Dan Martell - September 19, 2025


I’m 45. If you're in your 20s, 30s or 40s, watch this


Episode Stats

Length

14 minutes

Words per Minute

206.0409

Word Count

2,956

Sentence Count

158

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

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

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Most people think getting rich gets harder as you age.
00:00:02.920 That couldn't be farther from the truth.
00:00:05.000 I became a millionaire at 27, went bigger in my 30s,
00:00:08.080 and at 45, I'm still scaling businesses
00:00:10.360 in ways I never imagined.
00:00:12.020 And look, I know what you're thinking.
00:00:13.560 Dan, I'm 23 and I'm broke.
00:00:16.000 I'm 35 and I feel super behind.
00:00:18.060 I'm 42 and I think it's just too late for me.
00:00:20.440 But here's the truth.
00:00:21.440 You're not too young, you're not too old,
00:00:23.500 and you're definitely not too far behind.
00:00:25.480 You're just playing the wrong level.
00:00:26.940 Today, I'll break down the exact playbook
00:00:28.940 for each decade, your 20s, 30s, and 40s.
00:00:32.420 And I'll show you the next level nobody talks about,
00:00:35.860 which in my opinion is the one that matters the most.
00:00:38.740 Level one, your 20s.
00:00:40.560 The main advantage that you have is your energy.
00:00:43.120 For me, your 20s is actually about one thing.
00:00:46.400 It's about trading time for money,
00:00:48.900 then trading that money for skills.
00:00:51.920 Here's how I like to think about it.
00:00:53.360 I call it building your foundation.
00:00:55.740 Step one, we pick one high value meta skill.
00:00:59.360 See, a meta skill is something
00:01:01.000 that makes other skills easier to learn or adopt.
00:01:04.360 If you think about coding,
00:01:05.620 because it teaches you like systems thinking or sales,
00:01:08.580 right, because then you're learning about persuasion
00:01:10.380 or copywriting, content creation, project management,
00:01:12.880 all of these meta skills
00:01:14.260 make you better at learning another skill.
00:01:16.740 I always find the best skill
00:01:18.260 is the one that you would love to do.
00:01:19.820 It's almost like what would you naturally do
00:01:21.940 to procrastinate?
00:01:22.900 If that's one of these meta skills, do that.
00:01:25.520 But I really want you to keep this in mind.
00:01:27.900 Do not diversify, go deep.
00:01:31.160 That intensity and focus and obsession for me, writing code,
00:01:34.880 that's what's gonna make you incredibly valuable
00:01:37.200 within the high value meta skill.
00:01:39.300 And the best part is you can use your five to nine.
00:01:42.240 It could be 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. or 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
00:01:45.760 It doesn't matter if you're working a full-time job
00:01:47.320 or you're studying, going all in for six months
00:01:50.000 is gonna make you master at this meta skill.
00:01:52.180 step two most people won't agree with me on this is work for free because your parents are going
00:01:57.720 to be like oh i don't think you should work for free for this person they don't realize that when
00:02:01.380 you start doing something you're not good at it you don't add value so if somebody that has the
00:02:07.160 background and experience is willing to give you an internship or an opportunity to learn for free
00:02:10.980 take it i did this back when i moved to san francisco i didn't know anybody i didn't have
00:02:15.940 a high school friend i just cold emailed a bunch of folks and said here are the three things i'm
00:02:20.060 good at technology writing code sales persuasion and marketing really good at marketing and it
00:02:26.920 turned out that enough of those emails eventually got responded to and two or three people gave me
00:02:31.760 a shot they didn't pay me I didn't need to get paid I showed up being willing to do the work
00:02:36.360 without getting paid because I knew it was also going to build my portfolio and that's what most
00:02:40.820 people don't think about step three is the price ladder see the mistake that most people make is
00:02:45.820 they just say, look, I'll do this for like 50 bucks when normally anybody else would charge
00:02:50.180 100. So you can just say that is normally I would charge 100 for this, but you're somebody I really
00:02:54.940 admire and I want to do work with. So I'm willing to do that at 50% off. That shows the initiative.
00:03:00.300 And then once you do that, every five clients raise your price by 25%. Even when I look at my
00:03:06.580 journey, I mean, I was 17 in rehab and I discovered a book on Java program. And what happened is I
00:03:12.500 became obsessed with writing code. In many ways, it became my new addiction. And I would stay up
