Dan Martell - 7 Habits of Millionaires - That Most People Learn Too Late

00:00:00.000 I'm going to share with you the 7 habits of millionaires that most people learn way too late.

00:00:04.380 These help me stop wasting life as a broke 24-year-old and become a cash millionaire at age 27.

00:00:10.220 If you start today, they'll literally compound into millions.

00:00:13.220 So let's dive into the 7 habits of millionaires.

00:00:15.620 Starting with habit number 1, talk to strangers.

00:00:18.560 Everyone is one conversation away from achieving their dreams.

00:00:21.940 You've probably heard this before, your network is your net worth.

00:00:25.000 But it's not just knowing people.

00:00:26.460 See, a lot of folks make it a game of like, I know this person and I have this contact

00:00:30.580 and I have this email, but you don't know them.

00:00:32.960 And honestly, they don't want to help you.

00:00:35.080 And that is the big thing.

00:00:36.160 It's not who you know, it's will they support you when you reach out to them?

00:00:39.940 And the only way you can even start a relationship is learning to talk to strangers, learning

00:00:44.300 how to go from cold, I've never met you, to warm, this person wants to help me in my life.

00:00:50.040 To do this right, you have to learn how to introduce yourself.

00:00:53.120 It's the number one skill that I teach all young men that I coach.

00:00:56.220 So the format is this. You say, hi, my name is, then I help, then get desired outcome,

00:01:03.220 then your unique process. For me, when I was building SaaS Academy, I would say, hi,

00:01:07.600 my name is Dan Martel. I help software CEOs get growth in their business with our perfect exit

00:01:12.720 strategy. Then the person can lean in and ask you, well, how does that work? You can practice this

00:01:17.700 every day, all day long. When you go into a retail store, ask the person, how late do you guys stay

00:01:22.380 open. It sounds so trivial, but learning to ask a complete stranger a question, getting those

00:01:27.640 anxious feelings out of the way and just making it who you are, asking the waiter how long they've

00:01:32.920 been working there or what they would order if it was their birthday. Those are all great ways that

00:01:37.560 on a daily basis, you can build this muscle and overcome the fear of talking to strangers.

00:01:42.560 When I decided I wanted to go be on other people's podcasts, I sat down and I sent

00:01:47.480 personalized messages to over 500 podcasts. I knew my goal was to just get reps. It was less about

00:01:53.820 being on the right podcast and more about getting time on a podcast. And even though it sucked not

00:01:59.640 getting replied to or getting no's, I learned a long time ago that if I want to win, I have to

00:02:04.940 fight for the no's, not the yes's. And that's why I reached out to so many people so I could learn

00:02:09.520 to talk to strangers, learn to answer the question. What do you do? How did you get started? What is

00:02:14.880 your story. Before you get the opportunity to have your Oprah moment, you have to be ready for it.

00:02:20.580 The more hands you shake, the more money you make. And if you're not talking to strangers,

00:02:24.780 then you're not learning anything new. They don't know about you. You don't know what they know.

00:02:28.960 You already know what you know. Asking questions gets you new information to be able to grow your

00:02:33.140 life. But you can't build your network if you don't make time for it. Before I share number two,

00:02:37.920 we have a goal of hitting 1 million subscribers. So if you haven't already, take a second and hit

00:02:42.840 subscribe below. Which brings us to habit number two, manage your energy flows. Most people confuse

00:02:48.700 work with getting things done. See, I used to work 100 hours a week. I was burnt out, stressed out,

00:02:55.620 overworked, and I couldn't figure out how to get out of it. Now, I work less than 40 hours a week,

00:03:00.760 but I'm way more productive. The reason why is I focus on energy management, not time management.

00:03:06.220 One of my favorite quotes on this by Benjamin Franklin is that if you fail to plan, you plan

00:03:10.900 to fail. To make sure that I get the most out of every day. And I used to think I was productive.

00:03:16.120 I wasn't. I do these things. First off is I make sure everything I do is blocked in my calendar.

00:03:21.620 I'm talking personal, professional workouts, date nights. I need to see if I have capacity for more.

