I'm going to share with you the 17 rules of success these rules are what make the top 0.01% of people successful some of these rules are what I use to make my first million before 27 years old and others are from what I've observed rubbing shoulders with some of the richest people in history so without further explaining it these are the 17 rules of success the first rule is to ignore advice from the bottom 99.9% if you want to be rich don't listen to broke people the truth is if your parents your friends your teachers have achieved the thing that you want to achieve then great advice if they haven't then don't internalize it don't respond to it at the end of the day a lot of people in your life your parents your friends your teachers they all want to see you not hurt they don't want you to go through pain so they're going to give you advice it's going to help you avoid that but the truth is if you want to be successful you actually have to go through pain you have to look forward to challenges you have to do things that other people aren't willing to do so you can live a life that very few people can there's this concept called crabs in a bucket and often times people don't want to see do better than them because if you do then essentially you're showing them the truth of where they've been living a lie so what do they do they pull on those crabs pull them down the bucket they stay stuck this is what happens often times in small communities in small towns in certain countries that is just the default Behavior towards people that are trying to win and be successful so don't be upset just don't Pander to it find people that have done it before and ask them for the advice get the support from them asking people that have never done the thing you want to do what you should do with your life life is not a winning strategy which brings us to number two which is the results you're looking for is in the work you're avoiding a long time ago I decided to do this crazy thing called the 12-hour challenge essentially what you do is you start in the morning and you walk for 12 hours in a row some people might hear that and go like that doesn't sound too crazy let me tell you what happens around hour 8 9 and 10 your body was not designed to walk for that long to stand up straight for that long and your muscles start to fatigue and wear down and the pain and the muscles and the tension honestly almost like doing a full distance uh Marathon or half Iron Man I've done both and it hurt but here's what's crazy during that walk I'd given myself a bunch of prompts and one of them was the cave you fear to enter most holds the treasure that you seek it's a Joseph Campbell quote and I was thinking about this the whole walk and I would just meditate around what cave do I fear to enter most what conversations do I fear what work do I fear what decisions do I fear what strategies scare me what am I worried I'd have to sacrifice on the back end of a decision I just kept meditating and thinking about this question and all of a sudden I started getting all these input these flashes of like you need to talk to this person and close down that thing you need to make a decision around this and I just started writing everything down in my journal that 12-hour walk even though it was grueling physically it was some of the most enlightening thoughts and energy and work that i' done on myself cuz it was kind of crazy for the first time in my life I took it a day to myself to just walk and be with my thoughts and that was a beautiful experience so pains and challenges are actually meant to shape you you don't walk away from them you don't fear them you don't pretend like they're not there you actually want to enter that cave most people avoid the hard work because they're scared at what it's going to require most people don't want to do or make those decisions because they've made up stories about the sacrifices that they would have to make to achieve in the achievement there's a new level of success that they're scared they're going to have to uphold and they would rather stay small where it's comfortable and there's nothing scary about that than actually expand and Achieve stuff that's bigger and be more successful because then now you have something to lose that's scares people most people are more afraid of their power and their potential than they are of staying the same which brings us to number three which is simple scales complex fails it's one of my favorite Concepts in business because what's easy is adding a ton of complexity to a business you know Elon Musk talks about this all the time when it comes to engineering he says you should be removing so many parts when you're building the next iteration of your product that it doesn't work and you'll have to add 10 to 20% back to actually make the solution because what's easy over time is to create complexity it's interesting CU I see people lie to themselves in life all the time you know I have a friend that is a home builder and you know he was like you know I'm trying to scale my home building business and I said well cool you just sell more houses he's like yeah but it's not that easy because I got a team and I've got all these different demands on my time and I'm trying to find ways to get my time back to scale my business and I said what do you do I mean you sell houses so you just build houses he's like well we also do lease build outs and we do Renovations for people and oh we're working on some new multi-unit projects and I laughed I said hm you think you're being simple by focusing on construction but you actually have four different businesses that you're pretending are just one each one of those businesses