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My First Million
My $0 to $1 Million Guide - How I Would Start Over in 2024
My $0 to $1 Million Guide - How I Would Start Over in 2024

My $0 to $1 Million Guide - How I Would Start Over in 2024

My First MillionGo to Podcast Page

My First Million, Shaan Puri
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20 Clips
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Oct 30, 2023
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Episode Transcript
0:00
Alright 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 I'm going to answer the question. I will give you an answer this question. I'm worked up as you can see because I got an answer to this question.
0:30
Russian I feel like I can rule the world. I know why I could be what I want to put my all in it like all days. Oh, I want to
0:38
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 and they had this age component to it which is sort of funny because I don't care if you're 21, you're 31, you're 41. You're broke. You're broke if you're not successful.
1:00
Feel that success for 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 all the possibilities were on the table, if you 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 should always have the belief that the whole my whole world is in front of me that my best days are ahead of me.
1:29
Me that anything is possible and that I can reinvent myself right now. 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 the age constraint which only adds 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 excellent existential crisis because I was like I thought
2:00
Going to be Forbes 30 under 30, and I thought I'd be you know have million dollars in my bank account B now and I didn't have any of those things and then I was like, all right. Well guess I didn't happen moving on and I just continued on in 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 a 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
2:29
It as a white belt we want to make our way up to a black belt in the game of success. What would we do we're going to be back in a second. But first, let me tell you about something magical happens when the third quarter ends and the fourth quarter begins its where the sales teams become Legends. That's why Hub shop built. Its sales Hub to give sales reps the deal-making tools that they need to win and Q4 and close the your strong sales hubs prospecting workplace organize your schedule goals a to-do list in one place and saves your team to Precious time in the fourth quarter and with an easy-to-use.
3:00
Management tool reps can find track and close deals all in one place plus AI forecasting helps you accurately predict future success. So put your sales team on The Fast Track. It's winning in Q4 with sales up. Learn more at HubSpot.com / sales. All right, let's get back to the pot.
3:16
So let's break this down into smaller chunks. I the best metaphor. I had our best framework. I've heard from my career was that everybody goes through three phases in their career? And the three phases are number one learn.
3:33
Learn and Legacy. So this learn Legacy framework that your career will go into those chapters. The beginning of your career is generally the learn period is when you got internships or you're just starting your first business you're making a bunch of mistakes 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 career is what you optimize for. So one job offers you an extra fifteen thousand dollars. The other job offers you 15,000 dollars.
4:02
Switch 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 have been a far better learning experience for them that they were going to get way more hands-on experience working with way smarter people on more interesting projects which in the long run would have 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?
4:32
How much am I growing per month as a person? I'm building me as a product, right? That's the learning 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 job so that way you could just work on whatever you're most.
5:02
Interested in whatever, you're passionate about whatever you love and so the urn 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 by 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 to 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
5:32
Open mind. So those first 10 years. I say 10 years 10 years sounds like a long time. But 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 the first 10 years you are in the learn phase you are actually just dabbling so we are told that we should stick to it be determined due to blah blah. That's the wrong advice. It's the same bad advice that gets you when you're 18.
6:02
18 19 years old to declare your major. I even love the we call it declare like I'm gonna be like, yeah, you know chemistry right? Like you know, what are we do based on what based on what experience I'm a bio and chemistry major. I knew nothing about any of those I'd even know what jobs they create but at 18 years old. I'm supposed to declare my major fall behind silly. And so we don't want to fall into the silly traps and pressures the people pigeonhole you into so what are you going to do for your for your major? What are you gonna do for your career? What you know, what what field are you in the answer is I'm dating the
6:32
Right, just like we date before we get married you want to do the same thing with your career? So you're going to be dabbling. So you should be expecting to I don't know every 18 months turnover 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 your using change to find the thing that you are uniquely capable of and that's the next key lesson identifying your Edge. So the second thing I would do if I was starting over again as I would realize that I'm in the learn phase I would start.
7:02
At 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 your 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 that got how many times I got to Shadow somebody right along with somebody because I just told him 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
7:32
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 figure learn this with you? Will you will you show me how this works and being small and helpless is a absolute Edge that most people who are unsuccessful try to hide their embarrassed that they're not successful. They're embarrassed that there had 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 poor beginners and so Embrace that you're a beginner that is part of your Edge. The next thing is you got time. You're not busy so
8:02
For me, there are so many opportunities. I don't do because I have a five thousand dollar an hour time budget. So if somebody's gonna cost me an hour, it has to be worth at least five thousand dollars. But when I was younger, I would have done I did Psych studies. I would go take a pill or go, you know try to read from this card for seven dollars an hour, right? My hourly rate was much lower 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.
