6 Things I'd Tell My 20-Year-Old Self (as a 63-Year-Old Multimillionaire)

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience. Live it is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Do you ever wish you could go back to your 20 year old self and have a conversation with him to maybe talk a little bit about the lessons that you learned along the way? Listen, I know for me, if I could go back in time and give the 20 year old Mel a bit of a talking to, probably the first thing I would tell him is, dude, man, ease up on the hair gel. But after that, I'd hand him a roadmap. A roadmap that I never had. You see, back then I thought that success was all about working hard, saving the pennies, you know, grinding it each and every day. And that maybe, maybe one day, if I behaved, I would retire before my knees gave out. It turns out that's not really how the game goes. I'm 63 now and I've built multiple businesses. I've hit some brutal setbacks, I've made some nasty mistakes. And all in all, I've come out the other side, not just with wealth, but with a life I love. And today I want to share with you six things that I tell my younger self, the younger version of me, the lessons I had to learn the hard way, so maybe you don't have to.

If we could have a time machine and go back, what would we tell ourselves now? First things first. Before I say this and go through this, I. I am blessed with my life. And I don't know that I would change anything because I feel like if I changed anything, everything would change. So I needed to go through the trials, the tribulations, the cancers, the breakups, the lost investments, the Ponzi scheme, the. The fights, the. All of it to get here. So knowing that then I know that I can't go back and change the past. But can we get information from the past that allows us to change our future? And I think the answer is yes. And so in this episode, I want to share with you some of the things, the six things that I would glean, the things that if I had A chance to go and talk to the 20 year old Mel, which was a long time ago. These are the things I would do. All right? And the first one is this master your money mindset. I didn't come from money. I'm a son of an immigrant. My dad came here at 17 years old with nothing. You know, he had a desire, he had a dream, and he wanted to get educated. He became an engineer. So we lived in the same house all our lives growing up. We never moved. We lived a decent life. It wasn't a luxury life, but. But we had what we needed. I mean, we were okay. There were times we couldn't afford to do things, but by and large we were all right. But what that meant was that I didn't learn about money. Even as a cpa, I didn't learn about money, but I certainly didn't understand the mindset around money. And at 20, I thought budgeting was just code for I'm broke and not fun at parties. What I didn't realize was that how you think about money shapes everything. It's. It's not about being cheap, it's about being in control. And I, I just thought the idea of money was a math equation, which it is.

But it's 10, 20% math and, and 80, 90% mindset and behaviors. Money isn't the end goal. And it's the paintbrush, like I said, that allows you to paint the masterpiece called your life. And your life is the canvas. And the sooner you learn that this isn't the ultimate.

But the life you want is the ultimate. The sooner we start creating instead of cleaning up, the sooner we start building and instead of using up and doing that. I wasn't that way as I was younger. I was buying the cars, I wanted to look good in the cars, and I was switching out cars every couple of years and doing the things that I thought I needed to do to look good, to feel good. But I might have looked good, but I didn't feel good and I wasn't getting ahead. So the first thing I would tell the 20 year old male is to master the money mindset piece. Okay? The second is to get a clear understanding of building your money machine early. The concept of a money machine, the concept of, of, of how do I separate my earnings from the, the efforts to earn it? Because I. Once you understand that if you do not separate your ability to earn income from the efforts to earn that income, you will be imprisoned by the earnings machine, the treadmill of earnings, if I, as I call it, and So.

