It took me 30+ years to realize what I'll tell you in 26 minutes...

I wasted 30 years learning what I'm about to tell you. And honestly, that time felt like a thousand years when I was living through it. Years of mistakes, years of going in circles, years of watching other people succeed while I was stuck in the same patterns, making the same mistakes, like as if I was cursed to repeat them forever. If I had a time machine and I could go back, but I only had less than an hour to tell myself something, these are the things that I'd say. Nothing else matters. No fluff, no theory, just the rules that actually worked for me. the rules that took me from being broke, confused, and stuck in poverty to achieving financial, time, and location independence. In the next few minutes, you're going to get seven rules, one example each, and one takeaway from each rule that you can apply today. Steal them, apply them, and skip the pain that I went through. Now, I'm going to get really personal in this content, and it's honestly not easy to make. So, if you like this type of content, let me know by gently tapping that like button, and let's jump into it right now. All right, rule number one is solve the money problem first, then solve everything else. So money doesn't fix every problem, but it speeds up fixing any problem that you could possibly have. Think about Maslau's hierarchy of needs for a second. At the bottom, you have food, water, shelter, the basic stuff. And money takes care of all of that immediately. Then the next level up, you have safety, employment, health, and resources. Money handles that as well. The next level up is love and belonging, friendship, and family connection. Now, money doesn't directly give you those. But here's the thing. When you don't have money, you're obsessed with money. You're stressed. You're working extra hours. You're counting pennies. And you don't have time for friendships or building real connections. But when you have money, you stop thinking about money, and you can trade your money for time. And because of the fact that you have money, you don't have to work as much, and you don't have to do things that you don't want to do. So, you end up having more energy, and you can actually be present with your family, your friends, and your loved ones. And then the next level up there's self-esteem, respect, status, strength, and freedom. And when you solve the money problem, unless you're a trust fund baby, that means that at some point you have given massive value somewhere. So you've likely become world class at something and that builds real confidence, not fake ego, real confidence because you know that you've earned it. And then at the very top is self-actualization, finding your purpose. And honestly, good luck with that if you're broke. You need money first. So don't chase women. Don't chase fun. Don't chase distractions. Chase excellence. Money first equals options first. Now, I came from a very poor background. I was homeless at certain points. I lived in section 8 housing. I've lived in trailer parks. And I think the worst of all is when I lived in a basement apartment that had cockroaches, giant wolf spiders. And when I would take a shower in the bathroom, the water would actually flow to the kitchen. Plus, it was a tiny apartment that was right next to a laundry room for the rest of the house. And so pretty much all the time we would hear the noise from the washers and the dryers and the people that were walking down into the basement. And all I wanted to do was escape poverty. Now back then there wasn't nearly as many resources as there is now on the internet to make good decisions on how to actually escape poverty. So I did what society told me to do. I went to college. I got a really good degree. I got a doctorate in pharmacy. And I became a pharmacist. Right? So I got a really good six-f figureure job. Now, at this point, I had escaped poverty, but I'd also gotten myself into a golden handcuff situation. I had to go multiple six figures in student loan debt in order to get that doctor to pharmacy degree and in order to get that six-f figureure job. So, yes, I did have more money, but I spent most of it just paying off my student loan debt. And when I was poor, sure, I didn't have any money, but I did have a lot of free time. So, it was kind of an out of the fire, but into the frying pan situation. With that being said, it wasn't the best decision, but it also wasn't the worst decision either. That job gave me the stability to launch an online business. I started this YouTube channel that you're watching right now, and this is the channel that gave me financial, location, and time freedom. With that being said, if I had a time machine and I could start over, what I probably would have done is started off by getting a remote job. And specifically, I would have gotten a remote job where I get paid to learn valuable skills. something like digital marketing, some sort of tech job, or a sales job. And the reason why I would get a remote job specifically is because, for one, there's a lot of remote jobs that are actually pretty easy to get into. Two, it gives you a certain level of time independence because with a remote job, you don't have to spend an hour or two every single day commuting to work. And so, it actually saves a ton of time. And then three, it gives you a level of location independence