0:01 Do you want to hear something crazy? I
0:04 went from 17-year-old addict straight
0:06 out of prison to selling three software
0:08 companies in 10 years and building my
0:11 net worth to over $100 million today.
0:13 What some people would call you money.
0:16 Trust me, no one was more surprised than
0:17 me. So, I'm going to share with you how
0:19 to make so much money that if life was a
0:21 video game, it'd kind of feel like
0:23 cheating. The first way to make so much
0:25 money it feels like cheating the game of
0:27 life is to not chase money, but to build
0:29 skills that attract it. When I built my
0:32 first company, Spheric Technologies, I
0:34 was working a h 100red hours a week. I
0:35 was spinning plates, wearing things were
0:37 going to blow up and then I sold it for
0:39 millions of dollars. I did it the hard
0:42 way cuz I didn't know any better. Today,
0:44 I make a hundred times more money
0:47 working half the time. How? I built the
0:50 skills to unlock revenue. See, you don't
0:52 create success by chasing it. You
0:54 attract it by becoming an attractive
0:57 character. You bring opportunities and
0:59 money into your life by being the kind
1:01 of person that easily brings those
1:03 things into your life. So here's how you
1:06 build a skill. First off, you got to be
1:08 specific. I mean, most people value
1:10 others that can save them money, make
1:12 them money, or save them time. Those are
1:13 the skills. So it doesn't matter if it's
1:17 marketing, sales, tax preparation.
1:19 Become world class at it. Ask yourself,
1:21 who can you help? Who has this problem?
1:23 What can you help them do? A lot of
1:25 people right now are struggling to
1:26 understand this crazy world of AI. And
1:29 all the young cats out there probably
1:31 talk and act this way naturally. You're
1:33 growing up with it and people are
1:35 struggling with it. That's valuable.
1:37 That's a skill. Number two is you got to
1:39 design the path. How do you learn a new
1:42 skill? I like to ask GPT, but the key is
1:44 in how you ask it. You got to be
1:46 specific. Ask it to create you a 12-week
1:48 course on building the skill you want to
1:50 learn, including links to YouTube
1:52 videos, 1 hour a day, maybe more if you
1:54 want to be an overachiever, but have it
1:57 tell you what to focus, study, and how
1:58 to learn this skill. Let me just show
2:01 you how I do it. Create me a very
2:04 detailed course on how to learn AI
2:06 automation. 12week course. I want you to
2:08 find the best YouTube videos I should
2:10 study. put the curriculum together, link
2:12 up those videos, and make sure you keep
2:13 it to one hour of day because I'm going
2:15 to do it at lunch because I still work a
2:17 full-time job and maybe some extra stuff
2:18 that I could do if I find some extra
2:20 time at night. But I want you to make it
2:22 the least amount of effort to become
2:24 most proficient around the skill of AI
2:27 automation. Boom. Watch this. Takes my
2:29 voice prompt, transcribes it, starts
2:30 building out the course. It's
2:31 researching cuz I said some YouTube
2:33 videos. Oh, I got to go find some
2:34 YouTube videos. It literally says,
2:36 "Here's the 12week AI automation course.
2:39 Week one introduction. Week two, links
2:41 to all the different videos. It built
2:43 out the whole thing, the full detail. Do
2:44 you know how many people are running
2:45 around the world going like, "Oh, I
2:48 don't know how to do that." No, it's
2:50 been solved by thousands of people,
2:52 documented, crystallized, and presented
2:53 to you in a simple format. Guess what?
2:55 If it's not simple enough, make it
2:57 simpler. That's how easy it can be. Then
2:59 the key is to execute. Learn that skill.
3:02 The third thing is to master your craft.
3:04 the top people that you want to
3:05 collaborate with, that you want as
3:06 clients. They want to be around the
3:08 folks that have decided to become the
3:10 best in the world at what they do. They
3:11 don't want a dabbler. They don't want
3:14 some people that are kind of interested.
3:16 They want folks that can demonstrate to
3:18 them that that is their mastery, their
3:21 area of perfection. It doesn't matter
3:22 what you decide. It's more important
3:25 that you decide and go deep. And what's
3:27 crazy is when I say that, I know that
3:28 for a lot of people, they don't want to
3:30 hear that because it sounds like work.
