How to Get Rich for Dummies

The truth is — money is falling. It’s all over the place. But do you want to go grab it and are you willing to put in the work for some period of time to make it happen? Because I promise you, it’s out there for you. I also promise you, if you’re wondering how to become a millionaire, this post is a great place to start.

First, the question you want to ask yourself about getting rich is…

Why not you?

There’s no rule that says it can’t be you to have as much money as you want or whatever lifestyle it is that you want.

When I was growing up, I thought I was born middle class so I was gonna die middle class.

I don’t know if that’s a thought that’s unique to me or if everyone else has had that, but some things I saw other people doing I was maybe curious about, but I didn’t know if I was permitted to do them.

So here’s my permission for you.

I’m going to give you a license. You’re permitted to go do whatever you want to do and be in whatever societal class you want to be in.

Why not you?

Go find the stuff that you’re truly passionate about or interested in and go pursue it like it’s no one’s business.

I think one of the reasons I was able to become a millionaire is I just kept going. I kept my cost of living really low and I just kept going.

Keep going.

Facebook fired me. Mint fired me. Facebook banned my company. I got sued by a partner. I tried to do a bunch of different companies — nothing ever worked. AppSumo finally worked. I stuck with it for many, many years and hired people to help me do it. They helped me do the things I sucked at.

Finally, in society’s eyes, I was able to make some money.

But I honestly asked myself many times: How did I not quit sooner? How did I not just give up on this experience?

I know I’m not unique in that. We all have challenges. We all have crappy moments when we don’t know how we’re going to keep going.

But how I kept going was by working on things that mattered to me. This includes working on things that were interesting to me at the time and working with interesting people. Not by focusing on becoming a millionaire.

And so now being a part of AppSumo I’m like, hold on… I’m going to get paid to find software deals, promote them to the world, and then I get to make videos (sub to my channel here) about everything I’m learning?

Yeah, sign me up for life!

So, after trying and failing for over a decade, and then finally succeeding… Let’s get real on how to become a millionaire.

How to Become a Millionaire

Myth #1: It Happens Quickly

I have never seen someone get significantly rich within 10 years

Yeah.

And I know what you’re thinking. Some guy got rich off Dogecoin overnight or whatever but that’s not the norm. That’s the outlier of people who risked it big, and they could have/will lose it big.

The people who have significant wealth did it over a period of time. Roughly about 10 years.

So whatever you’re thinking about doing, commit to it for 10 years. YouTube, real estate, food, coaching, software, whatever it is.

For me it’s been in the software marketing world and that’s what I’ve dedicated a lot of my time to.

Myth #2: Do What Other People Tell You to Do

Other ways of how not to be rich is doing what people tell you to do.

If you’re seeing some dumb-ass guy on YouTube who’s showing off some fake-ass car and you just copy that person or you buy their course — that’s probably not how you’re actually gonna get rich.

One key thing I think is really key here is the difference between rich and being wealthy.

Chris Rock had a great line, one of my favorites of all time:

Rich is Shaquille O’Neal. Wealthy is the guy who owns the team.

I love that quote.

What do you think that means to you?

Rich is the person working that could be making a lot of money, wealthy is the woman or man who has all the people working for them that’s actually significantly growing their assets.

When Shaq stopped playing basketball, a lot of that money probably went away with him. So think about that as you’re building your business.

How am I building assets that can continually grow whether I’m asleep or awake?

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The Secret to Getting Rich is There are No Secrets

What is the most important principle people need to understand in order to get rich?

Consistency. With iteration. (So you stick with something and you keep improving it over a long period of time.)

Who is wealthy or rich in your own life? What is it about them?

They’ve probably stuck with something and they found something they’re really good at. They’ve probably done it for a long period of time and they keep improving it

It’s not a secret.

There’s no secrets to getting rich.

Find something you like to do, keep improving on it and do it for a long period of time. You will either get a lot of money or you get a lot of money and you’ll enjoy the work you’re doing

I think one of the key things that my buddy Ramit Sethi talks about a lot is, what does being rich mean to you?

It’s not the same for everyone!

You could be a house-husband or a housewife and take care of your kids and that means being rich. Drinking Fiji water — that’s what I have in my fridge — that’s what makes me feel rich.

So for you, the most important thing is not about external stuff. It’s to define what rich means to you.

• Is it being able to take vacations?
• Is it being able to choose your week?
• Is it choosing who you work with?

So that’s something you really have to think about.

Being rich for me is I get to work where I want to work with who I want to work with and drink my Fiji water.

Hey, I like drinking Fiji water!

After you make a certain amount of money, the most important thing is how do I want to spend my time? And then being able to choose that.

