Dan Martell - April 20, 2024


If I Wanted to Go From Broke to Millionaire, Here’s What I’d Do

Hosted by
Dan Martell
Mentioned
Visible Labs Dreaming Big David Allen Java
How My Wife and I Communicate To Solve Issues Communicate In Outcomes

Episode Stats


Length

14 minutes

Words per minute

216.5

Word count

3,222

Sentence count

113

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

If I had to do it over again, starting today, and going from zero to a million dollars by the end of this year, this is exactly how I would do it. I went from a broke 17-year-old with 15 bucks in my pocket to a 27-year old millionaire with over $1M in my bank account.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 I went from a broke 17-year-old with 15 bucks in my pocket to a 27-year-old millionaire with over
00:00:06.280 a million cash in my bank account. But if I had to do it over again starting today and go from
00:00:11.520 zero to a million dollars by the end of this year, this is exactly how I would do it. So to get to
00:00:16.860 seven figures, first I have to get to six figures. Step one, I would build one of the five six-figure
00:00:22.000 skills that have the most demand this year and they only take a few hours a day to learn. I built
00:00:26.920 my first six figure skill when I was 17 years old in rehab. That's where I found a book on Java
00:00:32.560 programming and I got obsessed with programming software. I built the skill knowing it was going
00:00:38.060 to be valuable. This is 1997. I get out of rehab and discover this small thing called the internet
00:00:43.420 and it turns out to be a very big deal. And this is actually one of the six figure skills that are
00:00:48.760 most in demand this year. So number one is software engineering, learning how to build
00:00:53.760 products, code systems. Two is video editing, taking content like this and making it engaging
00:01:00.140 for people to want to start watching it and continue watching it. Three is copywriting,
00:01:05.040 learning the skill of persuasion, communication, getting people to purchase without anybody having
00:01:10.800 a conversation with them. Number four is graphic design. How do you take images and make them
00:01:16.520 beautiful? How do we create more content, social media, build audiences? And number five is data
00:01:21.800 analysts there's people that take the information and massage it in a certain way and structure it
00:01:26.680 so that the ai algorithms know how to talk to the data to make sense of it all which brings us to
00:01:32.760 number two which is follow one course until successful see once i started to see that my
00:01:38.360 skill could make six figures i put my head down and started focusing on actually how to make it
00:01:43.400 happen and this is how i did it follow one course until successful is actually part of the focus
00:01:49.560 acronym get it focus follow one course until successful so instead of acting on all the crazy
00:01:55.720 ideas i focus on one path and for me that was building my software company multiple streams of
00:02:01.880 income will not make you rich not when you're starting off entrepreneurs typically die from
00:02:06.360 indigestion not starvation meaning they take on too many things they say yes to all these
00:02:10.840 opportunities instead of understanding what is the focus and going all in learning what to say
00:02:16.680 no to is just important to what to say yes to see when you're starting off you need to figure out
00:02:21.400 how to do one thing that you can sell that people will buy and continue building that process trying
00:02:27.960 to start selling other products other business ideas getting involved with their friends those
00:02:32.600 are all distractions away from being focused on building your revenue so if you actually want to
00:02:38.440 build a million dollar a year business do one thing commit to it go all in put the effort to
00:02:43.720 to a point that it would be unreasonable
00:02:45.540 for you not to achieve that outcome if you focused.
00:02:48.300 Which brings us to number three,
00:02:50.000 which is to audit your social circle.
00:02:52.020 While following one course took me from zero to 100K,
00:02:55.480 it's only when I expanded my circle