could be a 10 million plus a year business but because you have all four you don't have time to make any one of them a great business so understand this it's so easy to make something complex it's hard to keep something simple every time you you add something it starts with negative value meaning that just having it in your business it has a negative impact the customers are confused because it's another option it's another thing your Finance team has to manage your customer support team needs to know about it you got to deliver it the salesperson's selling it so every time you add something it starts with negative value which means it has to be so important so valuable that it overcomes that negativity so think about what you can remove in your business you'd be surprised how you could probably get rid of about 60 to 70% of the things you sell the services you offer the features and benefits and most customers wouldn't even notice but you'll make more money which brings us to number four which is a spend money to save time not time to save money see growing up I watch my dad do this all the time he would drive around in M Lawns at different apartment complexes he owned because he'd rather do it himself he knew it got done right and he saved the money by paying somebody else to do it the challenge was is then he didn't have the time to actually go look at more real estate deals he didn't have the time to be there with his kids especially on a weekend when he was doing this kind of work looking back I understood why he did it but I also saw opportunities for him to have done more broke people spend time to save money I mean I've seen people you know drive for 20 minutes to go to Costco to save 10 cents on gas not realizing how valuable their time is and they could have just paid a little bit more got that 20 minutes back and then used that to go become more valuable the most successful people I know protect their time they spent money to buy back their time invest that time to become better choosing goals to grow them with that new time business in life is all about trying to find ways to create leverage if you're too busy doing it doing it doing it you're not going to have the time to expand and grow who you are which brings us to number five which is 80% done by somebody else is 100% freaking awesome I talked about this so many times in my book buyback your time here's the big idea anybody else that does something for you even if it's 80% as good as you saves you that time that you can go do things that light you up that only you can do and I hear this all the time I coach a bunch of entrepreneurs and they say but Dan my employees can't do it as good as me and I don't disagree they probably can't cuz they're not you but they can at least do it to a level that gets the job done and then you take that time and go spend it on things that make you way more money than paying that person that hour to do the thing you didn't want to do in the first place cuz you will only scale as fast as your ability to delegate most people with small businesses don't know how to delegate they need to do everything they need to have their finger on the pulse they're double-checking everybody's work they're hiring people and telling them what to do essentially doing their job what's the whole point so I came up with this thing called the 10810 rule especially for the creatives the philosophy I have is the first 10% of a new project I want to be involved I want to provide some input some strategies some resources that's the first 10% the next 80% the person is going to go do the project they're going to start creating they're going to go do some research they're going to learn and then once they actually get everything kind of done then they bring it back to me for the last 10% that 10% is where we really refine it to make sure that it really delivers on the promise we're making to our customers or to whoever asks us to do this thing in the first place and then that way I get to buy back 80% of the time from doing the work that somebody else can do and I see people messes up all the time they clean their house before the cleaner shows up or they're mowing their lawn when they should be working with a client making five times more money than they could then mowing their own lawn or they're running around spending 30 40% of their week just running errands when they could have used an app to buy stuff or they could have hired somebody to do meal preps and not spending an hour for every meal or washing their own laundry I mean even simple stuff like that with Wash and Fold will save you so much time so this is something you can do at work for sure but even more importantly in your home which brings us to number six which is worrying is a wasted use of your imagination I got this from my coach Ed melet and I love this saying if you just think about it that anytime you worry you're worshiping the problem you're literally looking at the thing that could go wrong and you're making it the most important thing of a future that is as likely as happening the bad as the opposite which is something awesome you know one of my clients when I talk to them they always think about the worst case scenario it's a normal default Behavior the problem is in that situation they're playing defense they're not playing offense here's the big idea is the negative outcome is as likely as a positive one meaning that your ability to imagine a future that is negative is as probable as imagining a future that is positive what you focus on expands so if you want to play a game where you're playing defense all the time and worried all the time you're just going to be in a negative space that is