8:33
Another party wretch you have nothing to lose and it wasn't by the way a lot of this is mindset because the actions you take our 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. 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 that I'll tell you the actions. So the mindset the next part of the mindset that matters is
9:02
Is you have nothing to lose? So just like you're small and you're helpless just like you got a clear calendar and nothing to do. You also got nothing to lose you already lost. You got nothing you're starting in rock bottom, but that's a pretty solid foundation. And what you want to 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 can 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, you know, I don't go to conferences. I don't go to certain meetings, but you should if you're in that boat we have
9:32
The leaves because you got everything to gain. The last thing is you now need to find your personal Edge. So those first ones are the common edges of losers, right? The losers Edge and losers have those edges and you should embrace the losers Edge because the losers age is what helps you become a winner. Now you need to find your personal Edge. Your personal Edge is going to be the thing that comes naturally to you. It comes easy to maybe you're funny. Maybe you don't mind grinding things out when everybody else gets fatigued. Maybe your baby of an eye. You have really good.
10:02
It tastes 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. Yeah, you're like a bear riding a unicycle I go what he goes, 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.
10:31
It's 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 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 your 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
11:00
Lap of two or three 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 those people who are worth hundreds of million dollars. I'm not but I'm more successful than 98% of people on the business side.
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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 business ideas on a better business people to 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 into 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 I only found that when I started following my
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Personal Edge and so you want to find your personal Legend if you don't have one today, don't worry. That's okay your 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 are 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 going to become a great writer by practicing. I'm going to become a great salesperson by practicing and that'll be one of my things so you want to create your personal
12:18
Edge.
12:19
All right.
12:20
So you've decided you're in the learn phase your dabbling you're discovering your personal Edge. All right, that all comes together and what happens the scoreboard still says zero because the scoreboard is is 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?
12:49
This category there's a general question. I'll give you some like common questions fork in the road 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. So, you know, I think the real takeaway is that either way works. Which one should you choose? Well again when you're optimizing for
13:19
I'm 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 think that also want to do the thing that you want to do. It doesn't matter if that's your musician and you want to you then you should be hanging out with other musicians that are trying to make it. I have friends that are big talkers or viners or YouTubers. They all move to LA. They all moved into houses together or on the same street as each other and they hung out with other people who are super driven at the same thing that they wanted to do. So why I moved
13:49
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.
14:19
And 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 start-up and moving to Silicon Valley for you. That might be joining. Whatever this Generations Google is, you know and getting around really smart people that are all flock to this thing. Right? Like open a I or one of the one of these companies where it's a talent magnet for young ambitious motivated people. Hey guys, let's take a
14:49
30 second break to tell you about another HubSpot podcast Network show called The Hustle Daily Show, you know every weekday there's a team of writers at the hustle that break down the biggest news stories to headlines in 10 minutes or less. They'll tell you why you should care about them and it's funny. It's a reverent and it's just touched on everything from business culture news and Tech, you know, they also do deep Dives on topics like why this man won the lottery 14 X or Y. It's nearly impossible to buy an original Bob Ross painting or how Taylor Swift literally affects the local economy when she pulls into a city for a tour if nothing else you'll walk away with some interesting.
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Stuff that you can talk about with your friends to make you sound, you know smarter than you actually are so search for the hustle Daily Show on a podcast Spotify or wherever you listen to podcast. All right back to NFL the next thing you need to do.
15:31
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 I'm getting the experience because of course working at Facebook and 2024 is like, you know, that's I'm getting experience but their employee number 42 thousand 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
16:01
Matthew choose for me. I chose the path of starting a company. 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 apis problem is we're getting sued and we need to deal with this sometimes the price April April problem is our growth stopped and we have no idea why and we got to get this thing back growing again. Sometimes it's were growing so fast. We can't even keep up with operations. Hake can somebody go move to Atlanta and
16:31
Pinup our Atlanta office because we need we need more people in Atlanta. Right? Like I do people that were earlier over this was what was going on Uber was working they could even keep up with demand and people who made millions of dollars and became really smart at ruber 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 can'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 what I get when we got acquired by twitch. They were like your job is they
17:01
Bought our Esports platform and there was a year now the director of Esports. Okay cool supposed to work on this Esports thing.
17:08
And my friend said something to me that I am a co-founder for Connie said something to me that stuck with me. He goes he was he was looking at the overall company dashboard and he's like they're making some I can't say the number. It's not that I'm not allowed to but some huge number starts with a b and ends with a billion in revenue and so they were like he was like don't you think that when we're here? Yeah. I don't know. How long were going to be here are 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 what he's the way he said it was
17:38
What you feel like a bitch if you worked here for a year and we didn't even make a five percent swing in the company and I was like, I would feel like a bitch if that happened. You know, I don't like you 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 though, you know like this that 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?
