How I Made My First Million

You want to make your first million? What about second and third million? In order to make your first million, you got to do a few things right. So the question becomes what comes first? You know, the knowledge and the skill or the vision. A lot of times people ask me, especially younger people, you know, how I made my first million. It initially didn't happen because I set out to make my first million. I wanted to make $100,000 a year first. So I can share the story with you. If you are interested in learning, you know, what I did initially, would that help you? If it'll help you, I'll be more than happy to share the story with you. It almost happened by accident when I was growing up. My father was a cab driver. My mother worked in a local department store as a seamstress. There was never enough money at the end of the month. We used to, you know, always wondering, my parents used to fight all the time about the lack of money. And the main reason was my father was a gambler. He played cards and horses and worked as a cab driver during the day and then in the evenings he would go and do what? He would go and gamble it. And so there was always a lot of fighting in my house around the lack of money. And I remember thinking when I was a little kid that I never wanted to feel that way and I never wanted my children to feel that way. Can I ask you all a question? Did you grow up in a family with a lot of money? Did you grow up in a family with scarcity, security, success, or more than enough, like significance? What kind of family did you grow up in? Because we grew up in a family of scarcity. There wasn't enough, you know, second hand clothes and so were you born in a family that had a lot of wealth? Was there, were there discussions around money in your home? Like, the only discussions that we had was how come there was always so little? I remember, you know, my, my parents always looking, you know, to buy the cheapest stuff that, you know, the stuff that you can get two for one sales. So anyway, there's, you know, if you, if you're living in that environment, you know, that's, that's the environment you live in. And so for us it was, you know, scarcity. I started working delivering newspapers when I was nine years old. I started working in a local pharmacy, cleaning the shelves and cleaning the floors and stocking the shelves. I worked on the weekends at a dry cleaner pressing clothes. When I was 12, 13, 14, I worked in a local grocery store delivering food you know, to people who bought food just so I could have some money in my pocket. And then many of you know, I got into some illegal things from the age of like 12, 13 to 17, 18 to make some money. But I was hustling, you're right. When I was younger because I felt unsafe. I felt like there were so many arguments around the lack of money and scarcity and I remember hating the clothes that I wore because I didn't feel like there were nice enough clothes to go into school compared to some of the other kids. So does that make sense? That was a little bit of my, you know, my background and I didn't do well in school so I didn't think I was smart enough because I failed English and I failed math. So the reason I'm sharing with you the, you know, the background, the reason I want to share that with you is there was an event that shifted my life and many of you know this and that's when my brother, my brother introduced me to this one man, his name is Alan Brown. And Mr. Allen Brown was a very successful real estate investor, a real estate developer and had real estate offices and I had a meeting with him and, and that meeting turned into me going back to real estate school and me moving from Montreal to Toronto, me getting into real estate and becoming a real estate agent. And I remember this one defining moment. Are you ready for this? So I'm going to tell you how I made my first million, but I'm going to share with you beforehand what led to it. Okay. I was 19 years old and Mr. Brown asked me, you know, what my goals were. Many of you have heard this story and I didn't have many go except for, you know, getting a car, moving out of my parents house and seeing I get a job that, you know, paid me more than $1.65 an hour. But Mr. Brown had me write down my goals on a sheet of paper of, you know, what age did I want to retire, how much net worth that I want, etc. Etc. Etc. And then he asked me if I was interested or I was committed. And he told me what the difference was. And he said, if you're interested, you do. It's easy and convenient if you're committed, do whatever it takes. And many of you have heard that story before. But here is what he said to me that shifted everything for me and helped me think about, you know, maybe I could be financially secure and maybe even wealthy one day. He said to me, he said, first you write down the vision and the Goals, and then you upgrade your identity, your habits, your beliefs, and your behaviors to match the goals that you want to achieve. He said. Most people take a look at their knowledge, their skills, their circumstances, their past or present, their traumas, their failures. And he says they allow that to control what they do. He said, but successful people use all of their past or present circumstances to drive the behaviors required to achieve their goals and dreams. Now, When I was 19, 20 years old, I didn't have the knowledge, I didn't have the skills, I didn't have goals. All I had was a streak of failures for many, many years, and that was my identity. I was a failure, right? The only place I wasn't a failure was, you know, when I was doing sports. And so the way that I made my first million is first I upgraded my identity and I upgrade my skills because he start to teach me about real estate. And one of the real estate agents in our office, Sylvia, she said, listen, if you want to become wealthy, here's how I did it. And back then, she had about 30 or 40 homes that she rented to other people. And she said, here's the trick. You can make some good money selling real estate and living a good lifestyle, but you will make a fortune investing in real estate. And I said, well, how am I going to invest in real estate? I don't have any money. And she said, take 10% of each one of your commission