00:03:16.840 till two, three in the morning, just writing code. By 21, I was charging $75 an hour for consulting,
00:03:23.420 essentially 150,000 a year. It blew my mind that people paid that, but it's because I had so many
00:03:29.540 years of experience because I had the skills in the portfolio to prove it. So here's my rule of
00:03:34.720 thumb for those in their twenties. Say yes to everything that teaches you something, even if
00:03:39.760 it doesn't pay well because you'll get paid on the back end of learning it well. And I get it.
00:03:44.380 Maybe you're on the edge and you're scared to start. You're like, I hear what you're saying,
00:03:47.660 Dan, but I don't know. What if I fail? Here's what I know. Winners lose more than losers.
00:03:52.400 So in this stage, don't be afraid to fail. Use it to fuel your growth. So now that we've tackled
00:03:57.760 how you get rich in your 20s, let's move on to our 30s. The main advantage at 30s is strategy.
00:04:03.940 You've got things that you've tried and failed. You've created some systems. All of these create
00:04:07.980 leverage as you try to get richer. So here are three things that you need to utilize in your
00:04:13.020 30s to be able to get rich. Step one, the ATF framework. ATF stands for audit, transfer, fill.
00:04:22.420 This is where we look at our time to make sure we're working on the right things. I have a guy
00:04:27.140 on my team. He works really hard, but he's not getting near the financial results as the other
00:04:32.400 people on the team. The reason why is he doesn't look at his calendar through this lens. See,
00:04:36.240 audit is about understanding where are you spending your time and is it producing revenue and is it
00:04:42.240 lighting me up things that don't make you money that you hate to do that suck your energy those
00:04:47.280 have to get off your plate then we go to transfer transfer is about taking those things and giving
00:04:52.000 them to somebody else so this could be outtasking a task from like grocery shopping to running errands
00:04:58.640 to cleaning your home those little things you can start in your 30s but it could be as advanced as
00:05:03.840 hiring a full-time virtual assistant to help you with your email and your inbox then the last part
00:05:08.160 is phil this is about once you've got that time back what do you do to reinvest it to get higher
00:05:14.320 leverage so for me it's about things like my habits my belief systems in the world or more
00:05:20.080 importantly my character traits if you're easily upset all the time because there's a little
00:05:24.560 problem that happens and guess what you'll never get big problems and if you don't have big problems
00:05:29.840 you don't have a big life so now that you've audited your time and we have a framework for
00:05:33.740 improving your time now we gotta go step two the replacement ladder this for me is looking back on
00:05:39.680 my life and saying if i'm trying to get rich and build my team what's the order of hiring that
00:05:44.960 makes me the most money for the least amount of cost that buys me back the most time so the first
00:05:51.300 hire at the bottom is an executive assistant this is somebody dedicated to understanding your needs
00:05:56.700 and your life and your rhythms
00:05:58.180 that can take over 100% of your inbox in your calendar.
00:06:02.600 If you hear this and you think to yourself,
00:06:04.500 I don't even know what I get them to do,
00:06:06.420 I get you, here's what you do.
00:06:08.060 You click the link in the description below
00:06:09.820 and I will send you my internal document
00:06:12.320 that I use with my executive assistant
00:06:14.400 with all the different areas that we work on
00:06:17.680 to buy back my time.
00:06:19.220 That alone will save you so much time.
00:06:21.640 Second, you gotta hire someone to help you
00:06:24.100 with the delivery of your service,
00:06:25.980 the fulfillment of it. Think about it. If every time you sell something to somebody,
00:06:30.340 it creates a bunch of time taken up in your calendar, then you're not going to push as
00:06:34.160 hard to sell. So I like to recommend people hire somebody to help with the support
00:06:38.680 and the onboarding. You still might do the work, but all those questions and scheduling and all
00:06:43.660 that can be done by somebody else. Incredible amounts of value. The third hire is someone
00:06:47.880 to market your service. I can't tell you the amount of times I've worked with entrepreneurs
00:06:52.040 The revenue is up and down and up and down.
00:06:54.500 The reason why is because they do marketing
00:06:56.840 and then they get busy and then they stop doing marketing.
