7 Rules to 7 Figures: The Entrepreneur's Playbook to Freedom, Family, and Fortune

Introduction

Welcome to the

New Economy

What does it mean to be World-­Class?

To some, it might mean living a lavish lifestyle filled with vacations, unlimited income, and fame. To others, it could simply mean rising to the top in their chosen industry.

Regardless of your personal definition, being World-­Class is about much more than material objects, recognition, or being the best at what you do. It’s about creating an amazing lifestyle that provides all of those things but doesn’t require you to sacrifice your freedom or values along the way. It’s about building a thriving business that works for YOU, rather than you working for it. We’ve been led to believe that we can’t have our cake and eat it too, and I’m here to tell you that’s wrong. In fact, I am proof of it. I’ve gone through fifteen years of ups and downs, spent over a quarter of a million dollars on personal growth, trained over 10,000 people, and interviewed over 300 millionaires. The biggest thing I’ve learned is that much of what we’ve been told about work-­life balance is wrong. You don’t have to give up everything to get what you want; you just have to know how to pursue it.

Since the release of my first book, 6 Months to 6 Figures in 2014, my life has changed in ways I never could have imagined. I’ve traveled the world and shared the stage with some of the most iconic entrepreneurs, including Gary Vaynerchuk, Tim Ferriss, Les Brown, Eric Thomas, Mel Robbins, Robert Herjavec, and more. Over 50,000 people have taken our courses, trainings, and workshops. The Game Changers Academy has exploded with new members who’ve collectively generated tens of millions of dollars, and they’ve also been featured in both Forbes and Entrepreneur magazines. We’re impacting millions of people each month through our social media channels. I co-­wrote a best-­selling journal, Achieving Autonomy, grew my real estate portfolio, and most importantly, married the woman of my dreams. Since then, I’ve become a father, and I’ve been able to find the sweet spot of continuous growth and impact without losing myself along the way. I can honestly say I’ve never felt more at peace with my life, myself, and my business. And I can only hope that through the information provided in this book, I can help you achieve the same.

On the contrary, I would be lying if I said that this newfound success came easy. It took an unbelievable amount of dedication and focus that often resulted in bouts of anxiety, questioning myself, and the unavoidable effects of imposter syndrome. I don’t say this to discourage you, but rather to set a tone of honesty that I hope rings clear throughout the entire book. You won’t find any life hacks or quick shortcuts that many of today’s gurus claim to have. You will, however, find the roadmap I employed to achieve World-­Class status, and how you choose to absorb and utilize this information is ultimately within your hands.

Running a business in today’s modern world is a continuous battle, and the first step to building a life and business on your terms is learning to approach a new venture with an adaptable mindset. We’re living in the age of the new economy; the way in which we conduct business, interact with others, promote our brand, and gain an audience is on an ever-­changing frequency. The last two decades have arguably seen more development than any others in the history of our civilization, especially in the fields of business and technology. We’ve moved from the massive floppy disk to micro USBs in an extremely short amount of time. Think back to the year 2000. It doesn’t seem that far off, does it? Now, imagine trying to run your business or even maintaining communication today the same way we did back then. For some of us, that would mean using a landline rather than a cell phone or relying on the postal service rather than lightning-­fast email or social media platforms. Even the phrase app wasn’t attached to a technological meaning but used to reference the snack we consumed before a meal.

Suffice it to say, technology has changed our lives in major ways. Consider these other advances:

You can use both a landline and the internet at the same time

You can fast-­forward through commercials or pay to omit commercials all-­together

You can have dinner, groceries, and alcohol delivered to you within the hour, just by using a few apps on your phone

You no longer have to leave your couch to watch a new movie; you can just rent it through one of many available streaming services

You can purchase practically anything you desire and have it delivered as early as the following day

You no longer have to memorize phone numbers

Most communication is done via text, and it’s rare to receive a voicemail

Most of the population, including children, have smartphones, with no memory of Nokia

We can decide whether or not to date someone simply by swiping left or right

We no longer have to worry about physical photos being damaged because we have access to them right on our phones

You can create your own music playlists on your phone or have an app create one for you

Wi-­Fi is readily available wherever you go

So, what do all of these changes mean for the modern-­day entrepreneur? It means much of what we were previously taught no longer applies, even if it was as recent as five to ten years ago. The old economy is gone, and it’s never coming back. We are living in a now or never society, one that requires you to immediately adapt or be left behind. Age no longer determines a person’s ability to be successful, and soon, neither will your experience level. I personally know sixteen-­ and seventeen-­year-­olds who are worth millions and previously successful fifty-­year-­olds who are now dead broke.

