A No BS Guide To Making Your First $1,000,000

All right. Today I'm going to answer the question that I get the most often, which is that if I was starting over again from scratch and I had no money in my bank account, I didn't have any special skills or network or people that are audience to use. How would I do it? How would I make myself successful? How would I make my first million if I was starting over from scratch again? I'm 25 years old and it's 2024. What would I do today? And, um, I'm going to answer this question. I will give you an answer to this question. I'm worked up, as you can see, because I got an answer to this question. I want to give you an observation about this question because the question is actually, I think we would all agree, it's a money question. It's a success question. How would you make it? That's really what people want to know. But they always add this, if you were 21 years old again, if you were 25 years old again, they add this age component to it, which is sort of funny because, um, I don't care if you're 21, you're 31, you're 41. If you're broke, you're broke. If you're not successful, you're not successful. It doesn't matter what age you are. It is your day one. You can't go back in time. So really it doesn't matter what, what, how old you are. You know, the, the reason I think people say if you were 21 again or 25 again is because they're like, if, if all the possibilities were on the table, if you had all the hope in the world again at that age. And the reality is one thing you should take away from this is should always have that 21-year-old mindset. You should always have the belief that the whole, my whole world is in front of me, that my best days are ahead of me, that anything is possible, and that I can reinvent myself right now. Um, I could today on the spot reinvent myself and to decide I'm a different guy now. I do a different thing. I do things a different way. That old guy, he's gone. He's the old me. And so I think the first thing to do is to free yourself of the time constraint, uh, the age constraint, which only adds pressure. Pressure and doubt and anxiety to the equation, which none of that helps you be successful. I remember when I was 29 years old and I had this like existential crisis cuz I was like, oh, I thought I was gonna be Forbes 30 Under 30 and I thought I'd be, you know, have a million dollars in my bank account by now and I didn't have any of those things. And then I was like, all right, well guess that didn't happen. Moving on. And I just continued on and by 30, all of a sudden I sold my company and had a whole bunch of breakthroughs. And a big part of that was just getting the weight off my shoulders of feeling like I'm behind or playing catch-up. Instead, I wanted to be playing offense. And so my question, my answer to this question is, comes from a place of offense. So let's take the age out. Let's think of it like it's karate. We're white belts again. If we started as a white belt and we want to make our way up to a black belt in the game of success, what would we do? So let's break this down into smaller chunks. I, the best metaphor I have, or our best framework I've heard from my career was that everybody goes through 3 phases in their career. And the 3 phases are number 1, learn, earn, and legacy. So this learn, earn, legacy framework that your career will go into those chapters. The beginning of your career is generally the learn period. This is when you got internships or you're just starting your first business. You're making a bunch of mistakes. Um, or you go work at a bigger company just to see what it's like and you're getting You know, you're getting your experience. That's the learn phase of your career. What's most important in the learn phase of your career is what you optimize for. So one job offers you an extra $15,000, the other job offers you $15,000 less. Which job should you take? Most people take the one that pays them the extra $15K a year, which is like $9K after taxes or something like that. And even though the other job would've been a far better learning experience for them, that they were gonna get way more hands-on experience, working with way smarter people on more interesting projects, which in the long run would've paid off in a much bigger way. So why is it important to know you're in the learn phase? Because you know what to prioritize. Your key KPI is how much learning per month am I doing? How much am I growing per month as a person? I'm building me as a product right now. That's the learn phase. Earn phase is now I've built myself as a product. I have the skills. I know what to do. I understand the market and I can actually go and I can reap what I've sowed so I can actually extract some value. Now I have cash in the bank, which lets me get to the ultimate point of financial freedom where your money works for money and you work for you. That's where your investments generate enough income. You don't need to be doing any jobs so that way you can just work on whatever you're most interested in, whatever you're passionate about, whatever you love. And so the earn phase comes next and then there's a legacy phase. Which is where you see a lot of people get to when they, you know, they want to go to Mars and then they want to, you know, buy this newspaper company to keep, you know, or start a foundation or go back and teach at their college or whatever it is. Legacy is how you give back. It's how you remembered for doing something that's beyond yourself contributing. I think this framework is a good framework for a career. And I think, I think it is the natural evolution of a successful career. That's