because obviously it's a remote job. So, you can technically do it from anywhere. Because of that, you save a bunch of money on things like commuting expenses, having to live in a really expensive city, having to buy a bunch of expensive clothes to go into an office, and inevitably ending up spending a bunch of money going out to lunch. Instead of paying to learn valuable skills like I did with my pharmacy degree, I would be getting paid to learn valuable skills instead. And then once I'd learned some valuable skills, I could take one of two routes. Either one, get an even better job and get paid more money, or two, start my own business. All right, rule number two is give value and expect nothing in return. So you might have heard of reciprocity and how powerful it can be. And reciprocity basically tells you to give value first. And this is a very powerful concept and it works incredibly well. But if you want to have the power of reciprocity on steroids, what you should do is give value and expect nothing in return. Let me explain. In pharmacy school, tests were brutal. People were struggling. And what I did is I made quizlets where I tried to predict test questions and then I shared them with everyone. Now, I didn't ask for anything. I genuinely just wanted to help people. And I did. I helped a ton of people out and they appreciated it. And a few months later, people started telling me to run for class president and I did not plan on doing it. I thought that there was no way I was going to win. But after enough people told me to do it, I decided to go ahead and run. And I remember there was a guy who was much more popular than me in the class and he posted this amazing rap video and he did it like the night before the elections and the first thing I thought was there is absolutely no way I'm going to win this. But I ended up winning and winning in a landslide. Why? Because I solved people's problems. I didn't try to entertain them. I didn't try to be the coolest person in the class. I genuinely helped them. And good people naturally want to help people back. It's called reciprocity. Now, reciprocity works really well on its own, but a lot of the time the way that people do it is they'll do something nice for someone else, and then they'll kind of just stare at them with puppy dog eyes, like, "What are you going to do for me now?" And that comes across as very disingenuous. What you should do instead is give people a ton of value and expect absolutely nothing in return. And that's exactly what I do on this YouTube channel. I give away all the best tips completely free. I even do live streams every single week to help other people grow and make money with their YouTube channels. Which, by the way, if you need help with that, like picking your niche or picking video ideas or figuring out how to properly monetize your channel, then definitely check that out. Tuesday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. All right, quick break. This Tuesday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time, I'm hosting a free live workshop called Make Money with YouTube in 2025. If you've been struggling to find your YouTube niche, or you don't want to spend months or even years building a channel around something that isn't profitable or just doesn't work for you in general, then this workshop is for you. Because for everyone who shows up live, I'll be giving away the Niche Validator 2.5. This is the most advanced version of my GPT powered niche validation tool yet, and it's designed to help you instantly test and uncover profitable YouTube niches before you invest your time, money, and effort into the wrong one. And it's the most refined datadriven version so far, and I'll be giving it away completely free, but only during this live workshop. So, attend the free live workshop by clicking that link down the description and the pin comment below to grab it. You'll also be able to ask me questions live, so I look forward to meeting you. Oh, and just a heads up, this will be probably one of the last times I'll be giving away a version of the niche validator for free. So, make sure you click that link and show up to the workshop. Make sure you put in your calendar and I look forward to seeing you there. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming. And that's why I've gotten people to comment on my channel and comment on the live streams that they've been able to blow their channels up just from my free content alone. And this has been one of the biggest secrets to my success because not only did I use it to become president of my pharmacy class, but I've also used it to blow up my YouTube channel and start many different businesses as well. For instance, when I was first starting my YouTube consulting business, Content Growth Engine, I helped a bunch of business owners who had reached out to me looking for help in my network for free and I got them insane results and they gave me testimonials and those testimonials helped me land my first paying clients. But the key is it had to be genuine. If you give value to someone, then stare at them with puppy dog eyes. That's cringe. It's like buying a girl a drink and then expecting her to go home with you. People can smell that from a mile away and they'll know that you have bad intentions. So, don't do that. Lead with help. Detach from the outcome because goodwill