3:32 It sounds hard. It sounds like it's
3:33 going to take a lot of time. And the
3:35 answer is yes. That's the point. You
3:38 have to build the skill that other
3:41 people find valuable. Nothing valuable
3:44 has ever come easy. That's what makes it
3:47 valuable. If I could buy any watch, any
3:49 purse, any car, then it's not valuable
3:51 because it's not hard to get. If
3:52 anything, when I look at new skills I
3:54 got to develop to get to my new level,
3:56 cuz new levels, new devils, the harder
3:58 it is, the more excited I get because it
3:59 tells me how few people are actually
4:01 going to do the work to learn that
4:03 thing. If you want to make so much money
4:04 that it feels like cheating, you're
4:06 going to have to put a lot of time into
4:08 the skill to master your craft. Which
4:10 brings us to the second way to make so
4:12 much money it feels like cheating. The
4:14 game of life. Never charge for your
4:16 time. Always charge for the result. It's
4:18 interesting to me because people may pay
4:21 me six figures for one hour of my time.
4:23 They're not paying for the message I'm
4:25 delivering. They're paying for the value
4:26 that they'll get. They're paying for the
4:28 brand association. They're paying to
4:29 sell tickets for people in the room.
4:30 They're paying for building the
4:32 relationship with me, getting advice on
4:35 their business. It's my 28 years of
4:37 entrepreneurial experience condensed not
4:39 only into the 1-hour keynote, it's the
4:41 time we get to spend together working on
4:44 their event. That's what I get paid for.
4:45 Imagine you're a factory owner. A
4:47 machine breaks down. You call an
4:49 electrician to fix it. The electrician
4:51 walks in, inspects the machine for 5
4:54 minutes, takes out a small hammer, and
4:57 taps a very specific spot, fixes the
4:59 machine. He hands you an invoice for
5:01 $10,000. And the owner, your boss, is
5:04 surprised. $10,000 for 5 minutes of
5:06 work. That's insane. The electrician
5:08 goes, "It's $100 for the time in the
5:11 tap. It's $9,900 for knowing where to
5:13 tap." See, the mistake is to have people
5:15 pay you for your time. You want them to
5:17 pay you for the outcome, the result, the
5:19 impact of your work. If you're not
5:21 getting paid what you feel you deserve,
5:23 you got to go become more valuable.
5:25 You're not solving big enough problems.
5:27 If you charge for time, you punish your
5:29 own efficiency because there's no
5:31 incentive to get better or be more
5:32 effective in that time frame because
5:34 that's what I get paid. So, if anything,
5:37 being slower means I make more money.
5:38 That's a bad place to get to because I
5:40 want you to consider, hey, how do I use
5:42 AI to automate this? How do I hire
5:44 better team members? How do I become a
5:45 better leader so that I can get
5:47 everybody producing more in a shorter
5:49 amount of time because I'm getting paid
5:51 the same thing and still get results for
5:52 my clients? But how do you get people to
5:54 pay for the outcome? First off, define a
5:57 clear and specific problem. Ideally,
5:59 helping them with one thing, not 10.
6:01 Some people are like, I can do
6:02 everything. I can be everything to
6:03 everybody. The problem is if you're
6:05 everything to everybody, you're nothing
6:07 great to any one person. Pick one
6:08 specific thing that you can do and knock
6:11 their socks off. The second is design a
6:13 process that guarantees an outcome. For
6:15 example, when I coach people, I sat down
6:17 and created a system where I asked
6:19 myself if they only follow certain
6:21 pieces, will they get results? And the
6:23 answer is yes. I have this thing called
6:24 the five daily non-negotiables. These
6:26 five steps that if you follow, you
6:28 guarantee to grow your business. Think
6:30 of it this way. Ask yourself the
6:32 question, if you only got paid if your
6:34 client got the result, how would you
6:36 design the process? Number three is you
6:38 got to sell value, not the price. Value
6:42 isn't always the cost. Okay? Value is
6:44 the time invested from their end, how
6:46 fast you can get it to them, how big of
6:48 an impact you can have, the experience
6:50 that they're going to have working with
6:53 you, what it tells them about themselves
6:54 hiring you if you've got a brand and a
6:56 reputation. It's interesting how value
6:59 is very subjective to the buyer, but you
7:01 as the seller can position yourself to
7:04 actually increase the perceived value.
7:05 Which brings us to the third way to make
7:07 so much money it feels like cheating the
7:09 game of life. Cash flow is more
7:11 important than cash piles. You know
7:13 what's crazy is I know a lot of crypto
7:16 millionaires that made a lot of money
7:17 back in the day when they bought cheap
7:19 and the price has gone up and it comes
7:20 down and they're sad and they make more
7:22 money because it goes back up again. But
7:24 what happens is they created this cash
7:26 pile that they think is going to make
7:28 them happy, but now they are a prisoner
7:30 of their own creation because not only
7:31 do they not want to spend it because
7:32 they're worried about what that's going
7:34 to really be worth in the future, they
7:36 haven't figured out how to develop the
7:40 skill to become rich. This is not a
7:42 moment in time where you just get an
7:43 influx of money. Making money is
7:45 actually quite easy. It's keeping it
7:47 that's hard. And trusting yourself that
7:49 you've become the person who can easily
7:51 attract that kind of money. It's not
7:54 about how much you made. It's about how
7:57 consistently you can make it. If I've
7:59 developed the skills to make money and
8:01 you take everything away from me, I can
8:03 get right back to where I was. I don't
8:05 have to worry or be dependent on anybody
8:07 else. That's why it's so important to
8:10 focus on value creation over time, not
8:12 these points in time. A lot of folks
8:15 that can sell a thing once for a lot of
8:17 money, they run to that. And I get it.