00:02:57.420 that I saw massive leaps in my revenue.
00:02:59.740 100K to 250K came on the backside
00:03:02.640 of looking at who I spent time with,
00:03:04.620 cutting out all the wrong people,
00:03:06.440 and then adding the right people in.
00:03:08.520 I call it doing a friendventory.
00:03:10.260 So three groups of people that you should evaluate
00:03:13.160 to start building relationships.
00:03:14.880 Number one is peers.
00:03:16.520 And these are typically people that are in your industry
00:03:19.260 or building similar type companies
00:03:20.700 that are about two years ahead
00:03:21.940 so that they can give you feedback on what you're doing
00:03:24.540 that are still very relevant strategies in today's world.
00:03:28.280 The second group is advisors.
00:03:29.740 These are people that have specialized skillsets.
00:03:32.240 Think accountant, recruiters, lawyers.
00:03:34.880 Yes, you can pay them,
00:03:35.720 but I would also try to find people that could advise you
00:03:38.340 on these different areas of your business
00:03:40.260 as you start getting going.
00:03:41.720 And then the third group are mentors.
00:03:43.540 And I always joke mentors are people
00:03:44.980 that you turn to instead of your parents.
00:03:46.760 And the reason why is because mentors are people
00:03:48.400 that have done the thing you wanna do.
00:03:50.080 They've created the outcome that you're striving to achieve.
00:03:53.380 And if you turn to your parents for advice,
00:03:55.020 you'll get the exact same life they had,
00:03:56.820 which if your dad is wealthy and your mom is incredible,
00:03:59.800 great, but for most people,
00:04:01.040 we wanna create a future that's bigger
00:04:02.440 than the one we experienced in our childhood,
00:04:04.680 which means going to your parents for advice
00:04:06.380 is actually a flawed strategy.
00:04:08.080 So mentors are people that have been to where you wanna go
00:04:10.640 and can give you advice on how to think
00:04:12.700 through the sequencing in the steps.
00:04:14.680 Which brings us to number four,
00:04:16.700 which is to quit your time assassins.
00:04:18.820 At that point in my life,
00:04:20.160 I was hovering around 250K in revenue
00:04:22.480 and had to take a serious look at my life.
00:04:25.060 Where I was spending my time, what time was being wasted.
00:04:27.840 This is when I realized that there's five time assassins
00:04:30.620 holding entrepreneurs back.
00:04:32.140 The first one is the staller.
00:04:33.700 And this is people, entrepreneurs that can't make decisions.
00:04:36.940 They have analysis paralysis.
00:04:38.620 These are people that it takes them 15 minutes
00:04:41.080 to decide how to reply to an email.
00:04:42.820 I remember one time, one of my mentors,
00:04:44.680 this guy named David Allen,
00:04:45.660 he wrote a great book called Getting Things Done.
00:04:47.520 His rule is if it takes less than two minutes
00:04:49.860 to reply to somebody or to make a decision,
00:04:52.180 if you've got all the information,
00:04:53.420 then you must make that decision,
00:04:55.100 at least the next step to move it forward.
00:04:57.380 Number two is the speed demon.
00:04:59.160 This is kind of the opposite.
00:05:00.340 This is the person that needs to hire somebody
00:05:02.320 and they go on their Facebook post and they say,
00:05:03.660 I need to hire somebody that looks like this.
00:05:04.960 And then all their friends reply.
00:05:06.340 And then as long as the person can fog a mirror,
00:05:08.160 they have a heartbeat, they're willing to take the pay the person's offering, they just hire them.
00:05:12.080 No process, no systems. And then the person completely falls apart. And then they got to
00:05:16.120 hire somebody new. And they wonder why they keep wasting all their time with bad hires because of
00:05:20.820 the way they do things. They're trying to move too quick instead of moving with intent. Number
00:05:25.120 three is the supervisor. This is the micromanager. This is the person that hires somebody to do a
00:05:30.120 job and then tells them how to do the job, checks that they did the job, and then tells them what
00:05:34.320 to do next. If I hire somebody to do the job, I let them do the job. So I don't tell people what