00:07:00.260 And literally it's this feast or famine all the time.
00:07:02.900 If you bring somebody in, even part-time
00:07:05.100 to always be marketing your business,
00:07:07.120 then you'll create a steady flow of leads and customers.
00:07:10.760 So you're never wondering
00:07:11.700 where your next deal is gonna come from.
00:07:13.240 The fourth hire is someone to sell your service.
00:07:15.400 And this is a beautiful place to get to.
00:07:17.300 And I know nobody sells as good as me.
00:07:19.220 You know you better than you.
00:07:20.420 You know what you do better than you.
00:07:21.600 how could somebody possibly do this for me trust me i used to think that till i hired a guy named
00:07:26.320 michael and on the first day michael sold better than me and when i asked him how the heck did you
00:07:32.000 do that he goes hey dan i think it actually makes you look like a real business if i'm selling you
00:07:38.000 instead of you selling yourself because that's kind of why they're coming to you and i was like
00:07:42.880 oh interesting now think about this four hires and you could be on vacation somebody else will
00:07:49.040 will create the opportunity, somebody will bring them into your world, and somebody else will bring
00:07:52.240 them on board in your business without you being involved. That is freedom. So once you implement
00:07:58.600 the replacement ladder, step three to get rich in your 30s is focus on one thing. This is going to
00:08:03.480 break some people's hearts, but we have to pick one business model. See, focus stands for follow
00:08:09.600 one course until successful. Most people fail in their business because they can't focus. When you
00:08:14.940 pick one business model, one niche, one target customer, then you become lethal because all the
00:08:21.340 energy, all your creativity, all your focus goes down on that one strategy. But it's scary. And
00:08:27.100 I'm going to encourage you to say no to everything else for three years minimum. I know. What if I
00:08:32.640 get an opportunity to invest in the next Facebook, Dan? What if my cousin comes to me with a sure
00:08:37.240 thing? When you say no to something else, you're saying yes to your goals. So the rule of thumb
00:08:43.600 for your 30s is stop trading time for money and start building systems that make money without
00:08:49.000 you. Essentially, build the machine that let the people run the machine. That's how you let your
00:08:54.940 money make you money. Level three, your 40s. See, the main advantage is experience, also known as
00:09:01.480 the gray hair advantage. My designer, Rich, said, hey, man, you look like that guy in Spider-Man
00:09:07.680 that manages the newspaper. But guess what? The greater my hair gets, the smarter I sound.
00:09:12.320 So if you're in your 40s, dig in.
00:09:14.420 This is where you can actually make the most money
00:09:16.640 because you have all the know-how,
00:09:19.740 you have the resource, you have the experience,
00:09:21.580 you have the relationships, you have the pattern recognition.
00:09:24.820 You can build the machine very quickly.
00:09:26.860 Now it's time to scale it.
00:09:28.400 See, there's three ways that I recommend doing this.
00:09:31.040 The first one is in a portfolio approach.
00:09:33.420 Essentially 70% in what you know.
00:09:35.860 See, most people diversify into things
00:09:38.320 they have no idea about.
00:09:39.520 I don't understand why they do this.
00:09:40.680 Maybe it feels mature or smart,
00:09:42.640 but I learned a long time ago from my mentors,
00:09:45.260 if I know what I'm doing,
00:09:47.560 investing in me guarantees an outcome.
00:09:50.360 Investing in somebody else, question mark.
00:09:52.720 So 70% of what you know from a portfolio approach
00:09:55.540 is saying, okay, if I'm a real estate guy,
00:09:57.700 if I build homes, maybe I should invest in multi-unit.
00:10:00.120 Essentially, whatever you're good at,
00:10:02.100 that skill, wherever you made money,
00:10:04.120 invest in other things as a portfolio
00:10:06.300 that you know very well,
00:10:08.400 because it's that information advantage,
00:10:10.480 just going to make you rich. So that's 70% of what you know. 20% is into adjacent opportunities.
00:10:16.000 For me, that's technology. Like I angel invest in a lot of things like 3D printing and drone.
00:10:21.040 And then the 10%, those are the moonshots. Those are, you know, these crazy ideas. One of my
00:10:25.800 friends is building this massive restaurant franchise. I love it. Brasa. So awesome. We
00:10:30.260 eat there all the time. Or another friend of mine is doing laundry sauce, which is a company that's
00:10:34.660 like trying to bring a millennial approach to laundry detergent. Crazy stuff that could be