I think a lot of things about being rich or what it really means to me is that I don’t have to think about money as a deciding factor in the actions I want to take in my life.

Frankly, if you want to get really rich that’s how you should live. Not going out and flaunting it or spending it on everything. But if you could live your day however you want it to be more or less work related — that’s probably how you’re going to end up ultimately making a lot of money.

Find those things where you’re like, hey, I really love doing these things… I’m going to do it whether I get paid or not.

That’s how I was able to become a millionaire.

How to Become a Millionaire: 5 Actual Ways to Get Rich

Okay, okay. Enough about the whys behind becoming a millionaire.

Here are 5 actionable ways you can actually become a millionaire.

Option #1: Find Work to Do for Life

Like I’ve been saying, the best way to get rich is just live your day like you don’t have to actually make any money.

Obviously don’t be a lazy-ass bum, but just do things that you really enjoy.

If you’re like, oh how do I actually make money doing stuff I like? You could start your own company! Be like the founder of Chess.com who loves playing chess so he started a chess website and now he makes a lot of money doing chess.

 

Listen to my podcast with the founder of Chess.com here.

 

Or my buddy David Hauser — he started a company called Grasshopper that does voiceover IPs so you can have your own telephone number from your computer.

He started the company and sold it many years later for over $200 million bucks! He owned 50% of the business so he’s worth over $100 million dollars today.

Option #2: Ride the Waves

There are many ways of getting rich.

Just because I did it in tech and startups doesn’t mean that you have to do it that way.

Catch the early waves of what’s a growing market, and be a pioneer.

One of my very good friends was an early employee at Lyft — so he got super rich by being an early employee and getting shares in the company, and then it went public.

There’s two different ways of doing it:

• Create your own category so you create the wave

Like Uber, Lyft, Airbnb — there was nothing like that really before and so your upside is crazy high… But also your downside is crazy high. You’re more likely to fail.

• Or do what’s already working

I like to try to do what’s already kind of working. My upside’s not going to be insane but there’s a higher chance it’s actually going to work out.

An important thing that I really want to encourage you to do, is don’t just be wave chasing. Find the waves you’re genuinely interested in and chase those ones.

Option #3: Commit to it for 10 Years

Whatever it is — just commit to it for 10 years.

Remember that 10-year rule.

I have seen numerous times that if you can commit to something, keep improving it, and you do it for 10 years — you will be as rich as you want.

Option #4: Just Marry Rich

You can always just marry someone rich if you’re lazy — and then you’ll get rich fast!

Kidding.

But honestly sometimes that just seems a lot easier…

Option #4 for real: Industry Selection Matters

There’s people I know that are working in debt collection. That’s fine.

How big is that actual opportunity? It’s debatable.

Choosing the right industry can make you a lot of money.

It doesn’t always have to be trending industries either. I’m a big fan of unsexy businesses that no one wants to do — but you can make bank doing some of that stuff.

But some of these other businesses and industries have huge tidal waves happening and it’s going to stick around. Just choosing a different industry and doing the same amount of work you’d normally do, you can actually get super rich.

A good buddy of mine literally spent almost every dime he earned buying Ethereum for a long time and now he’s worth nine figures. He picked an industry he believed in, and it paid off.

Option #5: Work for Rich People

You could also just go work for someone who’s already rich.

If there’s someone out there who you really admire who’s already rich — just go work for them!

You’ll see the different things that they’re doing and they’ll probably help you get rich.

My goal for the people on my team is to help them get rich or whatever type of lifestyle they want.

I think one other key thing here that stands out is this plays into not doing what everyone already tells you to do to get rich. Go get rich by finding something unique. Go work for a unique founder or a unique business that you believe in and get rich that way.

If you’re doing the same thing as everybody else you’re going to get the same results.

So go do something different.

Go find some type of business you don’t really see anyone else doing or find a way that works for you and double-down on it. Really explore it regardless of what everybody else thinks.

My stepdad Norm did this.

He had a traditional engineering job in Silicon Valley and he just invested really boring and well over 20 years which helped him retire early.

So instead of having a crazy story like being an early employee at a company that did well or having a huge exit from an IPO, he had a traditional job, invested pretty smart and boring, and was able to retire from that.

Now get out there and become a millionaire

What’s the moral of the story of how to become a millionaire?

There’s many ways to get rich. There’s unlimited money out there. There’s so much money out there to be made!

How to become a millionaire?

• Find work you want to do for life
• Ride the waves
• Whatever it is, commit to it for 10 years
• You can always marry someone rich if you’re lazy!
• Industry selection matters
• Work for someone rich

I want you to get out there, get rich, and then I’ll have lunch with you.

Okay fine, I’ll pay for lunch 🙂

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