not going to let you hit your goals or achieve your dreams whereas if you focus on offense where you're pushing you're expanding worrying about what could go awesome you're planning for Success so use your imagination for positivity not worry one concept I like to focus on is API assume positive intention assume that no matter what happens that there was a positive attention behind it you're not worried about it somebody cut you off in traffic assume they got to get to the hospital somebody didn't reply to your email assume something important is going on in their life and they'll get back to eventually it is as likely the reason as the opposite and you're making it all up it's in your head it's not even true it's as likely to be true as the opposite you understand how crazy this is so don't let worrying take over your imagination which brings us to number seven which is patient with results but impatient with action I get business owners coming to me all the time saying Dan I'm trying I'm doing the stuff I watch your videos I listen to your coaching and I'm doing it I'm doing it and nothing's happening for 6 months if everything magically happened in 6 months then I would be way further along the truth is is most people aren't patient enough to dedicate a decade or effort to what they want to create they said if I'm not a millionaire within 6 months there must be something wrong and the truth is is you can't make a baby in one month with nine women some things take time some things require consistency over long periods of time and most people are just not willing to be dedicated for that long that doesn't mean you should slow down I want you to take action consistently be impatient with your action but be willing to go long periods of time without seeing any results it's the people that can do that that win the biggest in life which brings us to number eight which is begin with the end in mind I first read this in an incredible book called good to Great by Jim Collins it's like if you're climbing the ladder of success and you actually got to that destination if you didn't plan for what it looked like you might find out that the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall and I see this happened all the time where people give up their relationships their health their mental stability all for this achievement of success not realizing that once they get there it doesn't feel good they were climbing a ladder leaning against the wrong wall and then what do you got to do you literally have to climb all the way down that ladder grab it across the room and lean against a new wall so you can start that process all over again the most successful people I know start with the end goal they literally say what's the outcome we want to achieve and then how do we work backwards to achieve that goal they break it down into very clear projects that will allow them to hit that outcome which brings us to number nine which is to be blissfully dissatisfied I also got this from my coach Ed because it's one of his favorite things to teach his clients the idea that you can't be incredibly grateful for what you have and in the same breath know that you are here to create more to do more to become more that's just silly some people say to me they go I want to do this but I feel selfish if I go after this goal and I go interesting are there people in the world that have more money than you yes do you think they're evil absolutely you can get mad at them but if they're not doing good with their money and you think there's better ways for them to use that money go make money go be rich you know wanting more isn't bad and I think that's what holds people back most people are scared to want more because they think in wanting more that they don't appreciate what they have separate those things those are completely different I can be ridiculously grateful for everything right now I can say I get to I don't have to I can have that mentality and in the same moment understand that I'm here to do great with my life which brings us to number 10 which is to invest in your skill set not your lifestyle when I was in my early 20s I realized after two failed companies that I needed help I was reading books but there were computer programming books which is the skill that I had developed but I hadn't learned the skill of building a business so I found this business coach this guy named Bob and I wasn't even paying myself I had saved just a few thousand bucks to be able to even hire him even though I made a commitment for the year I only had two months so I figured if I could pay him for two months and he taught me how to grow my business then that would allow me to make more money to be able to pay him for the rest of the year and luckily the BET paid off within the first 12 months I made almost a million dollars working with my coach and that's when I really solidified the philosophy that I have to invest in myself in my skill set to learn the things that are the gaps because if I already knew what I needed to know to be successful then that success would be in my life the fact that is not is the reason why I have to continue to acquire the next level of skills to allow me to grow see I choose goals that grow me and I often say to my team if the only people that can help us are within these four walls we're all in trouble spend more times investing in you more than you invest in your job because I actually know that that investment those skills in yourself will actually make you a better person to be on our team so don't try to keep up with the Joneses by buying the BMW and the the nice furniture and the new condo instead take all that money invest it in yourself so