How Does that Even Happen?

From what I’ve seen, failure often comes from an unwillingness to adapt and a my way or the highway mentality. You often hear people say things like, I have twenty years of experience; I should be paid more, but in actuality, that person has one year of experience repeated twenty times over. If they’re not sharpening their skills, learning better tools, or constantly trying to better themselves, then you could even say those twenty years are no longer relevant. That experience doesn’t offer anything useful in modern-­day times, so why should they expect more money or more success? Age or time doesn’t guarantee a higher income. It’s about providing relevant value to the marketplace and understanding supply and demand.

This is not the time to back down or be a follower. This is the time to step up and lead—to lean into the new economy and take advantage of every opportunity or resource, no matter how foreign they may seem. Now is the time to wake up and see the future right in front of you. Once you do, you’ll realize this is quite possibly the greatest time in human history to be alive. We are part of the biggest culture shift that’s ever existed. This shift has already begun and is speeding up with each passing day. I don’t want you to miss out on the tremendous opportunities the new economy brings to those who are hungry enough to listen, learn, and most importantly, execute. My singular focus is to make sure you’re a part of this HUGE wave of success. It is not too late, for now. The first adopters are perfectly positioned to succeed at a whole new level.

This book is about YOU. Your results. Your future. Your income. Your story. Your legacy. I won’t take up too much time talking about myself. However, I do want you to know who I am, how I can help you, and the importance of living a life on YOUR terms. You must realize you’re either building your ideal lifestyle or helping somebody else build theirs. I was fortunate enough to learn at a young age to never let someone who’s given up on their dreams talk you out of yours.

I wasn’t supposed to be successful. I grew up in a small town on the Oregon Coast, with a population of around 6,200 people. Nobody around me had money, and there were very few, if any, true entrepreneurs that I could talk with or look up to. If you had told me I was going to make six figures by age twenty-­three and become a millionaire by twenty-­eight, I would have laughed in your face. I always felt judged, which made me feel like an outcast, causing me to rebel. I was the kid that everybody else’s parents told their kids not to hang out with. These experiences shaped my against the grain mentality.

My first taste of entrepreneurship came when I was just fifteen years old and started selling shoes on eBay. It was a way for me to differentiate from what everybody else was doing. I started by selling Air Jordans and eventually bought merchandise in bulk and sold bigger items. The fact that I could put something online and sell it to someone in a different state was mind-­blowing, and it quickly became an obsession that brought me to where I am today.

In fact, I remember the specific moment in time when I realized the true economic power of the internet. A group of friends came over to do a hired labor job for my father, which consisted of hauling buckets of sand up and down a large hill. With the prospect of being paid, I was initially on board to participate, but the constant thought of how my shoes were doing on eBay kept nagging at me, impacting my motivation for the boring tasks at hand. I made up an excuse to get out of the work, ran inside to check my listing, and was baffled to see I had made $91 in just a few short hours. Then, I calculated how much each of my friends made working eight hours for my dad, and it was just $63. That’s when I knew I would never work a normal job, and this newfound entrepreneurial bug had me hooked. I would spend the rest of my life exploring the endless capabilities of the internet.

I also had a stark realization years later that’s of vital importance to understand as an entrepreneur: The money I made that day didn’t just come from the effort of posting and selling a pair of shoes. It came from taking a risk that most were too oblivious to see or didn’t want to take.

As you journey into becoming the best version of yourself, don’t lose sight of who you are and where your journey began. Having an acute level of self-­awareness will make those future struggles and ebbs and flows of technological shifts far easier to bear. It will also allow you to adapt to fluctuation and recognize potential faults, rather than waste time and energy searching for a solution that may or may not exist. That’s ultimately where the journey of becoming a World-­Class human begins, and I’m both excited and honored to help you through this phase of your pursuit.

Whether you’ve already made your first million, or you’re looking to transition into entrepreneurship, or you’ve been struggling as an entrepreneur, this book will serve as a roadmap to help you become the best at what you do, both personally and financially. In turn, you’ll not only reach financial freedom, but you’ll do it in a way that allows you to live a World-­Class life.