8:18 Sometimes you need to do that to fund
8:20 your business. What's more valuable when
8:22 you think of business models is getting
8:25 paid every month for long periods of
8:27 time. Why? It creates predictability. I
8:28 can predictably hire, predictably
8:31 invest, predictively plan, predictively
8:34 save my money if there's a subscription
8:35 component. And that's my background in
8:38 software taught me that at 17 years old.
8:39 It taught me how to build businesses
8:41 that I didn't know at the time that
8:43 allowed me to create real value in the
8:45 world, not just get one time rich. And
8:47 that was the reason why I was able to
8:49 sell those three companies in 10 years
8:50 for so much money is because I
8:52 understood how to create long-term cash
8:54 flow. It's so crazy, but a business
8:57 doesn't fail because of low profits. It
8:59 fails because it runs out of cash. I
9:01 can't pay people with profits. People
9:03 talk about ibida ibida ibida ibid. Like
9:05 literally, those are the private equity
9:06 folks. That's their favorite language in
9:08 the world. Why? Because they use that to
9:11 fund debt and that's where the cash flow
9:12 needs to be. And I'm telling you, you
9:15 don't fail in business when you run out
9:16 of profits. If you can't make your
9:18 payments, then you're out of the game.
9:19 What I found interesting about my
9:21 billionaire mentors is that they think
9:24 in flows, not totals. They could care
9:26 less about total assets. They care about
9:29 how much that asset produces in cash
9:31 flow that they then can use and do other
9:33 things with it. See, 100K per month is
9:35 more impressive than a millionaire. Some
9:36 people that made a million and just
9:38 sitting on a million, they don't know
9:39 how to spend a million. If you make a h
9:41 100,000 per month, you're making a
9:44 million every 10 months. And if you know
9:45 how to repeat that and create that,
9:47 that's what made you a millionaire, not
9:49 the money in the bank. Which brings us
9:52 to the fourth way to make so much money.
9:54 It feels like cheating the game of life.
9:56 Stop counting other people's money. The
9:57 kids these days call it counting
9:59 people's pockets. Let's stop that. I
10:01 remember one time I went to my buddy's
10:03 event and I met a guy named Rob and it
10:06 was like within 36 seconds he wanted to
10:07 tell me about how much money that guy
10:09 was making and that guy was making and
10:10 oh did you hear about this person
10:12 online? I heard he did this much in his
10:13 launch and this person's making this
10:15 much money per month. He knew more about
10:17 how much money everybody else is making
10:19 than his own freaking business. He
10:21 couldn't tell me how much money he made
10:22 that day, that week, that month. He
10:23 wouldn't even be able to tell me what
10:25 his trends line are for the year. Isn't
10:28 it fascinating looking around counting
10:30 everybody's success instead of asking
10:33 how much did I make today? How much am I
10:35 making this month? What do I need to do
10:37 to increase my profit? The focus on your
10:40 own financials is how you get rich.
10:43 What's interesting to me is the people
10:44 that you're jealous of that you're
10:46 counting their money used to be just as
10:48 broke as you. What changed? They decided
10:50 to put their understanding of financials
10:53 first. See, you don't win by wishing or
10:56 hoping. You win by working. You win by
10:58 doing the rhythm of success specifically
11:00 when it comes to money. And the key is
11:03 is don't compare your chapter 3 to
11:05 somebody else's chapter 13. It doesn't
11:07 matter if they're 20. They could have
11:09 started when they were 10 and they got
11:11 10 years chapter 10 in their
11:13 entrepreneurial journey and you're
11:16 starting at 45 and you're 3 years in and
11:17 you think that they're doing better than
11:19 you. You're only three in. They're into
11:21 10. You can't. It doesn't work like
11:23 that. So, if you want to make so much
11:25 money it actually feels like cheating,
11:27 check your own money. It's one, check
11:29 your bank account daily. I get a daily
11:32 cash email for every one of my companies
11:34 into my inbox with the subject line
11:35 telling me the cash position of where
11:37 it's at, even my personal. I literally
11:39 have somebody that manages I'm talking
11:41 my home assets and revenue and in I
11:43 mean, it works just like a business. And
11:45 I track all of that so I know where
11:46 every penny is. Now, I don't have to do
11:48 it cuz I pay somebody to do it. But you
11:50 want to make sure that you personally
11:51 log into your bank account and look at
11:53 the numbers. Look at the credit card
11:54 statements, look at your cash position,
11:55 look at your savings, and make sure that
11:57 you can keep a pulse on what's
11:59 happening. The second thing is you have
12:01 to have weekly pillars. I measure myself
12:03 every Friday on seven key pillars. One
12:05 of them is money. What does money mean
12:07 for me? I ask myself the question one
12:09 out of 10, how did I do on the money
12:10 side? Did I make some money? Did I save
12:12 some money? Did I do some strategic
12:14 planning around my investments? Did I
12:15 look at a bunch of deals? feels like I
12:17 just ask myself, am I at a nine or a 10
12:19 or am I at a four or five? And if I have
12:21 a low score, I do one thing to increase
12:23 my money score for the next week. And if
12:25 you want to learn the other six pillars,
12:26 it's at the end of my book, Buy Back
12:28 Your Time in the bonus section. It's a
12:30 weekly process that I've been doing for
12:32 decades that helps me stay focused on
12:33 the most important parts of my life.
