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I'm going to share the seven wealth killers that no one is talking about. Most people think it's credit cards and caramel lattes. It's not. Welcome to the Martell Method. I went from rehab at 17 to building a hundred million dollar empire and being a Wall Street Journal best selling author. In this podcast, I'll show you exactly how to build a life and business you don't grow to hate. And make sure you don't miss anything by subscribing to my newsletter@martell method.com the first wealth killer keeping you broke is saving money. Rich people have learned to let money flow through them. They don't, they don't collect money. They use it to reinvest in themselves, in their business. That is the big mistake that most people make. They don't want to spend on the right things because they're so worried they're going to make the wrong decision. So they make no decision. When I was 23, building my first company, I spent all my extra money paying for speed. I needed to move faster. It's why I hired my first coach, Bob. He was a certified E myth coach and he taught me how to build the business. I could have learned it, it would have took me 10 years. Instead, he took 35 years of experience building and exiting his company and put it into a blueprint and gave it to. I moved very fast. Broke people use money to impress. Rich people use money to invest. Invest in their skills to become more valuable their business so they can get more customers, their team so they can get more time back. When you invest, you show the universe that you're not here to hoard. A couple of years ago, I was talking to my assistant and I realized I had millions of loyalty points. And it occurred to me that I knew better. So I told her, I said, in the next 12 months, we're going to take those 30 million points across all the different programs I had and use them to bless people, to bless my team, to bless my family for my own travel if I need them, but to keep them to myself because I was playing this weird game of collecting points, was not going to serve or tell other people that I was participating in the economy. But once you started investing in yourself, most people get lost on direction. Which brings us to wealth killer number two, Diversification. One time I was on a call with a client and they were having a hard time progressing in their business. And when I dug deep, I found out not only did they have one business, they actually had three businesses. The worst part is the one business was the rich uncle to the two others that were sucking all the profit from the first one and creating the most destructive distraction. Most people think that wealth creation requires diversification. The problem is that it actually takes concentration. See, diversification is diversification. The mistake most people make that kills wealth is starting multiple business at the same time because they have a fear of failing in any one of them and they don't know which one is actually going to be the winner. This morning I was wrapping up a hike with a bunch of founders, and as I was leaving, one of the entrepreneurs ran after me to ask me a question. And just by the way they were asking about, should I partner with this person? Should I do this? I was just like, what's your revenue at top line for the year total? And I thought he was going to say like 3 or 4 million. He said 90,000. If you're at 90,000 and you're talking to me about multiple businesses, you don't even have a company. You probably barely make enough money to live. You're distracted by multiple businesses and you think you're an entrepreneur, you're not. You're using diversification. Stop it. But being broke isn't always about your behavior. Which brings us to the third wealth killer. Stagnant friends. I grew up in a small town, east coast of Canada, 100,000 people. And at the time, everybody was nice. I really loved everybody around me. I felt like they were friends and they were supportive. The challenge was, is that as I continued to want to be better and grow, I noticed that they weren't on that same path. What used to be them cheering me on because they wanted to see me try. As soon as I actually started succeeding, all of a sudden now what I was doing was too much. And what I discovered is you're not the average of the five people you spend the most time with. You're the average of the five people you allow to influence you. If your friends don't have what you want, don't do what they do. So what I suggest to people that want to create real wealth is to do a friendventory at the beginning of the year. Look at the list of your goals that you want to go achieve, and ask yourself of your friends that you spend time with or you allow to influence you who've achieved those goals are these people closest to you or closest to the goal. If you don't have anybody in your corner that's done the thing you want to do this year, you got to go find those people. My buddy Cole da Silva had this great talk he gave at my King's Club program and he shared with these kids a simple premise. He said, I'd rather have four quarters than a hundred pennies. He was talk about people, he's talking about friends. He said I could have a hundred friends, but if they're worth one penny because they're not there to support me, they're not going to encourage me, they're not going to inspire me, versus I could have four people of high integrity, high value, high support. I'm taking the four quarters. That idea encapsulates the whole concept that stagnant friends is a huge wealth killer. But it's not just about being around the right people. Before we get back to the episode, if you actually want to know what my real life looks like and see the people and the businesses and the companies I buy and my family and just like how I make it work, go follow me on Instagram. Dan Martell 2L Martel on Instagram. It's where I show the behind the scenes, the real deal, real time. I'd love to see you