The process of starting a business isn’t difficult; millions of new businesses are started each year. The real work comes in the process of building a business to generate sustainable, ongoing income. You must be willing to put in the time, think outside the box, and scale the cliff of uncertainty with an almost blinding level of confidence. Entrepreneurs with the ability to thrive at this highest level are not a rare breed; they just do things that most aren’t willing to do. They have an uncanny ability to adapt and adjust to what’s ahead. Over and over again.

Real entrepreneurship is committing yourself before you have the guarantee of success. I truly believe that time is life’s most precious commodity, and I value your time at the highest level, so I’ve simplified this book. I’ve taken out anything I felt wasn’t extremely valuable to you. I could have made this 300+ pages long, and I could have made myself feel smarter than I really am by adding more content, more elaborate stories, and more details, but I’m big on keeping things simple. Complexity is the enemy of execution. Many of the books I’ve read in the past could have gotten their point across and been just as valuable (if not more) had they cut out 60 percent of the fluff, wasted words, and BS.

If you’re someone who avidly reads about entrepreneurship, you know that most business-­related books have a similar focus: make money fast while doing very little. As great as that sounds, you’ve likely realized that it’s just a little too good to be true. The insight tends to be too general, is often outdated, and filled with a lot of unusable fluff. That is unless you’re currently sitting on a pile of disposable cash.

I considered those factors when writing this book and ultimately decided to take a new approach. Not only will we cover proven tactics and strategies for generating income, we’ll also look inward and work to acknowledge any habits or mindsets that might be holding you back from accessing your true, inner greatness. My hope isn’t to provide you with quick tips and tricks that will become irrelevant in six months. It’s to teach you to approach entrepreneurship with your entire self: mind, body, and soul. It’s to help you build a solid, unbreakable foundation, resulting in ongoing, sustainable wealth and freedom.

Now, don’t get me wrong; this book won’t be the perfect solution to all of your problems. Your success will ultimately rely on the work you’re willing to put in. However, if I’m able to help you figure out your next move and ensure you put intention behind every action from here on out, then I’ve done my job. Life is about adapting and adjusting consistently, and once you learn that chaos is almost guaranteed, you’ll learn to accept it and maneuver through it efficiently. Once you learn to approach uncertainty as an opportunity to sharpen your perspective rather than an unmanageable setback, that’s when you’ll be within arm’s reach of living life on your terms.

But First, A Word of Warning

Building a World-­Class lifestyle in today’s new economy comes with challenges, and these challenges often aren’t what you’d expect. They’re not just the business and financial challenges every entrepreneur faces when starting or growing their business. They’re the hidden challenges that sneak up on you after you start to experience success.

This is why we see people all too often achieve massive success in one area, only to fall massively short in another. This often leads to regret, and if you’ve talked to anyone who has regret, you know it stings.

So, if you’ve built a $100 million business but you don’t have a lifestyle you’re inspired by and proud of, you did it all wrong.

If you’ve built a fan base of millions, sold out arenas, and achieved superstardom but sold your soul in the process, you did it all wrong.

If you’ve become the number-­one sales rep in your company but sacrificed your health, you did it all wrong.

If you’ve become a NYTimes best-­selling author but cheated on your wife and slept with multiple women, you did it all wrong.

If you’ve built a successful startup and raised millions of dollars but left a trail of failed relationships behind you, you did it all wrong.

If you’ve started a business and have tons of employees, but you work eighty hours a week and miss all your kids’ events because your business controls you, you did it all wrong.

If you’ve become an exceptional CEO but you’re a horrible parent and your kids don’t know who you are, you did it all wrong.

You must be aware of these situations and challenges and prepare for them. If not, you risk ruining your life in the attempt to build a better one. I know that might sound harsh, but I’ve seen it happen too many times to count. And in a world filled with BS, sometimes the things you don’t want to hear are the things you need to hear the most. Society causes people to sell themselves short in almost every area of their lives, and most people are living incongruently. Most give up too easily, have more debt than income, complain more than they hustle, and don’t live a life on their terms.

This book will teach you how to overcome those struggles, own up to your faults, and set you on the path toward building an extraordinary life. If you’re hanging on to old ways and not adapting to the new, you are leaving enormous amounts of potential untapped.

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