the first, first thing I would keep in mind. So those first 10 years, And I say 10 years, 'cause 10 years sounds like a long time, but, um, you know, what's the phrase? Like, we overestimate what we can do in a year and we underestimate what we can do in 10. So true. Um, the first 10 years you are in the learn phase, you are actually just, uh, dabbling. So, uh, you, we are told that we should, um, stick to it, be determined, do, do blah, blah, blah. That's the wrong advice. Uh, it's the same bad advice that gets you when you're 18, 19 years old to declare your major. I even love that they call it declare. Like, I'm going to be like, yeah, you know, chemistry, right? Like, you know, what are we doing? Based on what? Based on what experience? I'm a bio and chemistry major. I knew nothing about any of those. I didn't even know what jobs they create. But at 18 years old, I'm supposed to declare my major or fall behind. Silly. And so we don't want to fall into the silly traps and pressures that people pigeonhole you into. So what are you going to do for your major? What are you going to do for your career? What field are you in? The answer is I'm dating around, right? Just like we date before we get married. You wanna do the same thing with your career, so you're gonna be dabbling. So you should be expecting to, I don't know, every 18 months turn over and reinvent yourself and hop into a new situation to keep challenging yourself. And what you're trying to do is not, you're not trying to change, you're using change to find the thing that you are uniquely capable of. And that's the next key lesson. I can't find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data. Across every application, every team can stay aligned. No out-of-sync spreadsheets or dueling databases. HubSpot. Grow better. So the second thing I would do if I was starting over again is I would realize that I'm in the learn phase. I would start dabbling and I would be trying to identify my edge. This really breaks up into two categories. The first edge is one that everybody who's not successful yet has, which is you're small and you're helpless. And what that means is that people will help you. Like, I can't tell you how many meetings I got with amazing people, how many opportunities I got, how many times I got to shadow somebody or ride along with somebody because I just told them like, hey, I think what you do is amazing and I don't know the first thing about it. I don't know how I can help you. I want to help you someday, but at least I can help you because, hey, you know, it always feels good to give back, right? To help somebody out. I'm giving you that opportunity. Can I just— can I just learn this with you? Will you— will you show me how this works? And, um, being small and helpless is an absolute edge that most people who are unsuccessful try to hide. They're embarrassed that they're not successful. They're embarrassed that they're starting at the beginning. And because of that, they throw away one of their best edges, which is that people want to help people who are at the— who are beginners. And so, uh, embrace that you're a beginner. That is part of your edge. The next thing is you got time. You're not busy. So for me, there are so many opportunities I don't do because I have a $5,000 an hour time budget. So if, if something's gonna cost me an hour, it needs to be worth at least $5,000. But when I was younger, I would've done, I did psych studies. I would go take a pill or go, you know, try to read from this card for $7 an hour. Right? I, my hourly rate was much slower back then. And so I was willing to do a whole bunch of things that other people wouldn't do because I'm not busy. My calendar is clear. That's a huge advantage you have. That's another part of your edge. Another part of your edge, you have nothing to lose. And, well, by the way, a lot of this is mindset because the actions you take are downstream of your mindset, right? Like the actions you take, which is what people want. They want the answer. What I'm giving you is a way for you to always get the answer. So you don't need to watch a video like this. You can be the guy who makes videos like this. And how do you do that? You figure out the mindset first so that then the actions come quite naturally. So let me finish the mindset section, then I'll tell you the actions. So the mindset, the next part of the mindset that matters is you have nothing to lose. So just like you're small and you're helpless, just like you've got a clear calendar and nothing to do, you also got nothing to lose. You are already lost. You got nothing. You're starting at rock bottom, but that's a pretty solid foundation. And what you wanna do with that foundation is take more risks than somebody who has something to lose. For me now, if I go do something, I have my reputation. People could see me fail. I have to do some things of a certain caliber, and that means I might be overlooking some hidden gem type of opportunities. Um, you know, I don't go to conferences, I don't go to certain meetings, but you should if you're in that boat, boat where you have nothing to lose, cuz you got everything to gain. Um, the last thing is you now need to find your personal edge. So those first ones are the, the common edges of losers, right? The loser's edge. And losers have those edges, and you should embrace the loser's edge because the loser's edge is what helps you become a winner. Now you need to find your personal edge. Your personal edge is gonna be the thing that comes naturally to you. It comes easy to you. Maybe you're funny. Maybe you don't mind grinding things out when everybody else gets