12:35 Number three is monthly P&L. Like
12:38 actually sit down, do a profit and loss
12:39 statement for your own personal
12:41 accounts. It's not hard. You can Google
12:42 a simple template, but putting
12:44 everything in there and honoring that
12:46 process of counting your own money,
12:48 which sounds super not fun, is how
12:49 you're going to get rich. Which brings
12:52 us to the fifth and last way to make so
12:54 much money it feels like cheating. Use
12:56 money as a tool, not the goal. This
12:58 one's fascinating. I grew up with a kid
13:01 and his dad had a food truck and he did
13:03 everything in cash. Now, he came from
13:04 another country and he didn't trust the
13:07 banks, but essentially he worked every
13:09 Saturday and all week long for this food
13:11 truck to make all the money to support
13:14 his family. But he did this for decades.
13:17 I think he's still doing it now 42 years
13:20 later. He worked all week prepping,
13:22 driving, selling. He hardly saw his
13:25 family. He would drive 2 hours away, 4
13:26 hours away to special events just to
13:28 sell his food. And I remember my friend
13:30 telling me that all the cash, cuz it's a
13:32 cash business, he saved in the house and
13:34 he hid it all over the place. And he
13:36 thought his dad was so rich. And I was
13:38 like, "Oh no." The key that he didn't
13:40 understand is you got to use money as
13:42 the tool, not the point. It's not about
13:44 saving a bunch of money. It's about
13:46 improving your life and your life
13:48 situation. It's understanding how to use
13:50 it as a tool for leverage. See, he could
13:53 have took that money and hired somebody
13:55 to buy back some time so that he could
13:56 start being more efficient and thinking
13:58 through how he works instead of just
14:01 creating himself a lowpaying job. If you
14:02 actually look at the total hours he
14:04 worked per week and what he generated,
14:06 sure, he provided for his family, but he
14:08 could have been so much further ahead if
14:10 he understood how to use it, not just
14:12 hoard it in his house. You see, money
14:14 doesn't change you. It just amplifies
14:16 who you are. And the truth is, if you're
14:19 looking for freedom, freedom isn't found
14:21 in your bank account. It's found in your
14:23 calendar. The goal of money is to buy
14:25 back your time so you can spend more
14:26 time doing the things you love. That's
14:29 why I spend so much money hiring people
14:31 to support my life. I want to do two
14:33 things. I either want to spend time with
14:35 the people I love or create in a way
14:37 that's unique to who I am. Anything
14:40 else, I would rather deploy money to get
14:43 leverage so that I can be more me. And
14:45 that's why I have people like Ann and
14:47 Betty and Sam and Todd. It's essentially
14:51 team Martell that give me back literally
14:54 40, 50, 60 hours a week each so I can be
14:56 here helping you. It honestly breaks my
14:57 heart when I see really well-meaning
14:59 entrepreneurs working themselves
15:01 literally to death because they don't
15:03 know how to have people support them.
15:05 Especially the assistant role. They're
15:06 like, "If I hired somebody, what would
15:08 they do?" If you want my internal
15:10 document on all the things, it's 42
15:13 pages of task and projects and templates
15:15 and best practices for my executive
15:17 assistant, just find me on Instagram,
15:19 message me the word YouTube EA, and I
15:21 will send you the direct link to that
15:23 document. The only way you'll end up
15:25 making so much money that it feels like
15:27 cheating is by making the process fun
15:30 and exciting. You have to do what feels
15:34 like play that other people see as work.
15:36 Feels like play, looks like work. Feels
15:39 like play, looks like work. Do that and
15:41 it'll change your life. Now, if you want
15:43 to learn how to build a business that
15:45 runs itself, click the video and I'll
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