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at the age of 25 I'd made my first
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million it wasn't school that gave me my
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education about investing my teacher was
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the roller coaster of life it came to me
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one day when my boss asked if someone
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wanted to help install a staircase when
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we got to the house I was shocked he had
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it all granite countertops Persian rugs
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and a collection of supercars I'd look
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out the window and see the owner
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relaxing or practicing his golf swing
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when I talked to him he only chatted
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about his personal hobbies and never his
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businesses I asked him what's the secret
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to your success he tapped me on the
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shoulder and said Mark if you can't make
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money while you sleep you'll work until
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you die this is now known in the modern
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day as passive income that was the
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moment I decided I needed to join the
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top 1% of men I'd like to retread my
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journey with you today it's very clearly
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broken into five different stages just
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like a video game and at each individual
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stage I learned something imperative to
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my future success you'll learn what I
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focused on as a hard-nosed businessman
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what obsessed about in the world of
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investing and most importantly the many
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mistakes I made along the way that have
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made me the successful person I am today
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stage one The Awakening this is when I
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went from Z to
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$20,000 my journey started as I emerged
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from my mother's womb and my first words
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were which stock should I buy just
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kidding like most people I was pretty
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clueless about financial education as a
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kid but I had the spirit of hustling me
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one of my earliest memories of
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Entrepreneurship goes back to when I was
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selling fish door too just imagine
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wiping the Sleep dust out of your eyes
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at 4: in the morning heading down to a
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freezing pier and sitting for hours
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until you'd caught enough mackerel to
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sell for a profit not only that but
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grabbing a slimy fish from a bag ringing
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a doorbell looking a person straight in
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the eye and pitching to them this built
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up my confidence and self skills two of
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the earlier skills I needed to learn to
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be successful as I earned I soon found
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that any money I made wasn't really mine
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instead it was go to places like
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McDonald's and the girl I happen to be
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dating I always seem to have just enough
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this is called lifestyle inflation the
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tendency to spend more as you make more
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whatever you earn it becomes your new
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Baseline and that's the Trap but being a
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car fanatic I've always dreamed of
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owning a Ferrari I felt as if they sent
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such a strong signal to others that
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you've made it I'd often speak to my
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friend Paul who worked as a valet
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parking cars for the Rich and Famous he
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once told me something that changed my
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perspective on Lu lues he said when
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people would drive up to the hotel in
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their Ferraris they would watch me gawk
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and love every moment of it I'm sure
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they felt admired important even
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respected but actually you know what
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Mark I didn't care about them or even
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notice them instead I thought wow if I
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had that car people would think I'm cool
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and I wonder how many people buy these
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cars without realizing that people
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rarely give the driver a moment's
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thought I leared that no one would be as
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impressed with my possessions and
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luxuries as much such as me people want
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to be respected and admired by others
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but competence intelligence and kindness
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will bring you so much more respect than
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horsepower ever will with all the
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information out there on the internet
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about how to make money or get rich
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quick it can be hard to separate the
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truth from the marketing internet gurus
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have been getting wealthy for the past
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decade telling other people how they can
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get rich and there's a whole industry
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out there based on fantasy but the truth
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is wealth is not always what you see but
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what you don't see I decided Ed instead
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I'd quietly follow my own path to wealth
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but in order to do this I needed a
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budget a budget is knowing where your
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money will go versus where it went
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little by little and for the first time
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I started seeing my savings account go
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up I started building an emergency fund
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basically money for a rainy day I didn't
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know exactly when or why it would rain
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only that one day it would one day my
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boss approached me and ordered me to
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start making wooden trash cans I made
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trash can after trash can the hours
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would just crawl by so slowly I went to
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my boss and asked him how long I'd have
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to keep doing this until the order
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stopped coming in which is probably
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never he said and I felt so deflated
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although I was saving money I didn't
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feel passionate about what I was doing
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but I wasn't thinking big enough after
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all I didn't care about luxury so why
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would I need more money then it hit me I