18:08
Petit and we're just not going to busy ourselves until we find that and luckily had a big company knows what nobody knows what the hell you're doing. Anyway, so the first two 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's like no, it's a cool. I'm free. He's like you're free. I just mostly working on the thing. I like that but this is bigger, right? He's like, yeah, it is bigger. And so we created a special team and we ran it to do.
18:38
Thing and we actually made a big impact this happened again. I remember when I was at twitch and the top stream on Twitch was this guy named ninja you got sponsored by Red Bull and he was like the story was on TV all the time and it Fortnight was in its Heyday and ninja was the guy and then Microsoft came and paid ninja like 20 million dollars to leave twitch and go over there and we lost our biggest dreamer overnights. Like if you know the Warriors, you know, if somebody came and took Steph Curry off the Warriors just paid him any left. It's like oh shit, and it was an oh shit moment.
19:08
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 it looks like he left here's some data analysis on how big of a problem that is or a little of a problem that is here's my strategy recommendation of what we should do and I just sent it to the CEO right when in doubt put a letter in the CEOs mailbox and he's like, this is great here joining a put me in three group chats right away, which were like the tea the exact teams that were working on that. He's like, hey, you know Sean's it on
19:38
And they're like why he doesn't he's supposed to be doing this other thing. 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 it's 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 Plus problem right now? So that's the second principle you have to do during this early phase. So what would actually do I would be whether I start my own company or join when I would be finding a way to work on the Apes.
20:07
This problem at all times. 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 fly-in 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 the podcast but you know what great things are worth repeating. There are four levels of lucky. You got to be aware of them and then actually manufacture them so luck is not something that happens to you. It is something that you can
20:37
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 two more events make some introductions.
21:07
For people, you know just published 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 in not because I think I could create a big audience. In fact, I almost think that would be a disservice if everybody is now listening to some 23 year old 25 year old who's got no experience knows track record of success. Like I'm not trying to present myself as a thought leader. What do I
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Trying to do is publishing my thoughts it 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've interesting and that increases my surface area for luck. So I be creating content on a regular basis polishing my thoughts. I think when my intern came on here the episode called, you know, my intern my 18 year old in turn became a millionaire one of the reasons why is because he said that he either he wrote it or his
22:07
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 socks, 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 I always say you don't want to be
22:37
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 because that's how new up to is going to 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 would be any company where I feel like there's a, you know a problem to solution fit for me now, that would be a service company I didn't
23:07
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
23:17
Can I have 10 customers paying me ten thousand dollars a month?
23:22
Ten customers that ten thousand dollars might sound crazy but like for a business to business to spend $10 dollars on things, but I would say my dad be my Benchmark 10 customers pay me ten thousand dollars a month. That's a hundred thousand dollars a month. I think which is fucking baller if you missed that part, so if you're doing 100 km month, you're doing one point to a year you're doing the work mostly so it's you know, 90 percent profit. Margin you hire one or two schleps to work with you and now, you know, you're 85 percent profit. Margin, you're making a million dollars to Europe.
23:52
That would be my goal of what I'm trying to get to now. What type of service would I what I do? Well, I would work backwards from what's a service that I think I could pull off that doesn't I would not limit myself to my skills. So what I would do is I would go on up work 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 a agency or Consulting service that people are willing to pay 10K a month for on a retainer like on a recurring basis that
24:22
either I could do myself or I could hire people overseas tour to do them. Right? Like I'm an investor in Shepherd. You can go on Shepherd. You can say hey, I want web developers in latam that I pay 1,000 the you know, I pay a thousand to two thousand dollars a month and then you could create a web development agency, then you could go and you know, what I would do is I would go and I would email everybody every real estate agent in my city. Very easy contacted fridge is fine. I would say hey I was on your website. It doesn't look great, but
24:52
Yo, hey, look at this example website this other guy his websites. 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 you say hey guy who runs a Senior Living Center Nursing Home, you know, if you ever met people from nursing homes, they're not the best at marketing. They're usually like older people who are
25:22
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's filling occupancy is directly translates to Ching and 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 we well we make six thousand dollars a month off each person. So
25:52
Pay the first month's rent. I pay 6 grand for every person you can bring it is a fantastic. So I just got to get you to people a month and I'm making 10 over 10 grand 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'm sad I would say hey, how can I get you to send me those?
26:22
As 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. 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? 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 eight hours on YouTube, I'm pretty sure I can.
26:52
Come 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 product eyes agency and try to get to that hundred k a month bar and I be okay at the first month getting to 1,000 month or thousand a month ten thousand a month, but slowly but surely be trying to build up to that to that level in the math. I said earlier about ten customer-facing 10K doesn't matter whether it's ten paying 10 or it's 20 paying five or Thirty paying three I could do this all day. By the way you were just trying to do
27:22
Do math to get figure out. How do you get to a hundred thousand dollars a month? 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 four grand 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 in as soon as I get it to 100 km month. I would go try to sell it because I'm doing let's say 800 29er came a year of profit.