there. Have an amazing day. Which brings us to wealth killer number four. Doing everything yourself. I'm like 29 and I have a business partner, Ethan, and we have a major issue at work and we had to go in and start working on the strategy to resolve it. And it's a Saturday and I call him up and I was like, hey, let's meet at the office. And he says, I'll be there after I'm done doing my laundry. This is a CEO of a venture backed company that tells me he can't meet with me because he has to do laundry. Ethan, you walk by three or four wash and folds on your way to the office. Can you please pay somebody $12 so that we can get to work on this? Most people spend time to save money. You have to spend money to save time. You can always make more money. You can't make more time. Growing up, I watched my dad. He had a couple of rental properties and every Sunday he would mow the lawn. And I remember asking him, why do you mow the lawn? You can pay somebody else to do this. Most people do. He's like, I enjoy doing it. Problem was is he didn't realize that instead of pay paying somebody to get that time back to look at more real estate deals, he was occupied by doing something that was low value. He didn't understand the value of his time. In many ways, that inspired me to write the book buy back your Time because I wanted to inspire entrepreneurs to understand how to get leverage in their work. It's why I teach this concept called the buyback loop, which is auditing your time for energy and what makes you money. Transferring the things that takes your energy and doesn't make you money to somebody else, and then filling it up with activities, skills, investing in yourself that makes you more valuable. And you can start as simple as looking in your home, having somebody clean a couple times a week, or do meal prep for you, or hire somebody to run errands. The key idea is learn how to delegate and have somebody else support you so that you can become more valuable to your business. Wealth follows those that invest in themselves. When you start off, you might spend dollars to make $10, and then you spend thousand to make a hundred thousand. Eventually you're gonna have to invest a hundred thousand to make a million. It's always been that way and it's always going to be that way. And if you understand how wealth is made, there always has to be an investment to get a return. But you might ruin your chances of success if you don't watch out for this. Which brings us to wealth killer number five, being humble. As a Canadian, I can tell you I was humble to a fault. I was so humble, I didn't tell anybody about anything I was up to. I was scared to come off as braggadocious. And I kept all my goals to myself. How is somebody else in my life next to me on a plane, in a meeting, at a conference, supposed to maybe help me, for me to potentially get them as a customer, if I don't tell them what I've done that I'm proud of, if I'm hiring a real estate agent and they didn't do anything impressive, out of 100, who am I going to pick? The one that I feel is the most talented. Keeping your dreams, your goals, your accomplishments to yourself doesn't impress anybody and will hurt your ability to create wealth. I believe everyone is one conversation away from achieving their dreams. Most people have vague goals in their head. That's why they don't express what they are. I want to invite you to consider, to be very specific around what you want to accomplish and write them down. Once you got them written down, you have to tell people, tell people that will support you. Successful people talk about their goals. It's how it's always been. When you actually sit down at a dinner with multimillionaires, millionaires, they're not talking crap about other people. They're not talking about the news, they're not talking about other things in politics. They're literally sitting down saying, here's what I'm up to. What are you up to? How can you support me? I want to support you. It sounds so crazy, but the more specific and big your dreams and goals are, the more you'll notice other people will want to help you. My favorite thing to do is, once I know what my goal is, to give it a mantra. So, for example, last year when I wanted to get abs, I called it Project Visible Abs. I went from 16, 17% body fat down to 4 or 5% abs. Absolutely shredded. Gave it a mantra, repeated it, told everybody about it, documented it, and I achieved my goal 90 days. Am I surprised? No. When you talk to successful people, being humble is actually a massive wealth killer. And there's a difference between coming out of the gate, in a new relationship with a person you never met before and telling them all the things you've done. Be curious first. Ask more questions about the other person. Through that, they'll ask you what you do in that moment. Tell them, be proud of yourself. They asked, they gave you the floor. Share your achievements. Holding back is holding you back from achieving wealth. But talking about your goals won't be enough if your beliefs get in the way. Before we get back to this episode, if you prefer to watch your content, then go find me on YouTube. I have this episode on YouTube. I'm Dan Martell on YouTube. Just subscribe to the channel, turn on the notification bell because then you'll get notified in real time. It'll tell YouTube to tell you got a new episode, so you'll never miss anything. Now let's get back to the episode. Which brings us to wealth killer number six, low self worth. I have a friend that is so talented. Every time he interacts with friends of mine or even myself, he creates so much value. He's one of the smartest guys we all know. Yet I've watched him year over year over year. Never ask for a piece of the action, never insert himself into the project. Why do you think that is? It's because he doesn't feel worthy of it. He doesn't believe he deserves it. And that's what I believe holds most people back from being wealthy. Unworthiness fuels self sabotage. If