compounds far faster than money ever will. And the value you give to people compounds into reputation. Okay. Rule number three, go where the opportunity is. The number one predictor of how successful you're going to be financially is your zip code. This is not me just saying this. This is literal scientific fact. You can look it up if you want. Right? It's not your gender, your ethnicity, your religion, any of that stuff. It's your zip code. So, your zip code and your peer group quietly and insidiously set your ceiling. Now, I grew up in trailer parks, section 8 housing, ghettos, basement, and I was even homeless at one point. I went to a high school where there was a daycare center, and it wasn't for the teachers, it was for the students. So, when you grow up around people who aren't successful, you need to leave. I can't emphasize how important this is. Now, I was living in Kansas and small to medium-sized towns, and there wasn't really much opportunity there. And I never met anyone making real money online. Not one person. So, I moved to Las Vegas, which is a hub for online entrepreneurs. And I even put myself in an incubator house full of entrepreneurs. And I started running in circles with people who were crushing it. And I started networking with successful people who had online businesses. And just being around them changed everything. It's almost like magic. It's like osmosis. You know, they say birds of a feather flock together. They also say that if you show me your five closest friends, I'll tell you exactly who you are. And there's honestly a lot of truth to that. Human beings are social animals and you cannot help but take on the characteristics of the people that you surround yourself with. So, if you're only around people who are unsuccessful, you're almost doomed to be unsuccessful yourself. And another thing is when you put yourself around people who are successful, you realize that they're not magical. They're just normal people who work hard and have a positive mindset. But it's almost impossible to fully realize and embody this until you put yourself around them. Now, technically, you don't have to move. You can do this digitally. You can get mentored online. You can join coaching programs, masterminds, or online groups. And you can get into communities where winning is normal. And just as an example, I've paid over $50,000 to be in a mastermind before. Why? Just to be around people who are crushing it. And that is going where the opportunity is. Proximity is a strategy. So, put yourself in the path of luck. Now, another thing I'll say about moving locations or just being around a different friend group is it kind of resets your brain, right? A lot of the bad habits that you had or things that you believe just because other people believe them, these things all of a sudden just disappear and you kind of get to reinvent yourself and just start from zero. Now, another quick thing that I'll mention here just because I think it's worth mentioning is when you try to better yourself, there will be a significant amount of people who don't like it. It could be your friends, it could be your families, it could be your peers. And this is a very common thing. Some people refer to it as crabs in a bucket, which is basically where when one crab tries to climb out of a bucket, the other crabs will grab it and pull it back down. This is also referred to as tall poppy syndrome, I believe in Australia, which is basically where when one flower grows taller than the others, that's the flower that gets cut. And so there is a very good chance that at least temporarily, you might have to distance yourself from people that are holding you back. But yeah, the biggest thing is just getting involved in communities of people who want to do the same thing as you. Think of almost anything you've ever gotten good at in your life, whether it's basketball or playing an instrument or maybe a subject in school. Chances are you got good at that thing when you were around a bunch of other people who were trying to do the same thing. And chances are you had some sort of teacher, tutor, or mentor that helped you get good at that thing as well. And this is the power of community. Human beings are not designed to be solitary creatures. We are social animals, right? Almost nothing amazing has ever been done outside of a group. All amazing things that have ever been done in all of human history have been done by groups of people working together. And maybe God designed it this way, right? 3 + 3 doesn't always equal 6. In many cases, when people get together, it's more like 3 * 3 equals 9 or 3 to the 3r equals 27. People are able to accomplish way more when they do it in groups of other people, which is why you absolutely need to get involved in a community of people that are trying to do the same thing as you. So, if you want to do that completely free, attend my live training this Tuesday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. All right. Rule number four is focus on one thing until you're world class at it. So, generalists might earn a living, but specialists can earn a killing. Just as an example, brain surgeons make around a million dollar a year. General practitioners make around $150,000 a year. Why? Because brain surgeons are specialists. They're world class at one thing. So, focus on one thing and grind until you're world class at