Introduction

Here’s a truth you won’t learn in school: you don’t need a high IQ or wealthy parents to be financially successful. In fact, you don’t even need a college education. Many of the millionaires being made in North America every day did not graduate from university.

Schools are designed to train you for a job, but most educators are not equipped to teach you about entrepreneurship or how to build wealth. When you graduate, you might be ready for a career, but you likely haven’t been taught how money really works.

Now, if your plan is to one day be a lawyer or a doctor, school is where you want to be. You’ll need years of education and training, plus above-average grades to enter those fields. The requirements are rigorous, but if you jump through all the hoops, you’ll be rewarded with a high salary, great benefits, and plenty of stability.

Congratulations! Your prestigious profession means you’re now wealthy.

Or are you?

A lot of kids today, with some urging from their parents, dream of landing a high-paying job when they grow up because they want the luxuries that become possible when you’re making a lot of money: the house with the in-ground pool and home movie theater, a couple of Mercedes or BMWs in the garage, and family vacations to Bali and Dubai.

Doctors, lawyers, and those in similarly high-paying positions are able to enjoy the perks that come with a nice income, giving them the outward appearance of wealth.

However, you shouldn’t assume that means they’re wealthy.

Some high-income individuals are wealthy because they’ve invested their money in assets like real estate that can provide a high return on investment (ROI).

But for many high-income individuals, if you took away their paycheck, they’d be left with a shallow bank account and expensive luxuries they could no longer afford. Their income and possessions create the illusion of wealth, but in reality, they’d have no safety net to catch them if their ability to make money through their profession stopped tomorrow.

True wealth comes from what you do with your money, not how much of it you make.

To Build Wealth, Start When You’re Young

You can see why financial success is about more than a high IQ or years of education. Sure, you’ll need basic financial knowledge, but it’s more important to have the right mindset so you can create a plan and then act on it.

Intelligence doesn’t hurt, but you’ll be better served with the right mindset as well as certain skills and information generally not taught in school. You’ll also need another type of intelligence: the ability to form relationships, connect with people, understand them, and then communicate to get what you want!

With these ingredients, you can become a millionaire or even a billionaire. What will help your chances is starting when you’re young. The more years you have to work on building wealth, the wealthier you can become. Time is the ultimate X factor, but it can’t be bought or sold. You have to use it while you have it or be prepared to work much harder later in life to make up for those years you didn’t capitalize on your opportunity. This isn’t to say you can’t create wealth when you’re older. I did it! There is no expiry date on success.

I couldn’t fathom becoming a millionaire when I was young. I knew I had the skills and the brains to get there, but I had no idea how to make it happen. The more people I’ve spoken with about this topic, the more I realize how many people feel the same way I felt.

I can become a millionaire? Really?

You absolutely can. In fact, it can happen rather quickly. I know people who’ve followed the path laid out in this book and watched as their net worth soared past $100 million.

The difference between making $50,000 a year and $1 million a year is awareness.

Once you’re aware of what’s out there, understand how it works, and begin to take advantage of it, nothing can stop you from creating the life of your dreams.

Why Aren’t More People Wealthy?

I’m not a mind reader, but I can guess what you’re thinking: This sounds too good to be true. If there’s such a simple formula to building wealth, why aren’t more people wealthy?

There are several reasons why everyone isn’t wealthy. It starts with a fact we discussed earlier: school doesn’t teach you about money or how to build wealth. Teachers spend a lot of time on math, formulas, and theories, but they seem to miss the basics and what works in the real world. If you get a chance, you should watch a movie (available on Netflix) called Back to School with Rodney Dangerfield. Aside from the fact it is really funny (Rodney is my favorite comedian), there is an excellent scene where Rodney takes on the professor regarding textbook theories versus the real world. It encapsulates the problem quite well.

I saw the lack of key information in school when I asked my nineteen-year-old son, Evan, and his friends if they knew about compound interest. They had all received a top education from various private high schools in Montreal, yet they had no idea what I was talking about.

Albert Einstein once called compound interest the most powerful force in the universe, yet it’s not taught in most high schools. If you want to learn about this powerful force that creates money like magic, you’ve come to the right place. We’ll talk about it a lot in this book.

Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn’t, pays it.

Albert Einstein

Schools also don’t teach you about the incredible power of your mind. It’s an instrument to be reckoned with. New curriculum in more proactive schools is starting to reflect the need for critical thinking, problem-solving, and mindpower, but it’ll be another generation before we see the impact of those changes. Because they don’t learn how to use their mind, many kids come out of school thinking they are their mind. As we’ll see in the next few chapters, that’s not true. Your mind is an instrument to be wielded and controlled as you see fit.

Students who come out of school with a limited mindset grow into adults who view wealth as unattainable. They see it like a golden ticket that only a lucky few ever receive.

When I told my mom I was a millionaire, she was flabbergasted. She simply couldn’t wrap her mind around how I’d created so much wealth in such a short amount of time.

In fact, some in my family were convinced I’d started dealing drugs or something! Isn’t that insane? My own family would sooner believe I’d resorted to a life of crime than believe I’d become a millionaire by following a simple wealth-building blueprint—no tricks or shortcuts, just the right mindset, the knowledge I needed, and a plan I executed with enthusiasm.

Fear also holds people back from becoming wealthy. We all deal with fear on a daily basis. The difference is that successful people like Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, and Michael Bloomberg know how to manage their fear. They still experience fear, but it doesn’t slow them down.

Money Misconceptions That Limit Us

Misconceptions about money can also hold people back. Perhaps the most popular is that making lots of money is somehow based on the number of hours worked. People incorrectly assume that the more hours you put in and the harder you work, the more money you make. This is true to a certain extent, but what I want you to understand is that building wealth has little to do with the number of hours you work.

Truthfully, you’re not wealthy until you’re making money while you sleep.

Another misconception is that wealthy people pay significant taxes. Five years ago, I was in Fiji for a Tony Robbins seminar. The one hundred smart, successful people in the room with me were asked to raise their hand to indicate how much they paid in taxes the year before. As the moderator counted down from 50 percent, to 40 percent, then 30 percent, every hand went up but mine.

The facilitator noticed I just sat there without raising my hand and asked me how much I paid in taxes the previous year. I sheepishly explained that I hadn’t paid any taxes. I’d made a lot of money, but the government hadn’t gotten a dime, at least not in the short run.

Now, before you go calling the Canada Revenue Agency or the IRS on me, I wasn’t admitting to tax evasion with my answer. It is incumbent on us as individuals to understand the tax code the best we possibly can and push it to the limit without crossing the line.

Those aren’t my words. They’re clearly written into the beginning of the tax code itself! And I followed the tax code verbatim.

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