fatigued. Maybe you're, maybe you have an eye, you have really good taste and, and you know, even though you're not a great designer or product builder today, you can identify great design and product building and understand it. And taste is a, it could be part of your personal edge. My friend Chris Williamson told me this today on a call. He goes, um, yeah, you're like a bear riding a unicycle. I go, what? He goes, um, You know, a bear, that's cool, but not altogether that special. A unicycle, that's cool, but not, not, not that special. A bear riding a unicycle, that, that's fucking amazing. And so a bear riding a unicycle is a way to think about finding that unique combination of things that makes you, you. So for some people it might be that they are a really talented programmer, but they also love to study anatomy or biology and they should actually go into that field, the crossover of computer science and biology. For some people it's that they're just really good with— they're really good people person, and that's cool. But now how do you pair that with, um, you know, you're, you're willing to work twice as hard as the average person, or you love sports or whatever it is. You try to find an overlap of 2 or 3 things that are true about you that create a unique combination. For me, for example, I'm a successful business guy, but I'm not the most successful business guy, right? There's people who are worth hundreds of million dollars. I'm not. but I'm more successful than 98% of people on the business side. But then I'm also kind of entertaining and funny. I'm good at talking and there's a lot of better talkers than me, but they're not that successful on the business side. There's a lot of better business people than me, but they're kind of boring when they talk. And so my overlap is some combination of I love, you know, creating content. I love being curious about things and turning it to content. I'm good at talking and I'm successful. That became My First Million, a podcast that really nobody else could host. It was unique to me. It was my bear on my unicycle. And, um, I only found that when I started following my personal edge. And so you wanna find your personal edge, and if you don't have one today, don't worry. That's okay. You're, again, you're a blank slate. Ask your friends, what are some things about me that are true? Where am I more above normal people or more than normal people when it comes to some area of my life? Maybe other people can see it for you, or maybe you say, look, It's my opportunity to develop that. I'm gonna become a great writer by practicing. I'm gonna become a great salesperson by practicing, and that'll be one of my things. So you wanna create your personal edge. All right, so you've decided you're in the learn phase, you're dabbling, you're, you're discovering your personal edge. All right, that all comes together and what happens? The scoreboard still says zero because the scoreboard is this lagging indicator of how many companies you've sold, how many millions of dollars you have in the bank. But you are building up. You are not actually at zero. You have made a ton of progress, but there's still one more unlock that you have to do, and that's picking the right project. So what projects would I pick if I were in this category? There's a general question. I'll give you some, like, common questions, fork in the roads that people come to. So a fork in the road I often get is, should I start my own company or should I, Should I join an existing company and get experience that way? And smart people will tell you both things, right? Generally, people just say the thing that they did and they say that's the best way to do things. Um, so, you know, I think the, the real takeaway is that either way works. Which one should you choose? Well, again, when you're optimizing for learning, there's a really specific thing you're actually trying to do. You are trying to get around the smartest and most ambitious people you can doing the thing that also want to do the thing that you want to do. It doesn't matter if that's— you're a musician and you want to, uh, then you should be hanging out with other musicians that are trying to make it. Um, I have friends that are big TikTokers or Viners or YouTubers. They all moved to LA. They all moved into houses together or on the same street as each other. And they hung out with other people who were super driven at the same thing that they wanted to do. That's why I moved to Silicon Valley. And that's one thing I would do again. I would pick up and move to a place where I could find other people that are just like me chasing the same dream as me, because that is contagious and you'll be sharing information. So you won't just be learning your lessons, you'll be learning from the other people around you and that it will become normal to see people succeed at doing this. It's very underrated how important that is to see other people just like you that, you know, are not so much more special than you succeeding at the thing you want to do. It's what will keep you going. Even when times get tough. And so that's the first thing you're trying to do. You're actually trying to pick either the company or the job that is going to get you around the smartest, most ambitious people that want to do the same thing as you want to do. For me, that was starting a startup and moving to Silicon Valley. For you, that might be joining whatever this generation's Google is, you know, and getting around really smart people that have all flocked to this thing, right? Like OpenAI or one of the— one of these companies where it's a talent magnet for young, ambitious, um, motivated