I would have early on started to look at things about multiple streams of income, building my skills faster. So I wasn't walking a tightrope with a single stream of income with no net. So if an earthquake or something happens in our life, things completely shatter. Okay, if it's just that we need to understand that, yeah, you go get a job or you start a business and you're earning and earning and earning, but there's no freedom in that. There's demands in that. But when we get the money to work harder for us, when we get the money working for us, and that doesn't happen from savings, that doesn't happen from earnings, it happens from investing. Savings alone won't cut it. And so we need to build the money machine because that's the engine that works even when we're not working. It's the one that lets you stop trading hours for dollars. Start small. Pick something. It's investments, as I talk about in chapter 12 of the book. Or it could be a piece of real estate, which I don't recommend starting out with because there's too much exposure and risk there. But there's ways to do it. It could be a side hustle, but get the machine rolling while you're young enough to enjoy the ride. All right. The third thing I would tell tell the 20 year old male is failure. It's just tuition. Some of my first endeavors, they fail badly. You know, I thought, I thought they were so bad I thought that the IRS would send me a sympathy card. I mean, it was crazy. But here's the thing. Failure is not the enemy. It's just the tuition we pay. It's the resistance that you need to build, the muscle you need to have.

To have the success and the growth that you deserve. You pay for the lesson and you move on smarter. The key is that when you define something as, oh, I failed, you need to redefine it as, what did I learn? And as you learn, you grow. You're going to stumble. I still stumble. That's just part of the game. And the stumble actually sets you up for something stronger if you're open and willing to learn it. Too often we see it as finite, we see it as terminal, versus it's just a step. It's just a step. And so instead of dodging failure, invite it in, invite it to the party. Just don't let it be the DJ of your life. Allow it to be part of it and know that it's part of it. And know that this is the part that you're going to grow from. All right, number four, I would tell them that people matter more than profits. You can build wealth, you can have a great career, a great job, you can build businesses. But if you burn bridges along the way, if you.

Distant relationships along the way, you'll find yourself wealthy but bankrupt at the same time. Because your bank account will be wealthy, but your life account will be bankrupt. Because the people that you share life with is where the richness comes in. The people that you give presents to is where the richness comes in. I didn't understand that until Jeremy drew that picture of me at School. At 6 years old. He drew a picture of me in front of two computer screens. And here I was as a single full time dad, thinking I was doing the right thing, but finding out from my boy the thing that I loved so much, that I was failing him. That was a pain that I couldn't bear. And it would have been easy for me to come up with excuses and reasons and, and hey, kid, we need the prophets. We need this so we can do the things we do, but we weren't doing the things we want to do.

He didn't need my profits, he needed my presence. He needed that relationship. And we changed it. Certainly a lot of the things I do and the concept of the money machine was born out of that drawing, the need to separate my efforts from my earnings. Because some of the biggest breakthroughs in my life came not from strategy, but, but from relationships. But also the richness in my life came not from, you know, endeavors, but from relationships.

Having a person by your side to share life with, or having a mentor by your side that believes in you, a friend that's willing to challenge you, a partner that's willing to back you when things get tough.

People, people are the, the accelerator of the compounding interest of your life, of your success. Invest in them early, invest in them. Often do it without a transaction mentality, but with a relation mentality. And for the love of all things, be someone others want to work with.

Be someone others want to work with to invite you along on their journey. All right, number five. I would tell them, health is wealth. You can build a seven figure empire, an eight figure empire. But if you're too tired to enjoy it, what's the point? I was building, building, building, and all of a sudden they found a 7 1/2 centimeter tumor in my bladder and said three words I never thought I would hear. You got cancer.

If I didn't conquer the cancer, what was it all for? What was it all for. We need to take care of health now. Mind you, what happened, it wouldn't have changed the cancer. It just probably wouldn't have been so precarious for me. I had not seen a doctor in seven years prior to the diagnosis. I'm very proactive about my health now, as proactive about my health and well being as I am about my wealth. And I think we need to be on that same parallel. See, I used to think that sleep was optional. I used to think that stress was just part of the hustle. Now, oh, no, if I'm tired, I'm going to take a nap. I take protein shakes and smoothies all the time. I think it's a luxury and everything and do it that way. So if you don't make time for your wellness, you'll be forced to make time for the illness. That's the thing. I don't want you to. So keep moving your body. Feed it well. Be proactive. Maybe cut back on the gas station energy drinks with names like Total Destruction, all those things. But by and by, golly, always, always put your health above your wealth. Because without it, the wealth won't matter. All right, and then the last one is this. This one's really important. Number six is define success for yourself. It's really easy right now, okay, to.

