Episode Transcript
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S1 (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of Building Billions on this
(00:02):
episode are talking about how I went from a 9
to 5 job to becoming a multi-millionaire. I went from
earning $25,000 a year to becoming a millionaire, running a
business that was $35 million in revenue. In this video,
I'll explain how I would do it much faster and
easier if I could go back and start again. So
(00:22):
here are five steps to go from 9 to 5.
Employee to thinking, acting, and earning like a millionaire. The
first step isn't quitting your 9 to 5 job. It's
changing the way you think about wealth and success. When
I was 18 years old, my parents wanted me to
get a good job in Corvallis, Oregon. But to be
honest with you, I knew there was no jobs that
(00:43):
I wanted to do there. I wanted to do something big.
I wanted to travel. I wanted to go see the world,
but I didn't have the skill to do that. And
the naysayers, including my parents, my friends, my mentors, my teachers,
my football coaches, they're like, Dawson, just suck it up,
get a good job, and if you work long enough,
you can retire. For me, I wanted to do something
(01:05):
entirely different. I moved to Atlanta, Georgia. I traveled 11 states,
and I learned to take care of myself. And most importantly,
I learned to talk to adults, which caused me the
ability to become great at sales. Most people, they believe
having a good degree or having great sales skills is
how you actually become financially successful. The truth is, I
was not good in school and I didn't know anything
(01:27):
about sales. So what I did learn though, is real
money doesn't flow to people with a degree. I don't
care how fancy it is and it doesn't flow to
great sales people. Real money. What I learn flows to
problem solvers. To the extent you can figure out how
to solve somebody's problem and you have a degree to
help you, or you have great communication skills to support you, well,
you're just going to make more money. You know what
(01:48):
else I learned? Success is not tied to climbing the
corporate ladder. It's about actually creating leverage between your time,
your ability to communicate, finding something that somebody would be
interested in spending money on so you can actually transact
and And create dollars. Now I'll tell you why this
information is so critical, and I wish I would have known.
(02:08):
Now looking back at the things that made me a millionaire.
So I'm going to share them with you. First of all,
you got to surround yourself with the right people. You
got to read the right books. You got to give
yourself the ability to have the right experiences. All that,
and being successful within that environment and figuring it out
is what actually reinforces the millionaire mindset. Try to fill
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your brain with success stories, things that you can go
out and figure out how to do yourself. Because once
I learned I can feed myself, I can spend money
on things I want to. I can survive everything from
there was upside. How'd I do it? Well, I studied
what other high achievers did. I watched the best of
the best, and I just learned to model and mimic
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and eventually master what they did. And that's the first
step to becoming a millionaire, is mastering what other people
do that's successful. Step two is to invest in yourself,
specifically by teaching yourself a high income skill, and there
are three high income skills that are the highest potential
in 2025. And how did I become an outside sales
(03:12):
rep in Atlanta, Georgia? Well, first I had to be
number one on the phones. I took a job in Portland, Oregon,
selling hearing aids over the phones, and I realized I
could sell more than people working full time, only working
one day a week. How did I do it? I listened,
I noticed they were always selling 1 or 2 per call.
So I asked the question, who's the number one sales
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rep doing this job in the country? And my boss
told me and I said, how did they become number one?
And he says, because they never sell 1 to 1,
they always sell many to one. So I paid attention
to what that person was doing, and I realized every
time he'd get on the phone, he'd ask questions like,
if you had more on your inventory or on your shelf,
would you sell more? And if you sold more, would
(03:54):
you make more money? And people would say, of course
they'd say, great, I'll ship them out to you. Do
ten instead of two. That was the hack. Sell more
to more people. I became a top salesperson, working one
day a week, competing against people working five days a week.
That got me known. And then I was offered the
job as an outside sales rep in Atlanta, Georgia. Trust me,
you can make six figures or more working a 9
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to 5 job if you just understand the hacks. How
do you become successful? We have to focus on a
few things. First, promotion. You have to learn how to sell.
Now people use sales differently. I like to say promotion.
Promote what you do, promote who you do it for.
Promote why you do it. Promote your value proposition like
go out there and communicate about what makes you excited
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so you can be good at talking about what you do.