people. The next thing you need to do, you got to pick the opportunity, whether it's a job or your company or starting a company, that will let you do actual work versus being an observer on the fringe. So unfortunately for most people, they go take a job at some prestigious company and they think, ah, I'm getting the experience, because of course working at Facebook in 2024 is like, you know, that's— I'm getting experience. But they're employee number 42,000 sitting on the fringe, not even knowing what's actually going on inside Facebook, not getting any access to the real problems. And so whichever path you choose, for me, I chose the path of starting a company, and that's the one I would do again. But if you choose, even if you choose joining a company, here's your criteria. You have to be working on the A+ problem. Every company has the A+ problem at any given time. Sometimes the A+ problem is we're getting sued and we need to deal with this. Sometimes the A+ problem is our growth stopped and we have no idea why. And we got to get this thing back growing again. Sometimes it's we're growing so fast we can't even keep up with operations. Hey, could somebody go move to Atlanta and spin up our Atlanta office? Because we need, we need more people in Atlanta, right? Like, I know people that were early at Uber. This was what was going on. Uber was working. They couldn't even keep up with demand. And people who made millions of dollars and became really smart at Uber were people who were like, yeah, I'll go move to Kansas City. I'll boot up Kansas City as a market. And they're like, do you have any experience with Kansas City? They're like, hell no. Couldn't even find it on a map. Didn't matter. They were willing to go work on the A+ problem. I'll give you a personal example. When I got, when we got acquired by Twitch, um, they were like, your job is, they bought our esports platform and they were like, you're now the director of esports. Okay, cool. Supposed to work on this esports thing. And my friend said something to me that my co-founder Furkan, he said something to me that stuck with me. He goes, he was looking at the overall company dashboard and he's like, they're making some, I can't say the number, I'm not allowed to, but some huge number starts with a B and ends with an illion in revenue. And so they were like, he was like, don't you think that when we're here, you know, I don't know how long we're going to be here. Our vesting date is a year from now. Like, don't you think we should work on something that at least moves the needle 5%? Like the way he said it was, wouldn't you feel like a bitch if we worked here for a year and we didn't even make a 5% swing in the company. And I was like, I would feel like a bitch if that happened. You know, I don't— now that you say that, I can't go back to just work. He's like, do you think the thing we're doing right now can swing it by 5%? I was like, hell no. You know, like this is— that's not what this is going to do. This is going to do these other things, but it's not going to do that. And so we basically went on strike from day one and we were like, we're just not going to do work until we figure out what is the A+ problem. What is the thing that actually matters in this company? And we're just not gonna busy ourselves until we find that. And luckily at a big company, nobody knows what the hell you're doing anyway. So the first 2 weeks I was just walking around asking people questions, trying to figure out what actually matters here. And I found a project that was like actually a big project. And we pitched it to the CEO and we're like, hey, this is a big problem. Do you have anyone who's solving this? And he is like, no. It's like, cool, I'm free. He's like, you're free? I thought you're supposed to be working on the thing. I'm like, nah, but this is bigger, right? And he's like, yeah, it is bigger. And so we, he created a special team and we ran it to do that thing. And we actually made a big impact. Um, this happened again. I remember when I was at Twitch and the top streamer on Twitch was this guy named Ninja. He got sponsored by Red Bull and he was like the star. He was on TV all the time and Fortnite was in its heyday and Ninja was the guy. And then Microsoft came and paid Ninja like $20 million to leave Twitch and go over there. And we lost our biggest streamer overnight. It's like if you know, the Warriors, uh, you know, if somebody came and took Steph Curry off the Warriors, just paid him and he left, it's like, oh shit. And it was an oh shit moment. I said, well, that's probably the A+ problem right now. So what did I do? I dropped everything I was doing and I started working on that. Nobody had told me even what to work on, but I wrote a memo. I said, hey, it looks like he left. Here's some data analysis on how big of a problem that is or how little of a problem that is. Here's my strategy recommendation on what we should do. And I just sent it to the CEO. All right. When in doubt, put a letter in the CEO's mailbox. And he's like, this is great here. Joining, put me in 3 group chats right away, which were like the team, the exec teams that were working on that. And he's like, hey, you know, Sean's in on this. And they're like, why? He doesn't, he's supposed to be doing this other thing. And it's like, he has good, he has good thoughts on this. And so there is a way to work on the A+ problem, even if you're in a big company or if you're an entrepreneur, by definition, you should always be working on the A+ problem. Forced. And so I learned that skill because I first started my own companies and I knew you just gotta always be working