00:05:38.840 to do. I train people to what to do. And that's how we avoid becoming the supervisor, not actually
00:05:44.140 getting our time back when we hire people. Number four is the saver. This is the person that walks
00:05:49.120 over dollars to pick up dimes. These are people that don't understand that hoarding money in their
00:05:54.120 bank account is not actually productive. They're not putting their money to work and they have all
00:05:58.440 these money beliefs and scarcity beliefs instead of an abundance personality that causes them to
00:06:03.380 go slow in life and waste time instead of investing to buy back that time to move faster.
00:06:09.240 Number five is the self-medicator. And for me, this used to be one of my biggest problems where
00:06:13.180 I couldn't even celebrate a win or deal with a loss without drinking, not wanting to feel the
00:06:19.820 feelings. I just felt like I deserved it. I had a long day, so I deserve a drink. And drinking
00:06:23.820 caused more pain and created more time suckage in my life than anything else. And honestly created
00:06:29.540 a path where if I didn't quit 12 years ago that I know it would have created some major issues for
00:06:35.120 me in my life. So what's cool is these five time assassins cost nothing to implement to overcome
00:06:40.460 and can save you a ton, a ton of time, which brings us to number five, which is to feed your
00:06:45.660 mind. After quitting my time assassins at this point, I was 24 years old at 300k in revenue in
00:06:51.040 my software business. And I realized that I needed to feed my mind. I started reading multiple
00:06:55.860 business books like the e-myth secrets of the millionaire mind and thinking grow rich i started
00:07:01.220 learning about these ideas and inserting them into my mind and these are the four channels i use to
00:07:06.740 feed my mind number one is podcasts and videos i mean it could be youtube or your gym first off
00:07:12.420 i'm going to tell you a little productivity hack go buy yourself a membership for youtube red why
00:07:18.180 it gets rid of ads and allows you to download videos from youtube offline so you could watch
00:07:24.020 them when you're traveling you don't have internet connection it's probably the best 10 bucks a month
00:07:28.020 that i spend but if you don't want to do that podcasts are free my favorite podcasts are podcasts
00:07:32.980 that teach me the skill that i need to learn next if i'm trying to figure out marketing go subscribe
00:07:37.540 to the top five top 10 marketing podcast if you want to figure out sales go subscribe to the top
00:07:42.020 10 sales podcast if you want to figure out teams or leadership go subscribe to the top 10 podcast
00:07:47.620 so you have the feed and you're always listening while you're driving while you're working out
00:07:51.620 while you're in commute so that you're feeding your mind the second is books and i consider books
00:07:56.340 a little bit more dense in information than podcasts i consider podcasts and youtube videos
00:08:01.700 kind of the fast food of information still good motivational but not as good high nutrient dense
00:08:06.900 information as books the best books are again the top five in the category you need to learn
00:08:12.180 and this is how i still do it to today if i want to go deep on an industry deep on a vertical deep
00:08:16.740 on a skill set i always google top five books i read those books even a few years ago i realized
00:08:22.500 one of the areas i wanted to really double down on was my mindset so i decided to start with
00:08:26.740 thinking grow rich that was published in 1937 and researched the top 150 books that were written that
00:08:32.980 influenced that book and started reading those for the last two years because to me that's how
00:08:38.180 i learned information i want to go deep on something so books will give you frameworks
00:08:42.980 to feed your mind, to improve your skills.
00:08:45.460 The third is courses and training.
00:08:47.280 So if you wanna go even faster,
00:08:49.300 buy the courses who have already read the top 25 books
00:08:52.480 or have 25 years of experience
00:08:53.940 and put it into a training methodology for you to absorb.
00:08:57.880 Training courses are way more potent than a book.
