In today's video, I'm going to talk about how I stopped being a loser and went from a poor broke pizza boy to an international speaker, Wall Street Journal, bestselling author, and multimillion-dollar entrepreneur.
All right, guys, so here's man, the funny thing about me coming out here and doing my song and dance and doing my videos and looking all professional and stuff and having these fancy cameras and this nice office and all this jazz is that I used to be a complete la-oo-za-her. Yeah, that was me. Don't ask me what with the hair. I blame whoever I was dating at the time for letting me do it anyway. So I used to be a pizza boy, musician, all I used to do is hang out, smoke pot, play music, smoke cigarettes, and just not really have much ambition in life or the ambition that I did have, I didn't want to work to actually make that ambition happen. And I was a total loser. I was fat, and I was out of shape. I was not very smart. I just talked about stupid things. I hung out with people that didn't bring my life any value. I let people take advantage of me.
I was a loser, and I started making fundamental decisions and mindset shifts that took me from being a loser to, you know, building a business becoming an authority in my space. I mean, guys, you got to understand everybody that I knew when I was younger literally called me a loser, said I was a loser, said I would never amount to anything. And fast forward to around this time, maybe a year ago, I spoke on the same stage that Tony Robbins spoke on. I mean, so here are some fundamental things that I did differently that caused me to stop being a loser.
The first thing is I started being solution-focused rather than problem-focused. So if you've ever watched the show "Bar Rescue," I remember I actually used to own a bar back in the day, and that's what got me into the show. And I know it's dramatized and all that, but he always the guy; I forget the dude's name that was on there. Jon Taffer. Jon Taffer used to say, you know, "I don't focus on problems. I focus on solutions". And so one thing that losers myself included back then was I would always focus on the problem. I'd always talk about the problem.
You know, I'd always be sitting there complaining about it or just, just sulking in it or talking about how bad my life is. Guess what you sit there, and you complain, and you talk about how bad your life is, and you beg for sympathy. Your life ain't going to get any better. No one cares. No one should care. You don't deserve for anybody to care. And nobody's going to be able to help you. The best you'll get is your close friends and family members saying, Oh, it's okay. And giving you some BS excuse to make you feel better. Ultimately, the only person that is going to be able to make a change in your life is you, so sitting there and complaining about it and asking for sympathy is really just a futile exercise. It's not going to do you any good. It's going to give you a little hit of dopamine. When your brother, your mother, your best friend, says it's so good. Okay. It's okay. Just releasing that serotonin, right? That's all you're getting is a chemical reaction. Get off your butt and do something about it. Okay?
If you always get interrupted when you're trying to do work, tell people that you're not gonna answer texts until 6:00 PM. Don't answer texts, put your phone on silent, whatever you have to do, shut up about how bad it is, and focus on a solution. That's the first thing become solution-oriented, not problem-oriented. So if you don't have a good job, go look for a better job. If you say, well, I would love to start a YouTube channel and really go crazy on camera, but I'm an introvert, and it's not me. All right. Well, guess what? Do it anyway. Research how introverts can be entertaining? Like, do the work, go out there and figure it out. All right. If you say, well, I'm overweight. And I just, Oh, just, I don't feel good. I'm overweight. I just can't get to the gym. Well, figure it out, all right? Figure out where you can buy better food, how you can get to the gym more. You know, figure it out. Stop talking about how terrible it is, and start talking about how you can fix it.
That's the first thing, the second thing is taking, and this sort of plays off the first thing, start taking ownership, right? Even if it's not your fault, one of the best things you can do to stop being a loser is to take responsibility for things that are not your responsibility. A great book to read on this "Extreme Ownership" by Jocko, Willink, and Leif Babin. And it's all about how the Navy Seals, you know, use leadership skills to lead their seal teams to victory, as well as the authors, went out into the business world and taught those leadership skills to business owners and help them grow their business through leadership.
And one of the key concepts of that book was no matter whose fault it is, take responsibility because when you take responsibility, you end up fixing problems that may not be your responsibility, but by fixing those problems and taking ownership, you actually end up completing the mission instead of just sitting there and complaining all the time and blame placing the blame game, Okay? And when people who maybe it was their fault, they start seeing you take ownership, and they start seeing you take responsibility. That's one of the classiest things you can do, and that inspires them to take responsibility. But if you blame them, it will literally secure the fact that they will place blame on you, and when two people are trying to blame each other, nothing gets solved. So one of the biggest things I can say is, is take ownership.
Also, the third thing would be never to be afraid to invest in yourself. I remember the first time I made money in business like real money. I made a hundred thousand dollars selling a digital product, an online course in my first month. You know, my first month try, my first month in business. And, you know, I had bought some like $500 thousand dollar courses on how to make money online. And I started learning skills, and I made a hundred thousand dollars. Now I didn't take those a hundred thousand dollars and put it in the bank. I immediately joined a $30,000 mastermind of high-level business owners. It was Russell Brunson, CEO of ClickFunnels mastermind. I don't think it exists anymore, but back then, it did. And I immediately went to the top and invested. Now I can tell you, I work with thousands of entrepreneurs, but I've personally spoken with hundreds. Well, probably thousands. And I can tell you that 99.9% of entrepreneurs that make their first dollar online, they hog it like it's air on Mars, right?
They make their first a hundred thousand, "You know, I got bills to pay, and I really want to go here, and I really want to buy a new house" okay. And no, you want to be successful, immediately reinvest. I was making two to $300,000 a month in my business, living in a tiny house in Spring Hill, Florida. It was a very modest house. It was a house that would appraise at that time for maybe $49,000. Very modest. And I lived there for almost a full year, a full year without going out and buying a nicer house. I made almost $3 million my first year in business. And I still lived in that tiny little crappy house in a tiny town. And I kept reinvesting money, and to get better at my craft, that's where the money went first. You know, getting better, getting better masterminds consulting, getting better, getting better. And at the end of that year, I finally went out and looked for a nice house. And instead of buying a slightly nicer house, I ended up buying a way nicer house, an 8,000 square foot mini-mansion on the water in St. Pete Florida, it was about a $2 million house.
I could not have bought a $2 million house a year later. If during that year, I started buying things for myself and paying, well, I didn't even pay off debt. I still had $35,000 in student loans a year after this. And then, eventually, after I really figured out my business, I started paying off debts. I started paying off things, and then I bought a nice car. Nice Rolex watch all this stuff. But prior to that, it all went to first. I went to my own education, getting better at what I do. Then it went to debt. Then it went to nice toys and stuff like that. Well, investing myself, house debt, toys. Anyway, the point is, is that when you start making money, immediately reinvest in yourself, don't start looking at, Oh, well, you know, I'm going to hog the money that helped me not be a loser as well. And even if you just start with a book, fine.
Oh, the last thing, don't smoke cigarettes, only losers smoke cigarettes. I don't know any millionaires who smoke cigarettes. That's all I have to say about that. Well, maybe a few millionaires, they're very unhealthy, and they should probably quit too.
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