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realized that control over your time is
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the greatest thing money can buy if I
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had passive income I could spend my time
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doing the things I really loved the
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problem is it takes a lot of time or
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money to start making enough passive
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income to become financially free we
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spent thousands of hours every year
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working in the pursuit of money so I
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asked myself what was I truly passionate
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about I had a burning passion for radio
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control models and I noticed many people
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in this industry were making a lot of
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mistakes I saw the true potential and
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the ways that I could improve on what
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had come before me I once read in a book
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that if you could identify a problem and
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you had a better way of doing things you
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could turn it into a business stage two
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the hustle this is when I went from
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20,000 to
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$100,000 so I got to work I was so
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excited about my business plans that I
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shared them with a close friend and
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Confidant and to my shock the
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unimaginable happened he stole my idea
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and set up my entire business for
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himself but before I get into that first
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anyway back to the story the reality is
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that I needed some money to pursue my
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dream but my savings just weren't enough
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I wasn't about to give up I drew up a
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business plan went to the bank and
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applied for my first loan it wasn't easy
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and I had to visit multiple Banks
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however eventually I secured the money I
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needed while some people earn their
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wealth investing in the stock market I
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reinvested the earnings from my
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businesses to open more stores and even
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buy back my original idea from my old
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friend I started to know more and more
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people in the business World a lot of
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these individuals became my mentors and
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would teach me things like how to build
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a business that scales how to improve
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sales and how to manage people as my
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income grew and I solve problems I was
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not only growing my net worth but
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becoming a top 1% man as well as the
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good time continued I increasingly bet
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on them continuing which led to one of
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my most significant life crashes and
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moments of Despair I remember it like it
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was yesterday walking into the shop that
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I had initially started to give my
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father a job in his later years and
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instead of being greeted by the magical
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Emporium filled with all the toys that I
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could have only dreamed of having as a
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kid I was met with a smashed roof empty
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shelves and my products laying broken
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thrown across the floor this hit me so
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hard the memory has been seared into my
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subconscious and I sometimes still see
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it when I close my eyes you may think
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it's all right Mark I know you I bet you
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had Insurance everything was okay and
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you bounced back well in fact I'd grown
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so fast and I was making so much money
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that not everything was correctly
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structured within my business although
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we were insured I'd forgotten to update
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it with all the new stock that we had
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acquired since the opening of the store
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but the disaster doesn't stop there it
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gets even worse I got a phone call a few
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few days later and one of my staff
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informed me that another two locations
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had been hit luckily one of these
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attempts was unsuccessful on my flagship
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store as they couldn't break through the
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door however they driven a truck
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straight through the side of the store
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that was responsible for serving the
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entirety of London and the damage was
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horrendous let alone the stock that we
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lost that's when I learned about the
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balance between risk and reward see
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making money requires taking risks
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operating quickly and putting yourself
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out there but keeping m requires the
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opposite it requires humility and fear
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that what you've made can be taken away
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from you just like that once you lose
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95% of your money you have to gain
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1,00% just to get back to where you
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started taking too much risk can bury
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you so deep in a hole it can be nearly
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impossible to get out of I even started
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to move my operations online to adapt to
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The Changing Times stage three the Trap
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this is when I went from $ 100,000 to $1
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million
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I realized that one of the biggest
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problems people face is when they turn
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their passion into a vehicle to
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accumulate money they are now reliant on
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it to fund their lifestyle leading to
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their passion becoming their prison I
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mean the biggest bottleneck in my
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business was actually the business owner
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me as the business got bigger and as we
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tried to move it online so did the
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number of problems complaints and things
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to worry about it always seems like as
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soon as I solved a problem another one
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would soon follow don't get me wrong
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only and running a business is great
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especially if you're passionate about it