27:48
And I would go try to sell that for four times profit and I'd have four million dollars. That's what I would try to do more MFM in just a minute first. Let me tell you about one of the joys in my life and that is a virtual assistant. You know, here's the scenario. I'm running my company's I spend 30% of my time just doing random bullshit the stuff that has to get done but it's not creativity doesn't require me and it doesn't add a bunch of value to the business. It's just stuff it. So that stuff is what a virtual assistant does. So having a virtual assistant is a no-brainer whether it's travel booking email inbox or
28:18
Just knocking stuff off your personal to-do list, that would have just lingered there forever. I think it's a no-brainer. If you're a business owner, you should definitely do it. I think one of the best places to find assistant is Sheppard, so go to support shepard.com super affordable. It's something that you know, you don't need to have the biggest business ever be the biggest big shot in order to afford it. So it's amazing go to sports a.com check them out and tell them I sent you they'll take good care. If you do that so sports ever.com check it out. All right, let's get back to the pot. Alright, so now let's pretend I'm somewhere in the middle of that.
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Us
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and I did a little bit of money. Here's a common mistake people make get a little bit of money. You get 10 20 grand. You've been listening to podcast from Schmucks like me and you're like, oh, I think I should be investing Angel Investing S&P 500 Bond. What's a bond is start trying to come up with some like Financial strategy.
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Complete waste of time. You don't want to be making 8% on eighty thousand dollars a year it honestly doesn't matter if your goals are to be a multi-millionaire successful person who's going to do big things with the life. Of course, if to you a thousand dollars is like the jackpot then do that. But most people listen 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 seven figure eight figure nine-figure club. And so how do you get there you get there by now.
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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 earn a you're going to try to beat the market and earn a 12% or 15% annual return on 42 thousand dollars. It just simply doesn't matter. So the advice the good advice you'll hear about this is well, you should invest in yourself.
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I suppose people here. That's like yeah, you're right. I should have asked myself. I know 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 in the Muslim have no idea what you actually do? And so here's what to me investing in yourself means. Let's break it into three categories category one buying back your time. So the first investor you want to make in yourself is to get your creative energy back. So when you're doing life your unfortunately forced to do a bunch of Life bullshit and life bullshit.
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Sucks away your creative forces life bullshit is running an errand doing a return having to go to you know, take the bus to the airport because you can't afford an Uber ride. Whatever. 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 be 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.
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I'm to go to the store drop it off. You are going to buy back your time. You're going to hire an assistant overseas for eight hundred dollars a month using Shepherd promo code Sean in order to buy back your time and not have to deal with tedious back and forth. So scheduling or whatever it is. If you're doing a product a 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 as a category one of how you actually literally invest in yourself Category 2 How do
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Invest in yourself you invest in the knowledge is titled as 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 any conference or group or member member's 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.
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The third one is so 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 conference is its membership clubs its masterminds whatever 3 is invest in yourself by leaving money on the table.
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Oh shit.
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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 going to waste your time you invest Yourself by taking a lower paying job with a badass person, right? Let's say I take 25k last to go work for a badass person which by the way, I did I took a multimillion-dollar pay cut in our acquisition because
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In one I was going to get to work with the CEO and then the other I was going to be three layers below the CEO. And so I just decided I'd rather be around smarter people and you know optimized for that. And so I believe that what you should do is you should take pay cuts to put yourself in great opportunities are around amazing people or working with amazing people. Maybe you take a little less Equity. Maybe you take a little bit less salary in order to be with the right people. And so that's the that's the last one.
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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 going to 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 which is the Justin mayor's quote first get your nut then do something Noble. I believe this is true. This is the life version of
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Put your oxygen mask on you before you put it on your kids like you see 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 got to build that core skill set. It doesn't really matter whether you're selling, you know, you know these cans or you're selling life-changing, you know, Pharmaceuticals. It's kind of the same thing. You need to build a core skill set first don't
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Don't worry about the product. In that meantime. The second thing is going to be you need enough money enough Runway to chase a noble Mission. So like if you go to her to chase them 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 ambitious.
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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, 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 starting from scratch again in 2024.
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I break my career up into three phases to learn Legacy. I would 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. I think the market wants that you're good at that you enjoy doing the bear on the unicycle and you've tried 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
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I would optimize around getting around the smartest most ambitious people I can 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
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again.
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Yeah, I guess I just started marketing agency.
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I feel like I could rule the world. I know I could be what I want to put my all in it like all Days on the Road Less Traveled never looking back.
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