checks, 10% of each one of your commission check, and put it away so you do not touch it. At the end of the year, buy one property. So I said, okay, I'll do that. And So I took 10%. And the first year, all I did, I made 25, $30,000 my first year in real estate. And I put aside $3,000, and I bought a $25,000 home back in 1980. In my second year, I made $150,000, and I took $15,000. And at the time, I was able to buy $125,000 home. Now I had two homes, and I kept doing that for a few years. And Toronto's real estate market in 1980 started going up and up and up and up. And then as the market went up, I remortgaged the houses and bought a few more houses. And I just kept doing it a little bit at a time. That was part one of the equation. Are you ready for part two? And is this. Is this helping? Because nobody in my family was wealthy. We didn't even know anybody that was wealthy. The only wealthy people that we saw were on tv. And so the first part was to set a vision for the life that I wanted that was different than the life that I had. But then I had to have, you know, what I call a vehicle, a way to do it. And Sylvia said, invest in real estate. Even though I didn't know how to invest in real estate, even though I didn't have any money, she showed me just a process, right? 10%. Just 10%, and then you can buy some. But there's something else that happened because once I started getting into the mindset, right, of, you know, earning money, then using a little bit of money to invest, so that money worked for me. Now I started thinking, well, what else could I do? And six years later, an opportunity arose because I was in real estate, right? I was 19 years old when I got into real estate. By the time I was 25, I met a lot of people in real estate, including one man. His name is Walter Schneider. And Walter was very big in the world of franchising. As a matter of fact, Walter just sold one of his companies about a month ago for $234 million. Walter happened to be my. One of my dear friends for the last 40 years and one of my business partners in some deals. He said, well, why don't you buy the franchising rights for ReMax of Indiana with me and why don't you start your own business? And I said, I don't know anything about business. I have no idea how to build a business. I'm not a business guy. I'm not an entrepreneur. He said, well, first you make the decision, and then you learn how to do it. I'm like, okay. So I bought Re Max of Indiana in 1986, which was November. And I started to use the same skills I learned as a real estate agent. I start to use the same skills to sell franchises, to open up offices, and to help the offices. And between 1987 and the year 1992, within five years, my asset was worth many, many, many millions. So I made my first million investing in real estate, and then I made many more by taking what I learned and then parlaying it into remax of India. So that was the path. And so where I'd like to take you, right, is first you have to start off, obviously, with the vision, right, of that you want to be a millionaire, you want to make your first million, whether it's a million dollars, you know, in cash or a million dollar in assets, right? Because you don't have to if you make a million Dollars in cash, you've got to pay taxes on it. But if you have a million dollar asset, then you know you're still worth a million dollars. So the question becomes, what comes first? You know, the knowledge and the skill or the vision. And then you acquire the identity, you acquire the knowledge, you acquire the skill, you acquire the beliefs, you acquire the habits, like which one comes first, right? And here's what I can tell you. Hold on. I'm going to bring you my brain, right? My brain here. By the way, if you're enjoying this, please share this, right? So what happens when we set a vision, even when it's a vision that we don't know how to achieve, we're actually activating what I call is the Einstein part of the brain. And that Einstein part of the brain activates motivational circuits and motivational circuits where we release that dopamine, that feel good neurochemical which caused you to want to take action. But once you set up a vision for what it is that you want, then you set some goals of how you're going to achieve it. But what happened to me was once I made a decision that I wanted to be, it wasn't even about being a millionaire. It was about creating financial freedom and never having to have, you know, the same dialogues and fights and discussions or arguments that my parents had. So I started because I want to move away from never having to feel that or experience that and absolutely never wanting to put my children through that. So you can use, by the way, something that you don't want as your fuel for something that you do, right? If you cannot want something so badly that you will do whatever it takes to move away from that, right? So I was moving away from something that I refused, okay, to accept in my life. I refused to be poor, I refused to worry about money, I refused to be stressed out about money. I refused. I put a line in the sand for me. And Mr. Brown said to me, said, listen, you know, if you're interested, you'll do what's easy and convenient, but if you're committed, you'll do whatever it takes. I said, frick, I'll do whatever it takes. And then I started getting to personal development, right? I started reading books, I started going to seminars to teach me, to teach myself, you know, how do I upgrade my skills, how do I upgrade my awareness, my knowledge, you know, how do I use my brain better? How do I develop the beliefs that I'm good enough and I'm smart enough and I'm worthy enough? Like how Do I do that? Because at the time, I didn't feel good enough. I didn't feel smart enough. You know, I failed English, failed math. All my evidence was pointing to a dumb jock, a kid, you know, that did well in sports but did terribly in school. And so my test scores were terrible. And I equated my value and how smart I was based on my test scores. The only two subjects I did, well, three subjects, actually. Gym, biology, and chemistry. Gym, biology, and chemistry. I failed math and failed English. Who the hell fails math and English? But I love biology and chemistry. But it was so uniformly