And that really is marketing. And then when you grab attention,
sell something to somebody. And you know, what happens is
eventually you become a strong male leader because people are like, man,
that person always gets things done. That person's fast, efficient, effective.
That person can solve problems and know how to generate money.
(04:58):
You know what that does? It gives you the skills
to allow you to control your earning potential. Most people
gravitate to the average position yourself to always gravitate to
being at the top. Make more calls. Be smarter how
you make the calls. Work on your communication skills. Be
more effective. Learn to ask the right questions. Be respectful.
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Don't be afraid to take massive action. There's no rules
in business as long as it's legal, moral, ethical and compliant.
Do what you have to do to be number one
and somebody will notice it. And that's where everything changes.
Next up is step number three, which is to work
outside the lines and stop wasting your 5 to 9.
You know what I did? I made sure everywhere I
(05:41):
went it could be a trade show. It could be
a town I'm pulling into. It could be a convention.
It could be anything. You know what I did? I
made sure I got as many contacts and as many
phone numbers as I could. I used to carry my
book around. Now we're talking about the 80s. Okay? I
used to carry my book around and I'd write down
their name, what they said they did, where they lived,
(06:02):
what their phone number was. You know why? Because the
more names I could put in that book, the more
networking I've been able to do. Which then, even if
they don't do something with me, they always know someone
in a town I'm in. I got referrals, I got recommendations.
Most importantly, I went on a mission to collect people's names.
The more people that knew me, the more people would
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do business with me. Once I mastered that, I realized
no one else in my company was doing it from
a leadership standpoint. So I started teaching the other reps
to do exactly what I did. I would show them,
I would sit and train them. One day my boss
saw that and he said, what are you doing? And
I explained and he said, you know what? All of
our salespeople need to learn to do this. I was
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the youngest salesperson on the team, making the most amount
of money, and they gave me a leadership position within
the company. I volunteered at the company I worked at
for all their weekend meetings. They used to run events
and trainings on a Saturday and Sunday. I always made
sure I was there. Why? Contacts. I wanted to meet
as many people as possible. Plus, when the customers were there,
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I'd ask them why they do business with us, what
would make them do more business? And I learned through
relationships and asking questions. How I can help other people
make more money than I proved it. By making more
money than others, I became the number one sales person,
making $150,000 a year. At 22 years old. You want
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to make more money, develop your skills, show others how
to do it and get noticed. The exercise was simple
for me. I calculated how much time a day I
wanted to spend with my family, or do things I
wanted to do, and the rest of that time I
had one thought, how do I maximize every single moment,
either through a phone call, getting a lead, calling somebody
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I just did business with and say, did you tell
anybody I did business with you? And did they say, gee,
I need to do that too? If so, can I
get their number? And I'll call them too, like I
used every single moment to maximize my energy, my effort,
and my attention on the things that I learned was
the most effective at making money. And then I just
(08:09):
exhibited that behavior until my boss noticed it through my results.
You want to get your attention at work, get the results.
Be number one wherever you're at and watch how fast people,
attention and money flow to you. And here's the deal
that ended up being my personal competitive advantage. I could
outperform anybody else, and I was always willing to teach
(08:31):
others how to do it too. How did I do
all this? Well, I used extra time to learn new skills.
I when I went in on the weekends, I didn't
even have permission to sell anybody. But I watched the
best salespeople early on. And how they communicated, how they sold,
what they talked about, the questions they asked. And I
would go role play with myself in front of a
(08:52):
video camera until I felt I was good. Then one day,
somebody didn't show up. On the weekend, I started talking
to a customer. I closed the deal. Then they said, hey,
anytime you're available, we could use a little help. You
got to know the job. Not only did I know
the job, I outsold everybody there because I paid attention
for a year. You know what that did? They made
(09:13):
me a full time person, and I outperformed the team
that was there. Three years later, I became the sales manager.
Over 29 people doing that job because I watched the
best of the best. And then I asked the question,
how do I be better than them? Step number four.
The biggest mistake I've seen thousands of people do in
my career quitting the job too soon. I worked the
(09:35):
same job for four years. Why? Because I wanted to
master the job I was doing. But while I was
working my job, I was studying everybody else's job. I
spent a lot of time trying to understand why my
boss did what he did, how my boss did, what
he did, what I thought he did well, what I
thought he didn't do well. And what I noticed is
the things he didn't do well. I found somebody else
(09:57):
in the company that was an equivalent position to this
guy who was unbelievable. And you know what I did?