on the one big thing. What's the one A+ problem right now? So that's the second principle you have to do during this early phase. So what would I actually do? I would be, whether I start my own company or join one, I would be finding a way to work on the A+ problem at all times. The last one is I'm creating luck. I'm creating a landing area for luck and I want Lady Luck to come when she's flying by. To see the surface area on my back and say, that looks like a good spot to set up camp for the night. And how do you do that? Well, I heard this great thing. I've said it a couple times on the podcast, but you know what? Great things are worth repeating. There are 4 levels of luck. You gotta be aware of them and then actually manufacture them. So luck is not something that happens to you. It is something that you can create and increase the odds of happening in your life. The first level of luck is just blind luck. That's the one where you didn't do shit. You just got struck by lightning. All right, fair enough. Nothing really, really you could do for that first level of luck except for appreciate it when it does happen. Sometimes things truly do fall in your lap, but that's rare. Second level of luck is you're taking a bunch of action. You're just doing a bunch of shit and then good things happen to you. And this is fortune favors the bold. And so you should be looking at how do I just do more things, show up to more events, uh, make some introductions for people, uh, you know, just publish an analysis of something on the internet. And maybe somebody smart will read it and think, hey, this guy's awesome. I would love to meet him. You know, these are the things you do to create luck. Content is an amazing way to create luck. So if I was 25 again, I would be creating content, you know, not because I think I could create a big audience. In fact, I almost think that would be a disservice if everybody's now listening to some 23-year-old, 25-year-old who's got no experience, no track record of success. Like, I'm not trying to present myself as a thought leader. What I would be trying to do is publishing my thoughts, which puts pressure on me to have good thoughts and go learn some shit in order to hopefully have a small group of people who are interesting think that I'm interesting, and that increases my surface area for luck. So I'd be creating content on a regular basis, publishing my thoughts. I think when my intern came on here, the episode called, you know, My Intern, uh, My 18-Year-Old Intern Became a Millionaire. One of the reasons why is because He said that he either he wrote it or his friend wrote an analysis about a stock, why the stock was good. And like, of course, you're 18 years old. What do you really know about stocks? But it forced him to think why this could be a good buy. And he published it. And then someone interesting followed him because of that. And that became a lunch. And then that guy became his investor. And like all this series of events played out because he was putting his thoughts out there on the internet. And I think that's just like a core thing I would be doing. On a regular basis, but not to become popular and not to be, uh, I always say you don't want to be well known, you want to be known well. So I would not be trying to be popular and get the biggest audience possible. I would be trying to put my original thoughts and most unique analysis out there so that the right people find me, the people that I want to be known well by, cuz that's how new opportunities are gonna happen. Okay, so let's say I've gone down this path. For me, that would be, I would start a company. Well, what company? It'd be any company where I feel like there's a, um, you know, a problem and a solution fit. For me now, that would be a service company. I didn't do this at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight, I would say, cool. I would do some basic envelope math. I would say, well, I want to have, can I have 10 customers paying me $10,000 a month? 10 customers. Now, $10,000 might sound crazy, but like for a business, businesses spend $10,000 on things. But I would say that would be my benchmark. 10 customers paying me $10,000 a month. That's $100,000 a month of income, which is fucking baller if you missed that part. So if you're doing $100K a month, you're doing $1.2M a year. You're doing the work mostly. So it's 90% profit margin. You hire 1 or 2 schleps to work with you and now you're 85% profit profit margin, you're making $1 million a year profit. That would be my goal of what I'm trying to get to. Now, what type of service would I, would I do? Well, I would work backwards from what's a service that I think I could pull off that, um, doesn't— I would not limit myself to my skills. So what I would do is I would go on Upwork or I would go on Fiverr, or I would go, I would look at other agencies that are already existing. I would try to figure out what is an agency or consulting service that people are willing to pay $10K a month for on a retainer, like on a recurring basis that either I could do myself or I could hire people overseas, um, to, to do them, right? Like I, I'm an investor in Shepherd. You can go on Shepherd, you could say, hey, uh, I want web developers in LATAM that I pay $1,000, you know, I pay $1,000 to $2,000 a month. And then you could create a web development agency. Then you could go and, uh, you know, what I would do is I would go and I would email everybody, every real estate agent, in my city, very easy contact information to find. I would say, hey, I was on your website. It doesn't look great, but, you know, hey, look at this example website. This