The Billionaire Mindset: The 3 Secrets They Don’t Want You to Know

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. Each week I'll publish a solo cast where I'll share my top high performance habits and methodologies to supercharge your life and career. If you enjoy the show, please take a short moment to subscribe and leave a rating and review. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

The Lead On Purpose podcast is sponsored by NZ Mortgages Lead. Learn more at nzmortgages.co nz Would you like to know what the secret is behind becoming a billionaire? Well, I'm about to share that with you. Every now and then I get to sit down with billionaires, get to ask them questions, sit at length, go deep, and figure out what it is that helped them become a billionaire. Now, not everybody wants to become a billionaire, but maybe some people want to become a millionaire or they want a little bit more financial freedom. Well, what I learned over the last few days really blew my mind and I want to let you in on it. I feel very privileged and you know, I'm grateful for the people that I get to sit down with and learn from. But I also feel a bit guilty because not everyone gets that opportunity. So that's why I run the show, to let everyone else in on the conversations that I get to have. Because it's only fair that we get to share this, that we all get to learn from it, that we devolve power. And for too long, power has sat with the top 0.01% that needs to change. The only way we want to change that is through platforms like this, where we take that information, that wisdom, that knowledge, and share it. So over the last few days, I've sat with seven or eight incredible leaders. One of them started a business by herself with a couple of others alongside her, and built it to the point where she sold it for a billion dollars. She was the Very first New Zealand female to do so. Now as we were chatting I discovered it wasn't a formula that helped her do it. It wasn't a scientific strategy that helped her do it. It was this. This is the one thing that I noticed she did that helped her become a billionaire. And this is true for other billionaires I've sat with.

Her secret is that billionaire thinking is the way to achieve it. Not billionaire strategy, not billionaire muscling. Like it's not doing and hustling. It's actually taking the time to think. Billionaires think differently. I'm going to go into that a little bit and share a couple of things with you around what I learned from this amazing human. I and don't worry, I will be sharing the full feature length episode with her soon. So keep an eye on the channel. You don't want to miss that. It's phenomenal. But a couple of things come up. I've just as you for those that are watching this, you'll see I'm holding up my journal. For those on audio, just got my little trusty journal that I take everywhere with me. So first things first was she said that everything is figureoutable. In fact, she used that term figure out. I can figure it out. Figureoutable. She came from a family with very, very little money. Her father was an alcoholic and very, very verbally abusive. Emotionally abusive. Her mother had an addiction to gambling. Now she had a lot of love from her mom and she said, mom, you know, love and food, you know, they never went hungry. It was very present. However, the odds were stacked against her in terms of, you know, becoming very wealthy financially and you know, the chance of getting close to billion dollar status next to zero. However, she said that she always had this knack for wanting to figure things out and she would often put herself in a position where she was uncomfortable. She would do what felt uncomfortable in terms of, hey, I'm not qualified for that thing. But you know what, I'll figure it out as I go. So the big takeaway for me there is that everything is figureoutable. We chatted at length about that. Nothing is so complex that we cannot figure it out. There's always a way if you have the right mindset. That's the first component of a billionaire mindset that I wanted to share with you that I learned from her. Second thing I've wrote down here is she said it's important that you care a whole lot less about what other people think. She said that that's one thing she really has Embraced for a long time. Stop caring what other people think. She started thinking like this long before she sold her company for over a billion dollars. This wasn't a, hey, I'm now financially free and I can now care less about others. She started thinking like that way, way earlier. So what are you and I waiting on? Let's stop caring so much about what others think. Now, she did say, the one exception is the people you care about and love. Maybe your mentors, your family, close friends. It's important to care about what they think because often they have your best interests at heart. But everyone else, your competitors, the media, et cetera, don't worry about what they have to say. And she even said, what they think about you is absolutely none of your business. I loved it. And it's really empowering to think, hey, let's focus on what we want to do and not care so much about others. For some people, they put makeup on because they love it and they enjoy it. But for others, they put it on because they want to appear a certain way. For others. For some, it might be a certain car. They buy a certain car because they want to appear to other people to be whether it's wealthy or cool or sexy, whatever it might be. But someone else might buy the car because they truly love it and they drive it and they make the most of it and they know the features and they know where it was built, and they have a genuine interest. So what she shared with me was that if you want to be in that billionaire way of thinking, care a lot less about others. And as I've mentioned before, Bronnie Ware wrote an amazing book called the Top Regrets of the Dying. The number one regret was that. And the reason that she was qualified to write this was that she was a palliative care nurse and spent a lot of time with people on their deathbeds, and she asked them all this question. What do you regret in your life? Number one regret was, I regret living my life making decisions based upon what other people thought about me. Many of us do that. I'm so guilty of that. But such a great reminder to stop doing that now before I share the last, but certainly not the least insight into how to think like a billionaire. Just want to ask you to do one favor. Please share this episode with one person. Okay. In terms of thinking like a billionaire and thinking with financial freedom, this amazing human shared this one insight with me that I thought, that's easy to do, but actually it's very difficult at times. Put your hand up for Everything. If there's something needs solved or done, put your hand up. If there's an opportunity to go somewhere cool with work, put your hand up. If there's an opportunity to coach your kids team, put your hand up. She often said that there was that kind of feeling of imposter syndrome, but she did it anyway. Afterwards, when we were heading down the elevator after our interview and we're just chatting and her and I actually both played pipe band drums, believe it or not, and knew each other prior to this kind of connection in the business world. And she was saying, james, what made you transition from what you were doing as a performer and a drumming instructor to what you're doing now? And I just said I was bored, totally and utterly bored. And she just nodded like, yeah, I get it. Good, good decision that you moved. And then we went on to talk about my challenges in going from what I did do to what I do now and going, can I do that? Am I qualified enough to do that? And she said, james, I watched what you did in your, you know, with drumming. She said, all of those skills that you had to help people win world championships and national championships and build group sustain, recruitment and promotion and all those different things that come with running a group of people, she said, james, they're so transferable into high performance sport, into business, into all different areas of life. So it was really cool hearing that from someone. I really admire that. What we do in our previous experience, in our previous jobs, it's important that we do bring that experience with us. Even if it's a vastly different industry, you have got skills to carry with you. Don't dump all of your knowledge, wisdom and skills just because you're moving into another industry. There's always a place for you at any table. Sometimes you have to make your way to the table a little forcefully or you have to, you know, be patient and work your way in there. But once you get to the table, just know that you're going to feel a little bit of an imposter. I certainly have a lot, but the one thing that this amazing human shared with me was that put your hand up and do it anyway. It's kind of like the definition of courage, right? So I want you to get out there and lead your life on purpose. And please look out for that episode with this amazing billionaire. Have a great day. The Lead On Purpose podcast is sponsored by NZ Mortgages. Learn more at nzmortgages Co nz. Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal experience. Please hit that subscribe button. And I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks. And leaders. It's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.