00:10:39.120 massive, but it's not my core competency. The second area is become a mentor investor. Now I
00:10:44.540 kind of touched on this, but let me really dig in. Think about it. If you're in your 40s, now you got
00:10:49.660 to find some other people that are in their 20s that are willing to learn the skills that are
00:10:54.380 going to grow and you can mentor them. So finding three to five other entrepreneurs in your space
00:10:59.560 who are two or three years into the thing that you have experience and you can support them on,
00:11:04.700 I think that is a massive amount of leverage.
00:11:07.500 And what do they need?
00:11:08.840 Well, yes, they probably need capital,
00:11:10.820 but more important, they probably need experience.
00:11:13.440 And an opportunity is becoming an advisor
00:11:15.440 where you exchange your experience,
00:11:17.420 your time for equity in their business.
00:11:19.420 Now you've got shots on goal
00:11:21.280 that could turn into bigger outcomes
00:11:23.640 than your current thing you're working on now.
00:11:25.400 The third is compounding your wisdom.
00:11:27.720 See, too many people live a life that's unexamined.
00:11:30.680 I'm a big fan of doing and then reflecting,
00:11:34.120 Documenting every single pattern I've learned.
00:11:36.460 I've been doing this for almost a decade.
00:11:38.120 I've been posting on here for 10 years.
00:11:40.280 I've been sharing everything I've learned for about seven.
00:11:43.280 Because I had to document and codify it,
00:11:45.740 then I got to learn it better.
00:11:46.920 But the coolest part is those frameworks
00:11:48.840 became the tools that I could share with other people
00:11:51.460 to help them move faster.
00:11:53.120 What makes you valuable in your 40s is the experience
00:11:55.960 to come into a situation and see in 30 minutes,
00:11:59.320 identify the three things that that founder,
00:12:01.640 that entrepreneur, that business owner,
00:12:03.260 can do to change to 10x their growth because you've seen it so many times before but as a rule of thumb
00:12:09.100 in your 40s let your money work harder than you ever did your job is strategy not execution at
00:12:15.260 this point a lot of people go but what about after your 40s what then well here's how many of my
00:12:21.500 mentors have gone about it and how i plan and already am doing it too the final level your
00:12:27.260 legacy years here's what nobody tells you about getting rich there's actually a level beyond the
00:12:34.460 money this is where you use your money and your success your relationships everything you've learned
00:12:39.500 as a tool for impact not accumulation that's why it's another level it's understanding that
00:12:46.140 when you decide to teach everything you've ever learned to the next generation then you'll feel
00:12:50.780 fulfilled it's why for me i do a lot of things i run a program called king's club in my community
00:12:55.980 where I personally mentor 100 kids every month
00:12:58.560 that are 15 to 21 that want to show up and be better.
00:13:01.800 I go and I visit troubled youth at crisis centers.
00:13:04.720 I go inside prisons to speak as I travel
00:13:07.780 just to share my story, to help empower them
00:13:10.620 because I know that I'm here to be an example
00:13:13.620 for other people because people were that for me.
00:13:16.320 So the rule of thumb once you're past your 40s
00:13:18.840 is to move to another level
00:13:20.740 where this isn't about you getting richer,
00:13:22.900 it's about making others rich in more ways than one.
00:13:25.980 Here's the truth.
00:13:27.540 This game of life was never about the money.
00:13:30.480 It's about becoming the person along the journey.
00:13:33.840 When I say the world will show you where you're not free,
00:13:36.380 the ability to do the work,
00:13:38.200 being paid with money to improve your quality of life,
00:13:41.500 to get to a place where what you've done is so impressive
00:13:44.020 that other people wanna learn from you
00:13:46.200 and you share that with them,
00:13:48.140 that is what wealth is.
00:13:50.140 So now that you know this, I want you to ask yourself,
00:13:52.420 is my skill really next level?
00:13:55.000 am i really world-class at what i do have i found ways to leverage that within my existing business
00:14:00.740 with my team have i found people i can partner with to create more without having to work harder
00:14:05.760 and most importantly have i even considered that maybe sharing myself with the world
00:14:10.260 is actually what it's all about and if you're motivated by that and you want to learn the
00:14:14.380 exact system i use to buy back 40 plus hours a week so you can focus on getting rich click here
00:14:19.920 and i'll see you on the other side