taught back then that, you know, they didn't focus on what are your skills and how do you get better at your skills. You know, I'm fascinated with the human brain, with psychology, with why I do what I do, why don't I do the things I know I should do, you know, what's the nature of habits and, you know, in my brain, right? So I failed at the stuff that maybe I wasn't good at or wasn't interested at, but I did well at other stuff. But back then, they didn't teach you to strengthen your strengths and manage your weaknesses, right? So the reason I want to do this, how I made my first million, number one, is, you know, there's so much money out there, whether it's in real estate, in the stock market, in business. The problem isn't that there isn't enough money out there. I think the problem that many people have, maybe you, is nobody's ever been your. Your coach or your mentor to show you a path, right? A blueprint. Hold on one second. Hold on, hold on. I want to show you something. All right? Many of you have seen me, you know, talk about the Rubik's Cube many, many times. I want to. I want to give you an example just of a frame. Imagine that the Rubik's cube, whether it's 2x2, 3x3, you know, 4x4, 5x5, or, you know, or the octagon one, the monster over here. Imagine that this is the amount of money you want to make. Let's say, you know, the two by two is 25 to $50,000 a year. The three by three is 50 to 100,000. The four by four is 100,000, 250,000. The five by five is 250,000 to a million. And let's say this granddaddy over here, like this is, you know, the $10 million or more. Let's assume that these represent money. Would you agree that this statement Is true if you were committed, not interested, Committed to solving whatever level Rubik's Cube you wanted, if you're committed to solving whatever Rubik's Cube level you wanted, there is a coach, a mentor, a program, a course that'll teach you how to solve whatever Rubik's Cube you want if you're committed. Would you agree with that? If you're committed, That's a Yep. John, you're 100% right. Let me then ask you a question then. Isn't it also true that if you want to earn 25 or $50,000 a year or a month, or 100,000 or 500,000, or you want to become a millionaire in real estate, in the stock market, in business, somebody can help you, right? If you're committed, somebody could help you. But nobody's going to help you if you're not committed, right? So the first thing, I'm going to go back to where we started. You know, first I had to be in the environment, okay, of people that were making money, first selling real estate, then investing in real estate, then building companies. And I learned from them. Then I, you know, Mr. Brown became my first. My first coach. And so what I want to share with you is how to. How to achieve the goal already exists. How to make your first million or two or three, how to get out of debt faster, right? Is available to you, but it's not available to you if you're interested. Because you're going to let your stories, your reasons, your excuses be bigger than you. You're going to let your fears be bigger than you. You're going to let your doubt and stress and uncertainty be bigger than you. Instead of using your brain to be bigger than any of the traumas, the failures, your past or present beliefs or conditioning, that's a skill set you can learn, my friend. You know, when I talk about money, right, When I talk about money, it's not about the money that's really the important stuff, right? It's who you become when you ethically and professionally figure out how to earn more than enough money for yourself and your family, for your community, you know, for the charities you want to make a difference in, for the, you know, environmental issues you want to support. It's for the peace of mind, for the choice, freedom, right? But it all starts in your brain. It all starts in your brain. You can do it. Money is just a means of exchange between people, between, you know, companies, between governments, organizations, right? So if money is just a means of exchange and it's a skill set Issue. And as a, in addition to the skill set issue, you also have to take the right actions, right? Then when you understand what's the skill set and what is the action set, the behaviors, then you can start to implement and get on the path to financial freedom. You can get on the path to having less stress in your life. Listen, money is just a tool. At the end of the day, money is just a tool. It's a game, right? And so if you want to play the game better, you have to get your mindset right, you have to get your skill set right, and you have to get your action set right also. Skill set is important, but skill set without mindset means that you may not take action. Action without skill set means you may be doing the a lot of activity, but you may not be doing the right activity. So you get the mindset, skill set and action set right? And then you have what I call is predictable transformations, predictable results instead of possible sporadic results. Does that make sense? Does that make sense? You know, so that's how I made my first million. And now I love to teach others how they can have financial freedom, how they can have more choice freedom, how they can have more impact, you know, doing the things that they love. All right? And turning your passion into your payday. It's all possible. So hopefully you enjoyed this. Those are just, you know, that's how I got started. That's how it all came together. And now I love to share it and teach it to others. My goal for you is that you never have to worry about money again. That money becomes predictable in your life and more than enough so that you can feel safe and secure and you can pay it forward and do things with your money to make a difference in the lives of your family, your community and the world. Right? The world needs help. You know, we need help with a lot of different things right now. So money just gives you those abilities. Alright, thank you so much for sharing this and for passing it forward. Have a great day and thank you. Appreciate you. Hey, this is John and if you like that video, watch the next video because it is packed with things that you can do right now to achieve success way faster than ever before.