00:03:29.180 I need to understand if there's conflicts where I don't have enough time to get a project done,

00:03:33.420 what has to get dropped so that I can deliver on my commitments. If I don't put it in the calendar,

00:03:37.880 than I'm playing a game in my head and your brain was not designed to retain a lot of

00:03:42.740 information. It was designed to solve problems. So take the stuff that you want to get done

00:03:46.460 out of your head and put it into your calendar. The other thing that took me a long time to learn

00:03:50.880 is put the most important tasks first. This is what all millionaires do. They wake up and they

00:03:56.300 attack the money-making projects first thing in the morning because if they get those things done

00:04:01.580 right, everything else takes care of itself. It's the leading domino. Most people make the mistake

00:04:06.180 of saying freedom is doing what I want

00:04:08.500 with who I want anytime I want.

00:04:10.320 The truth is, is that if you don't write things down

00:04:12.740 in your schedule and know what you're saying no to,

00:04:15.300 then a yes is a no to your dreams.

00:04:17.280 Because if you say yes to somebody to taking the day off

00:04:19.620 and going to the beach,

00:04:20.500 but you don't know what you're giving up,

00:04:22.240 then essentially you might be saying no to your dreams,

00:04:24.420 your goals of the future by saying yes to the present.

00:04:27.300 That is not what millionaires do.

00:04:28.840 And if you wanna make this even more powerful,

00:04:31.720 review your calendar the night before.

00:04:33.920 8 p.m. every night, it's in my calendar.

00:04:36.180 i review the next day even though it's pretty well baked a week ahead of time i just want to ask

00:04:40.740 myself does this feel good does it flow right am i having the right conversation am i focusing on

00:04:46.180 the right projects if not i make adjustments and this next one is on every millionaire's calendar

00:04:51.620 which brings us to habit number three feed your mind one of the greatest gifts my dad ever gave me

00:04:58.100 was when i got out of rehab at 17 years old was the decision to give me an unlimited budget

00:05:03.780 for computer books. He told me as long as I finished it, he would pay for the next one.

00:05:08.520 And my dad didn't have unlimited means. I knew how much of a stretch it was for him to be willing

00:05:13.020 to say this to me. But he understood, and I eventually learned, the power of self-education,

00:05:18.580 the value of reading a book, understanding how to solve problems on my own. Since then,

00:05:24.100 I've read over 1,800 books. What's crazy is a book can give you 20 years of knowledge in a few

00:05:30.220 hours for just 20 bucks. Any new goal that I set for myself, I always ask, what are the three to

00:05:35.920 five books that the best in the world recommend around that topic? If it's fitness, if it's

00:05:40.680 relationship, if it's business, and then I go deep. Not only do I read them, I study them. I ensure

00:05:46.840 that when I'm reading them, I'm thinking, how can I apply this today? And then also, how do I teach

00:05:52.100 this to others? I read to learn, not to finish. The moment I get a massive takeaway from a book,

00:05:58.500 I go execute. And if I never come back to that book because it solved my problem, I have no

00:06:02.700 problems not finishing a book. I honestly believe for myself and many of my friends that are

00:06:06.400 millionaires, reading first thing in the morning primes our mind. It gets us ready to find

00:06:11.040 opportunities all around us. And the coolest part is when I read those 10 pages minimum every day,

00:06:16.380 I'm looking for something that I can use to serve the world with. And that energy of going on the

00:06:21.300 hunt and highlighting different options to then share on my Instagram, I think that's what makes

00:06:25.880 the book work for me. If you want to go deeper and learn how I think about my calendar and buy

00:06:30.800 back my time, then get my book. I put 27 years of experience into this book and distilled it into

00:06:36.520 the only strategies you need to read to get the most out of your life. But knowledge alone won't

00:06:41.340 make you a millionaire. Which brings us to habit number four, be obnoxiously curious. The other day,

00:06:46.720 my kids started asking why. And then I said, stop asking me why. And then the other one started

00:06:51.280 asking why, and then both of them just kept going, why, why, why? And it occurred to me, I don't want

00:06:56.480 to stop them from being curious, but I think in this moment they were messing with me, that idea

00:07:01.740 of asking why and being curious is a powerful way to challenge any situation. If you don't learn to

00:07:08.580 ask questions, even if it makes other people feel uncomfortable, then you'll never understand the

00:07:13.260 reasoning behind why something is being done for you to be able to use that in other areas of your

00:07:18.640 life. Albert Einstein famously said, I'm not talented. I'm just curious. Years ago, I was

00:07:23.840 hanging out with my mentor at a dinner party. I said to him, it was interesting watching you

00:07:28.020 because you just sat back and listened to everybody's answer. Yet I knew you already

00:07:32.240 knew most of the stuff you were hearing. Why did you do that? And he said, I already know what I