other guy, his website's awesome. I make awesome websites like that. If you ever want to— want a website, like, I'm happy to do it for you. Or, hey, you know, that's probably a lower ticket item. That's probably like, you know, $500 a month and I'll do that for you and you get way more people to do it. Or you go to a senior living facility and you say, hey, guy who runs a senior living, a nursing home, you know, if you ever met people who run nursing homes, they're not the best at marketing. They're usually like older people who are in the hospitality business, maybe the real estate business. And you'd say, hey, I'd love to sit down with you because I think I can help you fill your occupancy in your senior living facility, because I know that filling occupancy directly translates to cha-ching in their ears. And so occupancy rate goes up, means more beds booked, means more money for them. And I would say, if I could bring you one new occupant per month, what would you be willing to pay me? They say, well, well, we make $6,000 a month off each person. So I would pay you the first month's rent. I pay you $6,000 for every person you can bring in. You say, fantastic. So I just got to get you 2 people a month and I'm making over $10,000 a month off this one facility. And then I would figure out how to create content or do cold calling or do lead gen or throw events or go to the hospitals and partner with people and figure out, hey, hospital, when you kick people out when they're still old and sick, but you don't keep them anymore, where do they go? And they're like, oh, we just all send them to this one facility. And I would say, hey, how can I get you to send me those leads? Because we have a great facility to take care of those people. And so I would, I would go find an industry that needs help getting customers and I would help them get customers either through their website, through their Facebook ads, their marketing, whatever. And I don't need to be an expert. Because, you know, what's it to, to a blind man? Uh, the one-eyed man is king. That's what I would go look for. I would go look for the blind man. I would go look for someone who's running a senior living facility is probably terrible at marketing, probably doesn't know how to run a Google ad. And so if I just sit here for 8 hours on YouTube, I'm pretty sure I can become the smartest Google ad person in their life. And that's what I would do. And so I would try to figure out a way to do this product, uh, productized agency. And try to get to that $100K a month bar. And I'd be okay at the first month getting to $1,000 a month, $4,000 a month, $10,000 a month, but slowly but surely be trying to build up to that, to that level. And the math I said earlier about 10 customers paying you $10K, it doesn't matter whether it's 10 paying 10 or it's 20 paying 5 or it's 30 paying 3. I could do this all day, by the way. You are just trying to do math to figure out how do you get to $100,000 a month? Oh, okay. I need to be able to service, let's say, 25 customers. Do I think I can find 25 humans on Earth that are willing to pay me $4,000 a month to help them get more customers? Yes. All right. Like, that's what I would do. And then, by the way, I would take that agency and as soon as I get it to $100K a month, I would go try to sell it because I'm doing, let's say, $800K to $900K a year of profit. And I would go try to sell that for 4 times profit and I'd have $4 million. That's what I would try to do. Um, all right, so now let's pretend I'm somewhere in the middle of that process and I get a little bit of money. Here's a common mistake people make. Get a little bit of money, you get $10,000, $20,000. You've been listening to podcasts from schmucks like me and you're like, oh, I think I should be investing. Um, angel investing, S&P 500 bonds. What's a bond? And you start trying to come up with some like financial strategy. Complete waste of time. You don't want to be making 8% on $80,000 a year. It honestly doesn't matter if your goals are to be a multimillionaire, a successful person who's going to do big things with their life. Of course, if to you $8,000 is like the jackpot, then do that. But most people listen to this podcast that is titled My First Million are not going to be happy at that level. They're trying to be in, you know, the 7-figure, 8-figure, 9-figure club. And so how do you get there? You'd get there by not wasting time and energy on the wrong things. The wrong thing would be you have a very small principal amount of money and you're going to try to earn a, you're going to try to beat the market and earn a 12% or 15% annual return on $42,000. It just simply doesn't matter. So the advice, the good advice you'll hear about this is, well, um, you should invest in yourself. And so most people hear that, they're like, yeah, you're right. I should invest in myself. And then they're like, where do I put the money? Where the fuck does the money go? How do you invest in yourself? What do you do? And most people have no idea what you actually do. And so here's what to me investing in yourself means. Let's break it into 3 categories. Category 1, buying back your time. So the first investment you want to make in yourself is to get your creative energy back. So when you're doing life, you're unfortunately forced to do a bunch of life bullshit and life bullshit. Sucks away your creative forces. Life bullshit is running an errand, doing a return, having to go, you know, take the bus to the airport because you can't afford an Uber ride, whatever. So the very first thing you could do is you can identify any area of your life where you are leaking creative