I studied what he did. Well, I learned what he
did well and what somebody else did well. And I
put it together. And at 24, I got noticed when
they gave me a 29 person sales team, I immediately
Eliminated ten people that were not doing anything. Well, that
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definitely got everybody's attention because we increased performance in that
group 5 to 1. So at 25 years old, they
made me the director of US sales, overseeing all inside
sales around the country. This is how I went from
my income of $25,000 a year to over 200 a
year before I left that job, to go get my
(10:43):
first million a year. Creating value takes time. The number
one asset that you should understand you need when you
want to become remarkable is patience. The longer you can
put into from where you're at to where you want
to be, by studying the absolute best, doing it, and
then doing it, the faster you'll become successful. Most young
(11:06):
people are not patient enough to be recognized for their success.
They literally come into the position wanting the best title,
wanting the best money, wanting to be recognized. But the
truth is, the longer you can go. Not asking for
any of that, but outperforming the people around you. It's
like reverse psychology. It's another hack when your bosses recognize
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that you're always over performing and you're asking for nothing,
and then they see you willing to train others to
do what you do to get the results you get.
Your bosses sit back and think to themselves, you know what?
That's a high quality for a leader willing to never
ask for anything, always over perform and share with others.
If you just get this hack down one day, you're
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going to have the greatest position in a business that
you're going to make so much money because you'll understand
what success, what results, and what leadership looks like. And
once somebody sees, you know that they're going to want
you to be that. That brings us to the last step.
Number five, you have to challenge yourself. I learned something
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in Atlanta, and then I reinforced it in Minnesota. Success
over a long period of time builds confidence. Builds confidence
in yourself, builds confidence in the people that are being
trained by you, builds confidence in the people that you're
accountable to, business owners or bosses. And the more confidence
you have, the more opportunities you create for you. For me,
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this allowed me to quit my job at 26 years
old and make the move into becoming an entrepreneur. If
I hadn't had that confidence of success, I would have
never done it. I was making too much money, but
I was willing to trade the money because of my
high level of confidence to go out and do the
thing I always dreamed of doing. By starting that company
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at 27 years old. That allowed me by the age
of 30 to become a multi-millionaire, and that company was
worth $75 million. Here's the fact you have to build
the skills first before going out on your own. Because
if you don't have the confidence and the people around
you don't have the confidence, you can't present that confidence.
So why would anybody trust or lean in or invest
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in you if you don't believe in you and you
don't have a consistent track record. Nobody else is going
to believe in you either. Once you have the confidence
and you develop the skills and you become a high
income earner and you learn to transfer that skillset to
other people, you can now take the leap for yourself.
This is how you multiply your skill set through others.
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This is ultimately the hack. You have to learn to
do it. You have to learn to develop others to
do it. You have to build confidence for yourself, those
around you, and those that might invest in you over
a long period of time with a great track record.
And then guess what you can do? You can take
the leap from you to others. Multiplying your success through
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others by leading and teaching them is how you go
on to make millions, not just for you, for the
people who do what you taught them to do, which
is what you did. So how did I do it?
How did I go from being a kid from Corvallis, Oregon,
barely getting out of high school to being an individual
that's worth hundreds of millions of dollars over 35 years?
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I did it by focusing on executing better than other people,
developing my skills and communication, putting myself in uncomfortable situations,
being patient over a long period of time to become
number one, and then realizing if I taught others to
do it, not that they would listen, but if I
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was willing to teach others to do it, I would
get recognized. Once I got recognized, I ended up getting promoted.
When I got promoted, I started making a lot more money.
The ability to have the confidence to see something, take action,
get results, make money doing it, teach others to do it.
Position me to build a multi hundred million dollar net
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worth and if I can do it, I know you
could do it. All you need to do is subscribe
to my channel and I'll teach you through videos like
this how to do exactly what I did to get
to where I'm at. I'm doing this for you because
this is what other people did for me. This is
my opportunity to give to you. It's going to be
your choice, though, if you want to watch it.