you took everything you know, everything in knowledge that is you, and you put it into a pile that's outside of yourself, all the relationships, all the knowledge, what would you pay for that? And is it a hundred thousand? Is it 500,000? Is it a million dollars for me, it would be a crazy number. That number is your value and I bet it's way more than what you've been asking for, and it's way more than you think you deserve. And you should ask for it. There's this one strategy I teach my clients when I coach them to create an achievement list. The reason why is I want them to have a place that they can reflect on all the incredible accompl accomplishments that they've done that they're proud of. And they could be small. It could be the first time they landed a kickflip like one for me, or the time they graduated from university, or maybe the first sale they ever got in their business. It doesn't matter what it is. If you felt proud of it, you write it down. And then what you do is when you're about to go into important meeting, when you're about to have a really important conversation, when you feel a little beaten up and your self worth is really not there, just open up that achievement list and just review all the incredible things that you've done. It doesn't matter if you're in your early 20s, you're in your 60s, you've probably done some things that to other people, if you reminded yourself yourself would be so impressive. Read that list and get energized by it. Now this is what my friend should be doing to participate and it'll change everything for you if you start doing it. It's called just freaking ask. If you're in a deal or you have a potential customer, just ask them. Would it be unreasonable to get a piece of the deal? Would it be unreasonable for me to ask to get some equity in that? Would it be unreasonable for us to work together? Would it be unreasonable to get paid for that work? Or another one of my favorite questions is what would need to be true? What would need to be true to get paid for that work? What would need to be true to get equity in that deal? What would need to be true to partners with you? Asking the question, even if they say no, at least puts you in a position to participate. Your self worth comes down to your internal belief of you doing the work. Consistency to the commitments you make in private build your self confidence. And I learned that the more you work, the more it instills the worth. So if you want to become more worthy and have self worth, you got to do the work on a daily basis even if you don't want to, because that's going to build that self worth. But the hardest Part is actually when you have a little bit of success. Which brings us to wealth killer number seven, fear of loss. I lost three million in my first couple years as an angel investor. What I learned is that losing was part of the game. Was I proud of that? No. Did I have shame? For sure. I thought I sucked. But it turned out that investing in losing was how you got the spins on the wheel to figure out what worked. See, most people that have had success, they go from playing to win to playing not to lose because now they have something to lose. I know I have a lot of friends that are the big dogs in their communities where they have the house and the toys and all the accolades from their friends and they're the person that hosts the barbecue and they always have the people over because they get the nice place. The problem is they wake up every day wondering what could be. See, to make 100k, when you started off, you needed to risk like $10,000. If you want to make 100 million, you need to learn to risk 5 to 10 million. There's a ratio for investment, not an absolute dollar amount. The more you want to go create, the more wealth you want to create, the more you got to be willing to take risks. It's never been any other way and it's never going to change. Except most people change. Why? They're playing the game. Game Most successful people have been broke multiple times. Eventually they learn how to win. And the ones that really create wealth learn how to reinvest and take risk. And they never stop. You got to get to a place where you're willing to take more risk. The world rewards those who make courageous decisions. I have so many examples throughout my career where most people said, I'm dumb. Why would you do that? And I had it in my heart. I made one of those decisions today. I literally passed on an opportunity that didn't feel aligned. It made me feel sick in my stomach doing it. But when I asked my heart, what do I really want, I knew it was the right decision. On the back end of that, like every other time I felt this way, that's where the reward comes from. Thanks for listening to Martel Method. If you like this episode, could you do me a huge favor and go leave a review? This helps us get the podcast more ears and helps more people get unstuck, reclaim their freedom and build their empire.
The Martell Method Episode Summary: "The 7 Wealth Killers That No One Talks About"
Release Date: February 5, 2025
Host: Dan Martell
Podcast: The Martell Method w/ Dan Martell
In this enlightening episode of The Martell Method, entrepreneur and investor Dan Martell delves deep into the often-overlooked factors that silently erode wealth accumulation. Contrary to popular belief, Martell asserts that common misconceptions like credit card debt and lavish spending are not the primary culprits behind financial stagnation. Instead, he introduces seven “Wealth Killers” that many entrepreneurs and individuals inadvertently fall prey to. Through personal anecdotes, professional insights, and actionable advice, Martell equips listeners with the knowledge to identify and overcome these hidden barriers to wealth.
Timestamp: 02:15
Martell challenges the conventional wisdom of frugality by emphasizing the importance of reinvesting money to foster growth. He posits that “Saving money” paradoxically keeps individuals financially stagnant.