00:07:36.340 know. Learning from other people is how I progress my life forward. I think some people just talk

00:07:40.620 too much. And that one hit me. As an extreme extrovert, I realized I wasn't asking enough

00:07:45.700 questions so this is exactly how i use curiosity to become a millionaire first off i would ask my

00:07:51.300 customers the ones that bought and the ones that didn't buy why didn't they buy what was missing

00:07:56.020 for them to say yes the ones that bought what did you believe to be true that made you think that

00:08:00.580 this is the right product for you i asked my team why i asked them why did you decide to work here

00:08:05.300 why are you deciding to do this why do they prioritize certain projects how do they think

00:08:09.540 about their work and where they want to end up in the future being curious about your customers and

00:08:14.340 your team is how you develop a different mental model to be able to solve problems that are more

00:08:19.300 effective even more importantly to that is asking yourself why why do you react that way why do you

00:08:25.540 feel anger when those situation happens what gets you frustrated i always say the world will show

00:08:30.500 you where you're not free a life unexamined is a life that wasn't lived for you to truly express

00:08:36.420 yourself in business with your family with your friends you have to understand who you are even

00:08:41.620 today. I was just recently at one of my mentors, Patrick Bett David's office, and I saw a poster

00:08:46.140 on the wall. And I asked one of the sales guys, what's that poster? And he told me that it's all

00:08:50.440 the goals of the business. And the way it works is that if the bottom people don't hit their goal,

00:08:55.020 because there was a reward next to it, the people at the top don't get theirs. And I thought to

00:08:58.800 myself, how simple of an idea to get everybody aligned in the business with their goals across

00:09:03.660 different departments. I took that idea. I created the aligned goals ladder within my business. And

00:09:09.360 now I've got my team operating towards a common goal because I got curious when I was visiting

00:09:14.220 another office. Which brings us to habit number five, ask for feedback. When my brother started

00:09:19.580 his home building company, he almost went bankrupt. The reason why is he built a product that nobody

00:09:25.220 wanted to buy. How did he end up doing that? Because he didn't ask for feedback. He knew

00:09:30.120 his target customer was first time home buyers, specifically women, but he never asked them about

00:09:35.240 his designs, the locations, the finish, the fit, and he ended up building these houses that are

00:09:40.200 said to have no curb appeal. Before he ran out of money, he called me up and we changed the whole

00:09:45.660 strategy. Instead, what we did is we identified five women that were his ideal customer, ran

00:09:50.760 around to all the open houses that were going on by his competitors, collected all the feedback

00:09:55.460 about what these women loved, then fed that to the designer so he could architect the perfect home. 0.78

00:10:00.840 He went from almost going bankrupt to building and selling 16 homes in his first year.

00:10:05.780 That's the power of feedback.

00:10:07.860 Money runs out, feedback multiplies.

00:10:10.460 What's unique about my approach in business that allows me to make a million in my first

00:10:14.020 year minimum is that I start expecting that something's wrong about my idea.

00:10:18.280 I'm looking for how to validate my assumptions, not holding on to the belief that I'm right

00:10:23.540 and then hoping the market responds.

00:10:25.460 No business plan survives first contact with a customer.

00:10:28.180 In the book, Good to Great,

00:10:29.500 Jim Collins talks about shooting bullets,

00:10:31.780 lead bullets at the target

00:10:33.200 so that you can refine your focus.

00:10:35.200 And only once you're hitting the target with multiple bullets,

00:10:38.280 you then load up the cannon and take a shot

00:10:40.820 because you know it's gonna hit.

00:10:42.160 The challenge with feedback

00:10:43.120 is that you have to be careful who you listen to.

00:10:45.740 I used to make the mistake

00:10:46.780 of just asking everybody for feedback.

00:10:49.000 People that are not your target customer,

00:10:50.800 even people that signed up for your product

00:10:52.560 but never use it because you didn't check,

00:10:54.340 are horrible people to ask for feedback from.

00:10:56.240 I see this even when people hire and fire employees, when they're leaving the company

00:11:00.320 after they fired them, they're asking them for feedback for what they could have changed.

00:11:03.280 Why would you change your business for somebody that you decided to fire that's no longer there?

00:11:08.240 So yes, get feedback, but ensure you get it from the right people.

00:11:11.520 But the next habit is one that millionaires can't live without,

00:11:14.560 which brings us to habit number six, measure everything.