that you can create more value you can make more income and live a life that very few people will ever be able to dream about which brings us to number 11 which is to never rush decision you know back in the day I was looking at a investment opportunity essentially I could buy these homes in Detroit and a guy approached me at an event and said hey your minimum purchase is 10 homes it's $100,000 called my brother he was into real estate I was like hey man you want to buy these homes he's like sounds crazy but sometimes things that looked too good to be true aren't so I decided to say yes and it happened within a matter of hours we wired the money we became owners they managed the property we didn't think too much about it a year later we hadn't gotten any checks from these homes well essentially they ended up being condemned homes we move way too quick to make a decision here's what I've learned about that since then anytime you have a big decision to make slow it down make a list of things that need to be true for you to decide to move forward sleep on it at minimum and work through that process I'm not saying don't make any quick actions you want to take action to verify an idea an investment making a decision but you don't want to sit there analysis paralysis you want to look at it and say what's the risk return use the end in mind to make your decisions the top entrepreneurs in the world Elon Steve Jobs Bezos were meticulous with their decision but you don't want to make it without the information and you don't want to make it too quick you want to take action quickly and decision slowly which brings us to number 12 which is invert your questions and I first got this from Charlie Munger he has this great quote that says invert always invert the idea is this most people can't tell you what they want in life but if I ask them what do they not want they can make a list of all the things they don't want so the cool part is is your brain has an easier time trying to find the negative so what you do is you ask the negative and then do the opposite how can I guarantee to make money well ask yourself how can I guarantee staying broke be lazy and don't improve myself and eat like crap then those things would probably cause me to stay broke perfect do the opposite see as humans we're a lot more inclined to find the negative inverting it it'll give us the path to find the positive things we should do to get those results which brings us to number 13 which is play to win don't play not to lose so these people that are always saying to me you know I've got this strategy to save on taxes or I've got this really sneaky way to not pay vendors I get that but my whole philosophy is instead of trying to focus on contraction I want to focus on expansion I want to focus on how do I make more money I literally have friends that have uprooted their whole family their whole living situation their relationships to move to a country to save a million dollars or half million dollars instead they should have had the conversation with somebody to say Hey how do we create enough wealth where it doesn't impact our lifestyle how do we expand in a way where that tax isn't a big issue I'm not saying pay one penny more than you should what I am saying is instead of focusing on how not to lose why don't you spend that time on finding ways to win even bigger what you focus on will expand and the problem with that is one is a scarcity mindset and the other one is abundance mindset and any person you admire in this world has an abundance mindset they believe in the potential of the future it's a better energetic place to live in and it'll create bigger results for you which which brings us to number 14 which is to start with the what not the how I know a lot of people they struggle with their ability to dream they don't give themselves permission to really think big they don't understand that there's a lot of magic in the ability to project a future that is just honestly there's no way you know how to create but you allow yourself to see it and to believe it cuz if you're always focused on the how then you'll actually miss the opportunity to create something huge so focus on the outcome don't worry about the how yet hold the belief true in your mind that it's possible because what you focus on will expand the truth is is a big enough what and a why will take care of any how see some of you guys you go to the how which keeps the idea small because if you don't know how to do the how you just kind of reduce the size of your goal until the how meets it instead of saying who would I need to become to achieve this bigger dream then from there you'll go find the how the how will literally magically be presented to you you'll be having a conversation with somebody or you'll read something or you're in a book book and you're like oh my gosh this is the thing that I need to learn how to do that I didn't know how to do to actually get this result I want in my life so just know holding the what and the why true is going to be more powerful than focusing on the how which brings us to number 15 which is to look for the problems in everything most people tend to avoid conflict but if you want to be in the top 0.01% of earners you need to look for the problems in the world most entrepreneurs I know all my friends they can't turn it off they walk around and they see opportunity AK Ka problems all around them inefficiencies things that frustrate them things that aren't properly built and they see these potential Solutions businesses Revenue income all over the place they see it in other people's businesses they go to a restaurant they're like they're doing this wrong they see it in how a