Look at the media, the social media, your siblings, your parents, your degree, and say, that's what success looks like. But is that your success? See, I remember having a conversation with someone from the publisher of my book Building youg Money Machine. And he said, I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to afford a house. And I said, why? Why do you want to, you know, I mean, why do you say that? And he says, well, because the interest rates are high and the prices are high. I just don't know. And I said, well, why do you want a house? He says, it's the American dream. I go, totally get it. Yeah, you're right. It is the American dream. But here's my question. Is it your dream?

And he sat back and he goes, I don't know that I ever thought about that. See, we weren't here to live someone else's dream. We weren't. We aren't here to get someone else's definition of success.

We're here to live our own definition. Success. At 20 years old, I thought success looked like a Porsche or a Penthouse or, or Pecs. I don't know. It was. It was crazy. Now I know that it looks like freedom. It looks like peace. It looks like having the power to say no. And I think that it was too easy early on for me to do things and define success by how much I was liked, to define success by what other people were doing.

Success isn't a status symbol. It's a feeling. I want to know that every day that I put my head down on the pillow that I did a good job today. I lived a good life. Doesn't mean that I don't make mistakes. Trust me. Being married, my wife tells me, okay, but I want to know that I was good to her.

To my grandkids, to my kids, to you. But it's a feeling. And if your calendar and the things you do and the things that I accomplish do not match your values, then you're not winning, you're just wandering. So I would take the time. Write down your own definition of success. What does it look like? So you will know what it's like as you arrive there. And don't be afraid to revise it as you grow. Don't be afraid to look at it and say, hey, that was my definition. But this isn't. I remember I was an adjunct professor at. At a University of San Diego law school, teaching financial concepts, entrepreneurship and valuation.

And on the last day of the the semester, I would always bring in pizza for the class. They would bring in the beverages. I don't know what was in the containers. I didn't ask, okay. But I would have a conversation with them and said, you know, you've gone through all this schooling. You're going to be graduating in a few weeks, you're going to go into your career. But there might be a few of you in here that see the career and go, this isn't really what I thought. This isn't really what I want. Now, I'm not saying you have a bad day, you walk away. What I am saying is that if you're miserable long term and you don't like it anymore, and you're sitting back saying, this is not what I'm meant to do.

Answer that call.

Answer that call. Define success on your own terms. Do it your way. Okay. I left the big consulting firm in downtown Los Angeles because I finally realized that I was living someone else's life. I was living the path of success that they told me all accountants would take. Go to the firm, work the hours, work the long hours. You know, go from staff to senior staff to manager to senior manager to partner and all those things. And I was on that trajectory. But that wasn't my Definition of success. Here's the other thing, though. You don't need all the answers today. You just need to start building with clarity and consistency to be willing to take the steps, to be willing to be open to the direction. And if the 63 year old me could tell the 20 year old me anything, it'd be this. You got more time than you think.

But less time than you want. So start now, build some work and live a life by choice, not chance. All right? I hope that this helps. I hope that as you go through this and you start to build your wealth and you're doing the things that we get you to do, that you take these six points and put them into your life. Because that's where richness comes from. The bank account will take care of itself, but let's get the richness in the life account too, okay? I'd love to hear from you and hear what your thoughts are. And if this resonated with you, do me a favor, smash the like button, subscribe and stay with me, all right? And share it out. Let other people know. Let's get everyone else on this journey the path that they belong on. All right? I hope I get a chance to see you soon. But until I do, on your path to your financial freedom, as I said, always, always strive to live a life that helps you. See you. Thank you for listening to the affluent Entrepreneurship with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group. Now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you.

And that's it for this episode of Building your money Machine where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcast, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us apart, the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.