it. So, this is the most common mistake that I see newbies make. And this is a mistake that I made as well. You know, there was one younger guy I was working with who had serious shiny object syndrome constantly. You know, one moment he wanted to do Instagram, the next moment he wanted to do crypto, then this, then that. And meanwhile, he's actually pretty good at Twitter. In fact, I would say he's pretty close to being world class at it. So, if he just keeps grinding on Twitter, there's absolutely no chance that he won't be a millionaire. But he keeps switching right before he gets great at it. And it's pretty easy to be good at something, but it's very hard to become great at it. Now, let me explain the hierarchy of competence really quick. First is unconscious incompetence. This is where you don't know what you don't know. You're bad at something and you don't even know that you're bad at it. Then you have conscious incompetence. This is when you realize that you're actually bad at that thing. Next is conscious competence. This is where you're good at something and you're consciously improving at it, but you do actually have to think about it a lot and put a lot of effort into getting better at it. Finally, there's unconscious competence. This is where you're so good at something that you don't even have to think about it. Now, with YouTube, I'm at this level of unconscious competence. I can basically see the matrix. Sometimes I tell people video ideas and I can't even explain why they'll work. I just know that they will. It's pattern recognition and it's tens of thousands of hours of doing this. And I've been doing YouTube for years and I make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month from YouTube. So, I really do know what I'm doing here, but it took years. Now, another thing to keep in mind is there's also the Dunning Krueger effect. When you start something, your confidence is super high. You think, "Oh, this is super easy. This new opportunity is going to be way better than what I'm doing now." But it's a fake confidence because after a little bit you realize that the grass isn't always greener on the other side and you also realize it's going to take you a lot of time to get really good at this new thing. And that's the valley of despair. Your confidence drops way down. Then there's the long grind. You keep going, you keep shipping, and eventually you become world class. And then your confidence is actually higher than when you first started. But this time it's real confidence. It's earned confidence. And it's based on real results. So, pick one thing and stick with it until unconscious competence kicks in and you'll basically be like Neo from the Matrix. You'll be able to do it and you'll be able to make it look easy. But first, you have to be boring and you have to grind long enough to become undeniable. That's the rule. Rule number five is radical open-mindedness. So, the best way that I can describe this is what gets you to one level may not get you to the next level. You know, what got you here won't necessarily get you there. Now, there's this guy named Sam Ovenans. absolute legend and he was one of the first online mentors who really helped me and he has this quote you don't have business problems you have life problems that reflect in your business and if you want to be a millionaire you need to become the person who deserves to be a millionaire that is the key and he also said what's in the dark needs to come to the light so if you've been doing the same thing over and over again and you feel stuck you need to change things up you know what got me to 10k a month is not what got me to 30k a month and what got me to 30k a month is not what got me to 100k K a month and what got me to 100K per month is not what got me to 300K per month and on and on. So this is why you need to have radical open-mindedness. Consider things opposite of your opinion. Be open-minded. Almost everybody at some point is going to get stuck. And you're not going to get unstuck by doing the same thing over and over again. You know, some people that start a business, they get stuck at $5 to $10,000 a month and they just stay there forever. Some people get stuck at $30,000 a month and stay there forever. Some get stuck at $100,000 a month and stay there forever. But the truth is, what got you here won't always get you there. For example, maybe you got your first clients from just simply doing cold outreach, just messaging random people. But that's not sustainable. You can't scale with that. You need to do either content or paid ads to sustainably scale. And this is why you need radical open-mindedness. Whenever you think that you know it all, consider opposite opinions. And when the facts change, your opinions should change. And this works both personally and in business. When it comes to marketing, for instance, things that were true 5 years ago might not be true now. And things that are true now may not be true 5 years in the future. The market changes and you need to accept change. You need to adapt to change because as Darwin said, it's not the strongest who survive and thrive. It's the most adaptable. And you could be wrong about many things you believe to be true. And that's humbling. But being able to accept that and change your behavior is what creates millionaires and even billionaires. So when you're stuck, open up your