product's made and that is a skill set that you have to develop you have to look around the world and run the numbers and understand how could you find a solution to a problem here's a hack go around your house and just make a list of anything that frustrates you it could be as simple as the charging station where you plug in all your phones doesn't seem very intuitive I can never find the connector I don't like the fact that every time I park my car I don't know how much distance I have to the end of the garage I don't understand why I have to put my clothes from the washer to the dyer but that's an example of focusing on problems they're all around you I remember one time when I was younger I went to Australia and I went to a store and they were selling rum and coke in a can and I thought that's so obvious like why are we not doing this back in Canada if you travel the world you will see people solve problems in creative ways that are probably not well known in other parts of the world and that alone could be a massive business so here's the deal if you want to be really rich though you want to solve rich people problems the Richer the person is of the problem you solve it will be a lot easier to make money most people when they start they solve broke people problems and they wonder why the idea never takes off which brings us to number 16 which is to be a river not a reservoir when people have good ideas they think I got to keep them to myself I can't tell anybody you need to sign an NDA or I'll never tell you about my idea the truth is is great people folks that change the world they have this abundance mentality to not only their financials and their resources but to their ideas see even like business coaches or people that teach their expertise online a lot of them are holding back they're not giving away their best stuff and then they're wondering why people aren't leaning in it's like if everything you share just sounds very simple and basic because all the great stuff is stuff that people have to pay for then nobody's going to know that you're actually the best at what you do my belief is that information should be free and implementation should be paid if you want to demonstrate your expertise help people get a result in advance of ever working with you if I want to recruit incredible talent I need to teach people out in the world how to get the best job in the world and hopefully they take that advice and eventually apply for my job create from a place of abundance teach give it away let the information flow through you don't be a reservoir be a river if you do it right here's the big idea your marketing will help more people than your product ever will if you give everything away for free high tides rise all boats the more you get reach and reputation the more opportunities will come back to you my philosophy is very simple in life I want to create more value for everybody in my world than anybody else in their world if I focus on that desire to help other people achieve their outcomes I know it's going to come back which brings us to 17 which is a monetize your past passion there's this great quote by Warren Buffett that says you can't teach passion and for me that was coding learning how to create software and write code that was a thing that I became supremely obsessed about I focused on it I woke up and I started coding I would think about it all day long if I couldn't code and I'd stay up till late in the night to write code here's what I learned at a young age if I could find a way to have my profession be the thing that I love to do that I would have done for free then it's going to allow me to go further where most people won't see the best people in the world the folks that you see on social media or in the press or whatever building these massive businesses it's because they're passionate about the problem they're passionate around building the solution they play around to find out what they're burning passion for so here's how you find out what you're passionate about what do you do when you procrastinate that's my favorite one it's what do you do some people they organize their closet what if you could get paid a lot of money to do that be like oh you can't get a lot of money closet organizers don't make a lot of uh no but people on YouTube do make money digging dirt yeah you can it's called an excavation company you can buy an excavation company make a million dollars a year and your job could be sitting there on these massive machines moving dirt around so don't tell me that you can't monetize your passion you haven't figured out how to because you haven't leaned into it if it feels like fun is it really work when I travel the world with people I admire doing cool stuff creating content having fun conversations building this Empire if that's work sign me up all day long I mean I don't want to brag but most of the time I'm doing meetings on the back of my boat wake surfing I'm having chats with people I'm responding to text messages in between runs on my mountain bike I'm shooting content with my buddy driving around in supercars if that is work then awesome sauce and the cool part is it's available to every one of you and just because you don't have the belief today doesn't mean it isn't true so here's a big idea only do things that light you up find ways that you can get paid to do those things over and over and over again and become obsessed with it because at the end of the day success is self-defined so if you love everything you do in a day you've already achieved success those are the 17 rules of success if you want to learn how I brainwash myself to success click the link and I'll see you on the other side