00:11:17.920 A year ago, I decided I wanted to have visible apps. Why?

00:11:21.680 Well, I heard there was 22 million millionaires in the US,

00:11:24.400 but there's only 3 million people with visible abs.

00:11:26.860 So I thought it'd be a fun little project, 90 days.

00:11:30.160 What changed?

00:11:31.000 Everything.

00:11:31.840 Specifically though,

00:11:32.740 I had to measure all aspects of my health.

00:11:35.460 I had to measure my macros.

00:11:36.840 I had to measure my workouts.

00:11:38.160 I had to measure my weight.

00:11:39.160 These are things that I recorded on a daily,

00:11:41.660 sometimes twice a day basis

00:11:43.240 so that I could ensure I could drop 33 pounds in 90 days

00:11:47.200 and have absolutely shredded abs.

00:11:49.660 The best part is I've kept it up 12 months later.

00:11:52.540 How? By continuing with the measurement. One of my beliefs is what you measure with specificity

00:11:57.780 and frequency expands. I get a daily cash email for all of my companies so I can understand how

00:12:03.920 money moves in and out of my businesses on a daily basis. And I use that as almost like a

00:12:09.160 heartbeat for how my companies are doing. Yes, my CFO creates reports, but at the end of the day,

00:12:13.920 something as simple as cash and wanting it to expand and focusing on it is I think one of my

00:12:19.120 key strategies that I would never get rid of. But even with all the tracking in the world,

00:12:23.180 none of the millionaires I know would make it anywhere without this last habit. Which brings

00:12:27.160 us to habit number seven, default to action. I have people talk to me all the time about starting

00:12:32.820 their next thing, starting their first thing, and they always put it off. They wait until the

00:12:37.180 situation is perfect. The truth is it's not about making the right decision, it's about making any

00:12:41.960 decision and then making it right. Here's how much I personally believe in taking action when you

00:12:46.700 know it's on your heart. In 2012, my company Flowtown was bought by Demandforce and I had to

00:12:51.760 stick around for 12 months. It's called your earn out so that I received the full amount that they

00:12:56.420 bought me for. Yet after a few months of being there, I came up with a new idea, this concept

00:13:01.440 called clarity. And I knew on my heart, I really wanted to do that. But I also knew leaving was

00:13:06.620 kind of a dumb financial decision. But I decided after seven weeks of working on that idea that I

00:13:11.940 had to go do it. After three months, I not only raised $1.6 million in funding, Demandforce got

00:13:18.120 acquired by Intuit for $600 million, which meant that it triggered a clause in the contract that

00:13:24.000 meant that I still got paid out my earn out. That's when I reinforced this belief I heard a

00:13:28.800 long time ago, which is the world rewards those that take courageous decisions. And your default

00:13:33.560 to action is you making that courageous decision. Courage isn't making a decision when you have no

00:13:38.740 fear? Courage is making a decision in spite of fear. If I didn't decide to go work on this new

00:13:44.540 project, I probably would have never got to that next level of growth and got the money, not only

00:13:48.900 from the exit, but from eventually exiting that second company. I bet on myself. And that's what

00:13:53.600 I want you to do for yourself. You want to be patient with your results, but impatient with

00:13:57.860 action. You might be young thinking I need to be further along, or you might be further along in

00:14:02.080 your life and say, why am I not further along? I'm telling you just be impatient with daily action,

00:14:06.700 be consistent, but also understand results sometimes take time. You can't make a baby in

00:14:12.340 one month with nine women. What millionaires do different is they don't just talk about doing the

00:14:16.940 thing. They actually do the thing. By the time you hear about it through their mouth, they've

00:14:21.180 already taken action on it because they have a process for taking action. One of them I like

00:14:25.160 to use is this concept called MINS, your most important next step. If I can just distill where

00:14:30.780 I feel blockage in my life to move forward into that next step and then just commit to taking

00:14:35.080 any action towards that one thing, not the bigger thing, that usually gets me building momentum and

00:14:39.960 momentum is contagious. Money likes speed. Your ability to process imperfect information and make

00:14:46.580 a decision is what makes the best entrepreneurs millionaires. But it's not just only what I do

00:14:51.500 that makes me a millionaire, it's what I don't do. If you want to learn the seven things I quit

00:14:55.440 to go from broke to millionaire, click here and I'll see you on the other side.

Dan Martell - January 17, 2025

7 Habits of Millionaires - That Most People Learn Too Late

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