mind and try something else. And keep experimenting and tinkering until you find something that works. And then when you find that thing that works, do more of that thing, right? I guess that could be an entirely separate rule, but if you find something that works, do more of that thing and do more of that thing a lot. And if something is not working over a long period of time, stop doing it. What's happening guys? In the editing process of this video and I have an opportunity for a select group of people. So these are people who are serious about growing their personal brand on YouTube. So basically we figured out recently how to grow a personal brand and combine all the upsides of a personal brand with the upsides of automation, right? Using AI, using things like this to basically grow your personal brand 10 times faster, which in the past used to take decades to do. And now you can do it significantly faster. And you can do this to get a better job. You know, we work with beginners that just want to get a better job with their personal brand. You can do this to make money as a side hustle. We work with a lot of people like that. We can do this to make more money. If you already have a side hustle or a small business or if you're already crushing it on YouTube, we can help you crush it 10 times more. We've worked with people like that as well. I mean, I literally can show clients at each level. People that we've gotten from zero to over 10K, zero to like over 30K, uh, from like 1K per month all the way up to 185K per month, from around 30K per month, all the way up to over 500K per month. So, literally at every single level, and it works for everyone in every situation. With that being said, we are only working with three to five people and they have to be people who are very serious, right? People who are dedicated to making this work. So, if you think you're that type of person, go ahead and apply down in the description and the pin comment below and you can be part of our group of 35 that we help. So, see you there. Have a good one. All right. Rule number six is document your journey. And with this rule, I have to be honest, content is an absolute cheat code. Now, I have 1.4 million subscribers right now. And the biggest cheat code, no matter your business model or what your goals are, what you're trying to achieve in life, even if you're not trying to start a business, maybe you just want to get a better job, is to document your journey. Make content about what you've learned. Just as an example, one of my first clients I worked with was Josh. At the time I worked with him, he was making less than $1,000 a month from his YouTube channel. And after working with him for a while, he was able to actually leverage his YouTube channel to get his dream job working at a Fortune50 company where he had a remote job that allowed him to live in his dream country, Japan. So just by simply documenting his journey and sharing the stuff that he already learned with other people who were trying to get into IT, technology or cyber security jobs, people actually came to him and started offering him positions at his dream companies. And he got a job making multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and he got to live his dream life. Then he grew his channel to 3,000 a month, 5,000 a month, 10,000 a month. And eventually he quit his job and scaled his channel all the way up to over $186,000 in a single month. So documenting your journey is the absolute biggest cheat code both financially as well as from a self-development perspective. It's kind of like keeping a video diary. So pretend that you're talking to yourself from a few months ago or even years ago. If you had a time machine, what would you tell your past self? What problems could you have solved? How much time, effort, or money could you have saved yourself? Or maybe just emotional distress, right? How much of that could you have saved yourself if you had a time machine and you could go back and tell yourself what to do and what not to do? Then make that as content. Document it. Help other people. And here's the truth about big business channels, and these are all the channels that you look up to. Alex Herozi, Grant Cardone, Gary Vee, all the big names. The reason they're making most of their money, and this is kind of like a dirty little secret, it's their online presence. It's the content that they make. It makes it so much easier to get clients. And of course, you can get clients directly from the content. I built multiple different businesses off of my content, but also it helps you get clients indirectly as well. For instance, if you're running paid ads or you're doing cold outreach, people are going to look you up online. And what's going to show up at the top of Google if they look up your name? Your YouTube channel. Then they're going to start watching your YouTube videos and they're going to be two to three times more likely to work with you. So, it makes it so much easier to scale if you're doing this. Same thing if you're applying to a job. people look you up, they see that you have a YouTube channel where you basically show your expertise and you have a bunch of amazing tips for other people. They're going to be way more likely to hire you. So, just share insights as you learn. If you're reading a book, maybe you got some good insights from it, make a video. You