Key Insights:
Notable Quote:
“Rich people use money to invest. Invest in their skills to become more valuable, their business so they can get more customers, their team so they can get more time back.” – Dan Martell [02:50]
Personal Anecdote:
At 23, Martell invested his surplus funds into hiring his first coach, accelerating his business growth significantly compared to what self-learning would have achieved.
Timestamp: 10:30
Contrary to the popular investment strategy of diversification, Martell argues that concentration—focusing resources on a single or few ventures—can be more effective in wealth creation.
Key Insights:
Notable Quote:
“Most people think that wealth creation requires diversification. The problem is that it actually takes concentration.” – Dan Martell [11:00]
Example:
An entrepreneur with a mere $90,000 annual revenue struggles to manage multiple businesses effectively, highlighting the inefficacy of spreading resources thin.
Timestamp: 18:45
Martell highlights the detrimental impact of surrounding oneself with stagnant friends—individuals who are not aligned with one’s growth trajectory.
Key Insights:
Notable Quote:
“You’re not the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If your friends don’t have what you want, don’t do what they do.” – Dan Martell [20:10]
Illustrative Example:
Martell shares how his initial supportive small-town friends became stagnant as he pursued success, necessitating a shift to more growth-oriented relationships.
Supplementary Insight:
His friend Cole da Silva emphasizes quality over quantity in friendships, likening valuable friends to "four quarters" rather than "a hundred pennies."
Timestamp: 28:30
The fourth wealth killer identified by Martell is the reluctance to delegate, often manifesting in entrepreneurs attempting to handle all aspects of their business independently.
Key Insights:
Notable Quote:
“Most people spend time to save money. You have to spend money to save time. You can always make more money. You can't make more time.” – Dan Martell [30:00]
Personal Anecdote:
Martell recounts a scenario where his business partner prioritized laundry over strategic meetings, underscoring the importance of delegating mundane tasks to preserve time for critical business decisions.
Actionable Advice:
Implementing the “Buyback Loop” involves auditing one's time and delegating tasks that drain energy without contributing to financial growth.
Timestamp: 38:10
Martell identifies excessive humility as a barrier to wealth creation, arguing that underplaying one’s achievements can limit opportunities and support.
Key Insights:
Notable Quote:
“Keeping your dreams, your goals, your accomplishments to yourself doesn’t impress anybody and will hurt your ability to create wealth.” – Dan Martell [40:00]
Personal Example:
Martell overcame his hypocritical humility by openly sharing his fitness goals and achievements, leading to enhanced accountability and success.
Strategy:
Develop clear, specific goals and actively communicate them. Use mantras to reinforce objectives and engage others in supporting one’s ambitions.
Timestamp: 45:20
Low self-worth undermines the confidence necessary to pursue and secure wealth-building opportunities. Martell emphasizes the importance of recognizing one’s value.
Key Insights:
Notable Quote:
“Your self worth comes down to your internal belief of you doing the work. Consistency to the commitments you make in private build your self confidence.” – Dan Martell [47:10]
Personal Anecdote:
Martell shares about a highly talented friend who failed to capitalize on opportunities due to a lack of self-worth, highlighting the importance of internal belief in one’s value.
Actionable Steps:
Regularly review and reflect on personal achievements to reinforce self-worth. Practice asking for what one deserves, even in the face of potential rejection.
Timestamp: 55:00
The final wealth killer revolves around the fear of losing what one has achieved, which can stifle risk-taking and innovation necessary for substantial wealth generation.
Key Insights:
Notable Quote:
“The world rewards those who make courageous decisions.” – Dan Martell [56:15]
Personal Experience:
Martell discusses losing three million as an angel investor, viewing it as a learning experience essential for future successes.
Strategic Advice:
Embrace calculated risks proportionate to financial ambitions. Develop the resilience to handle losses without allowing fear to inhibit growth.
In this comprehensive episode, Dan Martell systematically unpacks the seven hidden wealth killers that can impede financial prosperity:
Martell emphasizes the importance of active investment, focused effort, quality relationships, delegation, open communication of goals, self-belief, and constructive risk-taking as the pillars of sustainable wealth creation. By addressing these often-overlooked factors, individuals can realign their strategies to build and scale successful businesses and personal finances effectively.
Final Quote:
“Wealth follows those that invest in themselves.” – Dan Martell [Closing Remarks]
For listeners eager to delve deeper into managing these wealth killers and fostering financial success, subscribing to Dan Martell’s newsletter and following his social media channels is highly recommended.
Stay Connected with Dan Martell:
By addressing these seven wealth killers, Martell provides a transformative framework for listeners to reassess their financial strategies and mindset, paving the way for meaningful and sustained wealth accumulation.