energy, spending time on something that you, A, don't enjoy and B, doesn't make you money. You're going to buy that back. So you're going to be a 24-year-old with a housekeeper and people are going to think you're spoiled. You're going to be the 27-year-old who doesn't return the blender that doesn't work. Because it's not worth your time to go to the store and drop it off. Um, you are going to buy back your time. You're going to hire an assistant overseas for $800 a month using Shepherd promo code Sean in order to, um, buy back your time and not have to deal with tedious back and forths of scheduling or whatever it is. Um, if you're doing a productized service, you're going to hire a designer so that you don't have to do the design work anymore. So you're going to buy back your time. That's category 1. Of how you actually literally invest in yourself. Category 2, how do you invest in yourself? You invest in the knowledge, as Tai Lopez likes to say, and the knowledge is, of course, books. You give yourself an unlimited book budget, but you go beyond that. You're going to buy your way into a, you know, any conference or group or member— members club where you know that people who are where you want to be hang out and you're going to get around them more often because Proximity is power, and the more time you spend around people who are the way you want to be, the more you will automatically, through osmosis, become like them. Um, the third one is, so you, you've bought back your time, you've bought your way in to being around proximity around other people that you want. Sometimes that's moving to a better location, it's conferences, it's membership clubs, it's masterminds, whatever. Three is invest in yourself. Uh, by leaving money on the table. Oh shit. What is he talking about? That sounds smart. That's some, that's some Uno reverse card bullshit, right? What, how do you invest in yourself by leaving money on the table? You invest in yourself by saying no to clients that are gonna waste your time. You invest in yourself by taking a lower paying job with a badass person, right? Let's say I take $25K less to go work for a badass person, which by the way, I did. Um, I took a multimillion dollar pay cut in our acquisition because in one I was gonna get to work with the CEO, and then the other I was gonna be 3 layers below the CEO. And so I just decided I'd rather be around smarter people, um, and, you know, optimize for that. And so I believe that what you should do is you should take pay cuts to put yourself in great opportunities or around amazing people or working with amazing people. Um, you, maybe you take a little less equity, maybe you take a little bit less salary, uh, in order to be with the right people. And so that's the, that's the last way you invest in yourself because you say, yeah, I left that $25K on the table, but I also invested that in being in a better opportunity for myself, which is gonna lead to good things down the road. All right, let's move to the next, next questions. We got a couple left here. So this idea of, do I try to make a bunch of money first or do I do something mission-oriented? Um, which is the Justin Mayer quote. Um, first get your nut, then do something noble. Um, I believe this is true. This is the life version of put your oxygen mask on you before you put it on your kids. Like, like you see it here on an airplane. So I think there was a certain threshold of success, which is you've built skills, you know how to build shit, you know how to sell it, right? You know how to, figure out a product and you know how to market it. So you gotta build that core skillset. It doesn't really matter whether you're selling, you know, um, you know, these cans or you're selling, uh, life-changing, you know, pharmaceuticals. It's kind of the same thing. You need to build a core skillset first. Don't, don't worry about the product in that meantime. The second thing is gonna be, um, you need enough money, enough runway to chase a noble mission. So like if you go try to chase a noble mission, but you don't know where the rent comes from every month, you are going to lower your odds of success pretty dramatically just because you didn't give yourself enough runway to go do something bold and audacious and ambitious. Of course, don't fall into the trap of perpetually waiting the next year. Maybe next year I'll have enough time, money, experience to go do the thing I really want to do. I believe you should always go do the thing you really want to do. I don't think the thing you really want to do has to be a noble world-changing mission, um, especially at the beginning. And so I wouldn't put that pressure on myself. So to summarize my answer on what I would do if I was young, broke, and starting from scratch again in 2024, I would break my career up into 3 phases: the learn, earn, legacy. I would, um, spend my learn phase dabbling, trying to find the thing that I really love to do that I am uniquely good at. So it's that zone of genius, the thing the market wants that you're good at, that you enjoy doing, the bear on the unicycle. And you, you try to find that thing. I would take advantages of my edges. I would identify my edge and I would take advantage of the edges of losers. During that time, I would optimize around getting around the smartest and most ambitious people I could find. I would do the actual work, the A+ problem. I would create luck. I would not worry about investing. I would only invest in myself. Along the way. And that is, as I get a phone call, that is my answer of what I would do if I was starting over from scratch. Um, yeah, so I guess I just start a marketing agency.