting here, kids? No, we are the buyers, okay. And to get used to it, and that's the reason the council is so effective. And the reason I stopped giving outside seminars is that the success rate is almost 5 times greater Going to the castle, having a butler wait on you, dressing, thinking more of yourself, because self-esteem is the key to high performance. If we feel good about ourselves and we hang around with people, the average of the 5 people that we are mostly around is who we turn out to be. Follow what you're passionate about, what you love. It's not work if you love what you're doing. Most people, when I say they're living quiet lives of desperation, is because they're involved in a business and/or a job that they don't enjoy, they're not passionate about. So if you found something that you're passionate about, then it doesn't matter if you work 3 hours a day or 13 hours a day. That's where you start. And most people aren't there. Most people have to find that. But does that look like your group? No, it doesn't look like your group. I mean, in no way, shape, manner, or form. You know, maybe if we had a bunch of bunny rabbits running there, uh, or, uh, it's unbelievable. But again, you are who you hang around with, you know. And as Oprah Winfrey says, and which I, I talk about a lot, is that you want people with a like mind and that are better than you, smarter than you, more intelligent than you to get on your bus. And don't be so concerned about what you're going to do with those people, but you want to, you know, the joint brain is, you know, there's nothing the joint brain, collective brain or brains, can't overcome. And I give the example of the atomic bomb, Manhattan Project, and they were put together and they were told we need, we need to develop a weapon of mass destruction, which they didn't call it that back in those days, in the middle '40s to end the war in the Pacific. And they did. They didn't know if it was implode or explode, but they did. But if your team doesn't look like that, then you should— I won't say you should give serious thought, you should just fucking change. Perfection equals paralysis. Okay, so that you can never make a perfect decision. No, no. If you left it to engineers, no car would ever come off the assembly line. No car would ever come off the assembly line. And I've been in business with enough engineers, I can attest to that with my hand on my heart. They'd still be trying to make it better. And the internet business is very much the same. The internet kids want to test and test and test. And they want the landing page to be this. Roll it out. The great thing about the internet is your results are instantaneous. And you can make changes instantaneously. Correct. I mean, if something that I'm overseeing at Concorde level, 60,000 feet, doesn't work in 2 days, shitcan it. Forget about it. Move on. And today at our meeting, now the young kids are, we ran it 3 days, sir, and we closed it down. And they are thinking I'm going to ask why. I said, no, that's fine. Because without them making mistakes and without them being allowed to make the decision, they never get any better. And 95% of the time, I know probably better than they do, but we're never going to be able to know everything or have them know everything unless, and they will never know everything, but unless they make mistakes and make mistakes and get comfortable with making mistakes. Clausewitz, the famous Prussian general, said, focus on the few, not the many. And the one biggest— the most common error that I see in successful, reasonably successful businessmen and women is that they try to do too many things. And focus on the few, not the many. Most of you lack the skills to sell your vision with clarity because you don't practice And the travesty really is because you don't believe enough in it. You just don't. And if what you're trying to finance isn't your dream, isn't your vision, I mean, the banker or the person on the other side of the table sees through it clearly. They know just absolutely, definitively, because at the end of the day they want to feel down deep inside warm and fuzzy that this person or this person will do whatever it takes to pay me back the money. And if you don't believe with all your heart, then you're not gonna, you know, go that extra mile. That's what they want to believe. And most of you don't believe passionately in what you're doing. And that's why it's very easy for me to say you ought to turn the damn key. Just walk away and look for something that you can passionately believe in. Is that so difficult? Another one of my great influencers is Toyota, Toyota Automobile. He wrote a book called The Toyota Way, and he said constant supervised stress, constant supervised— actually, I think he used the word organized stress. What does that mean? It means keep people accountable, just like Peter Sage says, right? Keep people— what gets measured gets accomplished. And I have signs in most of the businesses I'm involved in. When you walk in the door, there's a big thing about as big as that painting there. What gets measured gets accomplished. Right. Without measurement, you're just fooling yourself. Okay, the question is, do you, the person asking the question, have what it takes to do what Dan did? And you never know. But no one does know. Initially, up front. You have to try. You have to swing at the plate. You have to, you know, take risk. You have to be willing to sacrifice. You have to be willing to make commitment. And just fucking do it. I keep saying that. I mean, it's simplistic. It sounds like I'm, you know, I haven't thought the question through, but that's not the point at all. The point is, after 21 years of coaching and after almost 45 years of doing doing this myself and being a high-performance person in 6 decades, I realize you just gotta fucking do it. But I'm high on life. Okay, okay. And that became popular in the '60s when everybody was doing LSD, right? Okay. But I'm high on life. I always have been high on life. I've got a lot of energy. I have the same energy I have today as I did 30 years ago. You're naturally a positive person. I'm 100% positive. I don't— you know, the most contagious thing in the world isn't a positive action. It's a negative thought, a negative thought. And because you can— that can grow geometrically, uh, and kill deals, kill even companies for that matter. And so, but I'm extremely positive. And I tell people, one of the things that you need to do— and I'm stealing my thunder— is you need to be more selfish. Me? You as an individual.

Jesus.

All right, I'm not selfish enough. No, no, no, nobody is. Okay. Because you can't love somebody or love what you're doing unless you love yourself. And most people, and I've got a whole section on this, when they look in the mirror, Brian, they don't like what they see. I'm bald, I'm too wrinkled, my tits are too small, my tits are too big, my ass is too— my— I've got, uh, uh, what do you call when you get acne? I've got this, you know, uh, my, my shoulders aren't wide enough, you know, uh, nobody likes— nobody, not nobody, but Many people don't like what they see when they look in the mirror. So you got— so you get them to, to be more selfish and to like themselves more? Yeah. No, love. We don't want like, love, love.

Thank you so much for watching. I made this video because Numan Rashid asked me to. So if there's a famous entrepreneur that you want me to profile next, leave it in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know which of Danny Peña's top 10 rules hit you the hardest. Leave it in the comments and I'll join the discussion. Thank you so much for watching, continue to believe, and I'll see you soon.