00:09:01.080 And the fourth is events and seminars.
00:09:02.960 And the reason why I think seminars specifically
00:09:05.400 that are designed, that are very transformational in nature,
00:09:08.320 they have the impact of a course or a training program
00:09:11.840 and the peer group and the energy of having other peers
00:09:15.420 that can show you what's possible.
00:09:17.440 So you have the information plus the vibe of the room
00:09:20.460 and you get to make new friends
00:09:21.840 and you get to really transform
00:09:23.280 some of those negative beliefs
00:09:24.640 or those limiting beliefs that could really push you forward.
00:09:27.040 I cannot stress how important getting in a room
00:09:29.380 of other people that are on the same journey as you
00:09:31.760 and feeling that energy and meeting those people
00:09:34.200 and being inspired for what they've done with their life
00:09:36.460 for you to bring that into your business.
00:09:38.080 Which brings us to number six,
00:09:39.880 which is to use the achievement roadmap process.
00:09:43.060 Although feeding my mind
00:09:44.080 helped me grow my business substantially,
00:09:46.040 it's only when I extended my time horizon
00:09:48.280 and set my goals using the specific framework
00:09:51.020 that I unlocked over 500K in revenue in my software business.
00:09:54.960 This is the process that helped me get there.
00:09:56.780 First off, I believe there's three things
00:09:59.180 you need to achieve any goal.
00:10:00.840 You need 100% clarity on what you're trying to achieve.
00:10:03.640 You need 100% belief that you can achieve it.
00:10:06.140 And you need to think about those two things
00:10:07.960 100% of the time.
00:10:09.460 And to the degree that you have 100% clarity
00:10:11.920 on what you wanna achieve, 100% belief you can do it,
00:10:14.180 and you hold that together 100% of the time
00:10:16.760 is how fast you're able to pull forward
00:10:19.360 into your life that outcome.
00:10:22.120 Here's the four-step process I use to achieve anything,
00:10:25.960 like the brand new Lamborghini I just got,
00:10:28.160 or the new Ferrari Pista for the people that like fancy cars,
00:10:31.840 or the jet, or my homes, like whatever it is,
00:10:34.400 I use this exact same process.
00:10:36.240 So the first thing is the standards.
00:10:38.020 If I think about a goal of getting in shape,
00:10:40.540 like I did Project Visible Labs,
00:10:42.020 which is essentially I went from 15% body fat
00:10:44.900 down to four and a half percent body fat.
00:10:47.000 The way I did that is I asked myself,
00:10:48.760 what would be the standard on a yearly, monthly,
00:10:51.540 weekly, daily, hourly basis that I would hold
00:10:54.420 and to create a simple standard.
00:10:56.140 And for me, what I realized that if I eat 200 grams
00:10:58.360 of protein, 2000 calories a day,
00:11:00.560 and I train and I work out every day,
00:11:02.280 that standard would enable me to achieve Visible Labs.
00:11:06.100 So you gotta ask yourself, whatever your goal is,
00:11:08.260 what activity, what work, what process
00:11:10.820 could you implement the standard on a daily basis,
00:11:13.600 on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis
00:11:15.320 that would make the achievement of the goal inevitable?
00:11:18.260 So that's number one.
00:11:19.140 Number two is resources.
00:11:20.560 If my goal is to get in shape,
00:11:22.180 I need to ask myself, what are the people or the systems,
00:11:25.580 maybe it's courses, or tools, maybe they're apps,
00:11:28.240 that I know about that I can go and ask or acquire
00:11:31.520 to help on the outcome that I'm trying to achieve?
00:11:34.140 So if it's people, I might ask myself,
00:11:35.760 who are the fittest, most jacked people I know in my life?
00:11:38.420 Make a list of them.
00:11:39.440 Systems, what are the different dieting programs,
00:11:42.080 workout programs that I know about
00:11:43.460 that I can maybe go buy?
00:11:44.680 Or tools, what are the apps that I could install on my phone,
00:11:47.800 like a meal tracking app or a workout app
00:11:50.040 so that I can have some more accountability?
00:11:51.720 When you look at the resources,
00:11:53.220 you actually probably already know what they are.