found a new strategy to get clients, make a video. And by the way, you don't need super highly edited videos either when it comes to educational content. Sophisticated audience like honest, authentic, raw videos just like this one. So, document your journey in public. You'll build a following and clients will find you. All right. Rule number seven is understand risk and reward for real. Now Helen Keller was blind deaf and mute. And she had a very tough life. And she had this very interesting quote. She said, "Security is mostly a superstition. Avoiding danger is no safer than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all." And what she basically meant by this is if you try too hard to avoid risk, you're actually exposing yourself to more risk. An example of this is when you're poor, it's harder to not be poor. And this is the situation that I was stuck in and so many other people that I saw at that time when I was younger. You know, a lot of people just kind of get comfortable being poor and they just want to stay there. Something small happens, a health crisis, and you go to the hospital and that ruins your year. You end up having to take out credit cards and you go into debt. So, by avoiding risk, you're exposing yourself to more risk. So, take calculated risks, smart risks. I'm not saying to be right. Don't gamble. Don't buy some kind of meme coin. I'm saying take smart, calculated risks. Risks that have a high probability of success because in the modern world, the consequences of failure are tiny. For instance, let's just say you fail at an online business like starting a YouTube channel, you just wasted your time. That's it. Whereas a thousand years ago, if you try to do something amazing, you risked being ostracized by your tribe. And if the tribe kicked you out, you were pretty much doomed to die. But in the modern world, first of all, they're probably not going to do that to you. Even if they did, you wouldn't die. and you could easily just find another tribe. So, it makes zero sense to not just try over and over again. Even if you fail 10 times, let's just say you're 18. And even if you fail 10 times and each time takes a year, by 28, you'll have a successful business. And you'll be way better off than 99.9% of people. So, you have to understand risk and reward. Not just money, time, energy, passion, freedom. You're risking your freedom if you keep doing a 9 to5. You're risking your time not having time to do what you love. Think of the opportunity cost. And by the way, opportunity cost is an incredibly important word. The opportunity cost of not doing something versus doing something else. Not just money, but time, your passion, your energy. So make frequent asymmetrical bets. Protect your downside, but seek the uncapped upside. And this is exactly what I did with YouTube. I remember when I first started on YouTube, I had it in my head that I will keep doing this even if it takes me 10 years for my channel to take off. I'm just going to keep making videos. Even if I make a,000, 2,000, 3,000 videos and my channel still doesn't take off, I'm just going to keep going. Now, the funny thing is my channel took off within the first like 10 or 15 videos. And now that I know what I'm doing, I can get a channel to take off in like one video. For instance, when I started my 50-year-old brother on YouTube, we basically made a channel helping people to get into the trades because he had 29 years of experience in the trades, but he was very technologically challenged. He didn't have any YouTube experience, but because of my experience and being able to help him, his very first video took off. And 29 days after uploading his very first video, he had a $214 AdSense day. Now, if you're interested in how we helped him do that, again, attend the live training this Tuesday, 9:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, completely free. We'll also be giving away an AI that makes this way easier. And I will answer every single question you have, even if I have to stay an extra 2 hours. So, yeah, those are the seven rules that I wish I had on day one. These are the seven rules where if I had a time machine and I could go back in time and tell myself these things, this is what I would tell myself. Now, I know that 99% of people, maybe even 99.9% of people watching this are never going to work one-on-one with myself or my team. And that's completely okay. Like I said, I love to give value and expect nothing in return. And I want to give at least 10 times more value than what I receive. However, if you're one of those 1% or.1% that really wants to speed up the process and work directly with people that can help them grow and make money on YouTube, then go ahead and apply for a call down in the description in the pin comment below. It'll be the second link down there. On this call, we'll figure out where you are right now, where you want to be. We'll make a plan to get there, and we'll see if we're a good fit to work together or not. Only apply to the call if you're very serious about growing and making money on YouTube. If not, just enjoy the free content and the free live streams. And also check out this video right here where I break down, you know, my income sources, how I was able to make money on YouTube, and how I was able to grow this channel that you're watching. And you can check that out by clicking right here.