What I Know About Millionaires

What is your reason for believing you cannot be a millionaire?

You are too young. You are too old. You are not smart enough. You do not have the right education.

Notice which reason your brain offers first.

I spend a lot of time with students and colleagues who are millionaires. What I have learned from them is that they are ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

We want to explain someone else's success by giving them a special ability we do not have. But that explanation can keep us from considering what is possible for us.

Having money and making money are different

When I say millionaire, I mean someone with a million dollars in assets.

I am not simply talking about someone who makes a million dollars in a year.

Making money is one thing. Keeping it and being comfortable having it are other things.

I have conversations with people who have money and still feel deeply insecure about it. They worry they cannot keep it. They wonder whether they can create it again.

Some feel like imposters. They think their success was a fluke.

Having the money has not automatically changed the thoughts they have about themselves.

You still feel like yourself

When students reach the millionaire level, they do not suddenly feel like different people.

They still feel ordinary. They still have to do life.

That can be confusing if they expected millionaire status to mean they had become someone exceptional.

They have an extraordinary result, yet they still experience doubt, frustration, insecurity, and fear.

Making a lot of money gives you the ability to do more of who you are. Creating value can help you evolve into more of yourself. But you are still a messy human when you arrive.

That is something I want you to understand before you get there, and something I want you to remember if you are already there.

I want you to consider the possibility

I have been criticized for telling people they can make a lot of money as life coaches.

At an event, a woman told me she was uncomfortable with how much money I was telling people they were capable of making. She thought inviting them to believe it was possible was irresponsible.

I disagreed.

I question the assumptions we routinely offer people about earning money: that they must only get paid for their time, or that a long, expensive college education is the only way to make money.

Those assumptions can go unchallenged while the possibility of making more is treated as something dangerous to consider.

I want to keep offering the possibility.

I receive messages from people who tell me they needed someone to give them permission to think about making money differently. Hearing that it was possible helped them begin.

That is part of the work I want to do in the world.

Do not make yourself smaller to explain someone else

When you look at someone else's result, what do you tell yourself?

That they are better than you? That they are fundamentally different? That what is possible for them could never be possible for you?

Notice how degrading that can be to you.

You may need to learn tactics. You may need to change beliefs. You will need to take action.

But you do not have to treat being ordinary as a reason to stay in a small box.

Give yourself five minutes to consider the possibility. What if you could become a millionaire before the end of your life?

What if you could create a million dollars' worth of value for the world?

Even considering the question can be different from dismissing yourself before you start.

Create value and allow yourself to evolve

I love the idea of making money because of what it asks us to create.

You can create value, evolve, feel proud of yourself, and have money to use in your life.

You can also impact people in ways you could not before.

My work includes offering ideas and beliefs that help other people win in their lives. If someone hears this invitation, gives themselves a chance, and goes on to create the result, that is part of the value I am creating.

I want to contribute to more people believing in their capacity rather than excluding themselves from it.

Trying matters. Doing the work matters. I believe the pursuit can make life more expansive and exciting even before you have reached the number.

A result can change what you believe is possible

I think the first million is often the hardest because of the belief required to create it.

When someone creates a result they did not believe was possible, something shifts.

They can begin asking why not two million, five million, or more. The result has challenged the limit they had accepted.

I see that with coaches who have studied with me. Proving something to themselves opens up their sense of capacity.

Before that proof exists, belief helps them take the action that creates it.

In a mastermind where everyone had generated at least a million dollars in revenue, I did not see people who had stopped being afraid or doubtful.

I saw people who had taken action. They had believed in themselves enough to create an extraordinary result while still being human.

It is not better there than here

Your life will still be 50:50.

You will trade some of the things you struggle with now for things you struggle with then.

You may be afraid of different things. You may doubt yourself about different things. But you will still have the full human experience.

You will also still be 100 percent worthy. The money does not add to that.

This is not a reason to avoid the goal. It is a reason to understand what the goal can and cannot give you.

You can pursue growth and a result without expecting the result to remove being human.

Use the life you have been given

A friend asked me why I was so confident.

I explained that I see my life as a gift. I did not create myself. I have been given a hand and ingredients, and I want to use them to become the most powerful version of myself.

That includes accepting the work I feel called to do and encouraging you to do yours.

Fear of judgment can get in the way. So can judging ourselves before we have even tried.

I am glad I believed I could create my results before I knew how. Looking back, I can see plenty of reasons I could have used to stop myself.

I am glad I did not use them.

You are an ordinary person, just like me. Do not give other people powers they do not have and then use that imagined difference against yourself.

Consider what you want to create. Learn what you need to learn. Work on your beliefs. Take action.

Being human is not a reason to rule yourself out.