00:11:55.220 Pull those into your life, 0.90
00:11:56.560 tell the people what your goal is,
00:11:58.720 ask them to hold you accountable,
00:11:59.940 and then use the tools and the systems
00:12:01.960 to achieve that goal even faster.
00:12:04.140 The third is triggers.
00:12:05.080 So what I do is I've anchored different outcomes
00:12:08.940 to things I do in a day.
00:12:10.660 So for example, I review my goals three times a day
00:12:13.080 and I've connected them to when I sit at my desk here
00:12:16.740 or I sit in my car and I review them.
00:12:19.200 Because what I wanna do is I wanna keep my focus
00:12:21.380 of my outcome top of mind.
00:12:23.120 See, most people, they write down goals
00:12:24.480 and then they forget about them.
00:12:25.480 They don't ever ask themselves,
00:12:26.560 does my calendar reflect my priorities
00:12:28.040 or do I have the right resources
00:12:29.480 or did I ever follow up on this person
00:12:31.060 or am I on track, have I weighed myself lately?
00:12:33.020 So you wanna connect the triggers to reviewing your goals
00:12:36.160 so that you always keep them top of mind.
00:12:38.200 And then what I do, which is number four, is rewards.
00:12:40.620 This is next level stuff,
00:12:42.040 but essentially anything that I wanna buy,
00:12:44.740 things like experiences for my family
00:12:46.660 or for myself or my friends,
00:12:47.980 or possessions, cars, houses, et cetera,
00:12:50.700 I put on the backend of achieving a goal.
00:12:53.320 Usually I do a physical goal
00:12:55.760 or some kind of spiritual goal
00:12:57.000 is experiences with my family.
00:12:58.780 And any business goals,
00:13:00.360 I always usually give myself a possession,
00:13:02.080 like a car, a property, or some art.
00:13:04.760 For example, Project Visible Labs,
00:13:06.480 I put my new Lamborghini Urus on there
00:13:08.380 because again, I could buy them at any point,
00:13:10.240 but the challenge is that then I don't appreciate it
00:13:12.320 and I didn't gamify the achievement.
00:13:14.380 So I do that on the backend of those outcomes
00:13:16.900 so that I have something to work towards
00:13:18.920 and then reward myself to build that process.
00:13:21.920 Which brings us to number seven,
00:13:23.440 which is to trade money for money.
00:13:25.680 While Dreaming Big got me to 500K in revenue,
00:13:28.120 I wasn't a millionaire yet in cash in the bank after taxes,
00:13:31.540 but that's when i learned there was only three trades you could make so understanding how to
00:13:35.540 reinvest these trades allowed me to multiply my money making me a millionaire at 27. i'm talking
00:13:41.860 cash money in my bank account taxes paid not a paper millionaire not a equity millionaire real
00:13:47.220 cash in my bank account using these three trades so number one is i traded time for money so i
00:13:52.420 would do programming and maybe you're a graphic designer or a copywriter and you do that skill
00:13:58.180 and you get paid for it that is trading time for money which is great and you want to keep putting
00:14:02.340 your prices up until you get paid top dollar but that's the first level trade second trade is money
00:14:07.700 for time and this is really about understanding how to get leverage where you take money you've
00:14:12.260 made and then buy back more time so you can go invest in yourself in the skills so you can become
00:14:17.220 better to actually generate more money with the amount of time you're spending in your business
00:14:21.700 but then eventually you want to reinvest the money you have into the business so that you can increase
00:14:26.980 more money generated from the business this is money for money this is where you're investing
00:14:31.620 in the business not in buying back your time but in opportunities and strategies to grow the business
00:14:36.660 so that you can make more money and if you live below your means like i did i became a millionaire
00:14:41.140 within three years building that company and that's what allowed me to become a cash millionaire
00:14:44.900 at 27 years old that's what i would do if i wanted to become a millionaire today if you want to learn
00:14:49.540 my 15 laws of success, click the link
00:14:51.880 and I'll see you on the other side.