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but it isn't as easy or as passive as a
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lot of people make it out to be I've
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read a lot of books on investing studied
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the techniques of Warren Buffett and
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come across John bogle's book about
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common sense investing it shocked me
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when I learned that 80% of active fund
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managers actually underperform the S&P
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500 Index diversification is important
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and by investing in the S&P 500 which is
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a basket of 500 three stocks I could
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earn a steady growth that grows along
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with the US economy my goal was to have
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enough money in the S&P 500 that in the
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worst case scenario I could withdraw up
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to 4% per year in order to live off my
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investments while still grow my
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portfolio by sticking to my guns I was
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able to avoid suffering from the
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Internet stock crash of 2000 early on in
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my journey I learned that the losses
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felt massive whereas the profit seemed
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so so slow there's an old saying stocks
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rise like an escalator and crash like an
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elevator and this couldn't be more true
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I kept dollar cost averaging and adding
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to my stock portfolio even as the Doom
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crash continued I was getting more and
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more shares of the index fund at better
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and better prices as a qualified pilot I
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draw this parallel hours and hours of
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uneventful flight followed by moments of
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sheer Terror but it's these moments of
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sheer Terror that make up the majority
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of your Returns the way I conducted my
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finances during the dot crash and the
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2008 financial crisis gave me more
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returns than any investing I had ever
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done before stage four the refinement
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this is when I went from1 million to $10
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million as my wealth grew it seemed like
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the Matrix was creating more and more
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Temptations to take my money away from
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me having savings gives you a lot of
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options like going to a buffet where you
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can have every dish you've ever wanted
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in the previous stages once I'd
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surpassed $100,000 in yearly earnings I
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was considered an accredited investor
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which is both an exciting and a
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dangerous place to be I fell into the
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Trap of investing in various penny
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stocks which initially was very
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successful however I went on to lose
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$330,000 with a couple of bad trades
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after this I created a rule for myself
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to only invest in things that I fully
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understand unless it's an experiment
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with a small amount of capital that I'm
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not afraid to lose it doesn't matter
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whether you're investing in nfts stocks
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or a relationship I learn to always do
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my homework and take the time to
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understand every opportunity the thing I
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understood more than anything was my
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business I wanted to really push forward
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so I flew out to America on a bit of a
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whmp to see a friend on the promise that
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he would help me to restructure my
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business from serving customers B to C
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to servicing other businesses B2B as
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well he taught me that by focusing on
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selling to businesses I could increase
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my number without having to deal with so
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many people this is known as the 8020
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principle I learned that I could focus
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on the 20% of things that produce 80% of
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my income I traveled abroad to China and
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Japan where I learned about the idea of
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lean manufacturing which I related to my
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everyday life I started cutting anything
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unnecessary out of my business and
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personal life so I could focus on what
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gave me the most meaning and results
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through this I had finally achieved
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multi-millionaire status but it felt
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kind of empty and that's when I had a
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revelation that changed my life forever
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stage five the Revelation this is when I
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went to $10 million and Beyond this
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brings me to where I am today I thought
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about which Investments were most
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important to me in my life and I
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realized it was the relationships with
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my family and friends you will be the
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same person in 5 years as you are today
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except for the people you meet and the
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books you read I started thinking about
00:13:27
how to pass the torch and I taught
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myself son Curtis about Finance we
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started this YouTube channel together as
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a way to educate the younger generation
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from the perspective not of some rich
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influencer but as a guy who did it with
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passion and a bit of elbow grease I
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started spending more time enjoying the
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little moments appreciating what I have
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and what I've worked for and fostering
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quality relationships the final stage
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for a lot of people later in life is
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philanthropy some people like Bill Gates
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start foundations others like Ray Dario
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write books this is my form of giving
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back when I reflect on my journey
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getting here I'm proud of everything
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I've done I still hustle hard but what
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is really meaningful to me is being able
00:14:09
to share my knowledge and inspire a
00:14:11
younger generation to go after their
00:14:13
dreams and Achieve success so I'm going
00:14:15
to leave the next video right up there
00:14:17
but don't click on it just yet make sure
00:14:19
to subscribe if you want to grow your
00:14:21
wealth okay I'll see you over there
