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#236 - How I Made My first Million (And How You Can Too) · Money Grows on Trees

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  No one gives a shit about your seven-figure revenue. It's all
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  about profit margin and net worth. 13% of
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  the Australian population are considered millionaires, meaning they've got a
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  net worth over a million dollars. But I would say almost all of
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  them did it through property. And how they did it was they, I could have bought
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  real estate, but I didn't know where I was going to live. I didn't want a mortgage to
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  be anchored to. I felt like it was going to corner me and
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  hold me down. One day, I sat down and thought, I want to
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  become a millionaire. What do I have to do? How long is it going to take me? I'm
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  Lloyd James Ross, seven-figure investor and entrepreneur, and I've helped thousands
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  of business owners and professionals turn financial stress into
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  success. If you're stuck in old money habits, overwhelmed by investing,
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  or unsure where to start, this is for you. I'll give you the mindset
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  and strategies to take control, grow your wealth, and achieve
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  financial freedom. It's time to make your money work for you.
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  How I made my first million. That's the episode.
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  It's going to be fun to tell a little bit of this story. And throughout the story, I'm going to
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  impart pieces of lessons for you so you can also make your first
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  million. Now, when I talk about making my first million, I don't mean my first million
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  dollars of revenue coming in from my job or my business. I mean my
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  first million dollar net worth where my assets minus my liabilities equal
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  to a million dollars. And I didn't do it alone. Success as a team sport. So
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  I don't like those terms like self-made millionaire. If you're using your
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  phone, Steve Jobs invented that, Steve Jobs helped you. So I
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  did this with my wife, Alicia, who was on one of our episodes recently you saw, and
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  this is how I did it. In fact, I wrote this book, this one
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  you see here. showing the exact process by which
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  I did make that first million. So people often say when they see a
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  book that gets promoted and people buy, they
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  think that their money making is from the book about how
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  to make the money and it's not. I actually wrote that book after we became millionaires.
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  And so this is where it started. I was in a job. I was in Abu Dhabi working
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  there. I was 22, 23. It was August
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  2008 when I took that job. I didn't have much to my name, maybe 10 grand,
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  I think I had at that point. And this story is to how I started
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  there and became a millionaire by the age of 36. So
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  I guess it was about 7, 6, 13 years it took me
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  to go from $10,000 net worth to a million dollar net worth.
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  And I didn't know how I was going to do it. I just knew that I wanted to do it. It was
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  a fun goal. And back then, before inflation, that was quite
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  a bit of money. But now it's not. What's
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  interesting about my story that's different to others to give you a bit of a unique look
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  at it is that I did it without property and I think in Australia that
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  is a very unusual thing because most people are millionaires in
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  fact I think the stats are about 13% of the Australian population
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  are considered millionaires meaning they've got a net worth over a million dollars but
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  I would say almost all of them did it through property. And how
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  they did it was they bought a property many years ago and did nothing. And
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  that's how the property grew up as well. They didn't do nothing. They didn't sell it,
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  which is good. But the growth in the property from the immigration and
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  the lack of land supply created that million dollar net worth, right? So
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  I did it differently. I didn't do it with property. Back when I started, firstly,
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  I knew that I had to underspend my income. Without a doubt, that's the only
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  way you can build wealth. I don't know anyone that spent more
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  than their income end built wealth. This is
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  not possible because there's a delta. There has to be some
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  money left over for you to then buy assets or
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  invest in a business or whatever it might be. So that's what I started to
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  do first. Rented a cheap car. rented out my rooms,
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  room shared, didn't go on lavish holidays, didn't buy lavish
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  clothes, and I just underspent my income to save money. I saved
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  about $40,000 to $50,000. I repatriated back to Australia,
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  got into business with my dad in property. I was selling houses, so
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  I was making more money. But it was
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  still a job for me. It was six days a week. And of course, I continued to underspend
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  my income. And what I decided to do was that extra bit of money I
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  was saving, it allowed me to go into that new career without borrowing
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  any money. It allowed me to buy happiness,
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  so to speak. I talk about it in that book, Money Buys Happiness. And I decided
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  I need to put the money away. So I could have bought real estate. But
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  I didn't know where I was going to live. I didn't want a mortgage to
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  be anchored to. I felt like it was going to corner me
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  and hold me down, having all that debt. And I don't like stress
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  in my life. I don't like worry. So I'm like, well, that's just going to create more
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  of that. So I'm going to avoid that. What should I do? And I picked up this book by Warren
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  Buffett. Well, it's actually by Alice Schroeder called The Snowball. And
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  it's about Warren Buffett's life. Fun fact, I'm going to see Warren
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  Buffett this week. I'm flying out Thursday to go and see Warren Buffett.
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  So that's cool. For the first time in Omaha. Anyway, I read this book and he was investing
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  in shares. And it really gave me this, like the penny
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  dropped for me that I understood that straight away. I was like, I get this concept. This makes
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  sense for me. Buying pieces of undervalued businesses. Ha ha. This
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  is better than buying a house. So I took some of that extra cash I
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  was saving from my job initially and then into the property game where
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  I was marketing and selling property, running a small business with my dad. And I would always,
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  if I did a settlement or did a deal and got paid, I would get
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  paid about $10,000 or $12,000 back then each time I did a real
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  estate settlement. And I'd take half of it and pay myself and
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  I'd take half and buy shares. And I did that. Deal
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  in, deal out, deal in, deal out, deal in, deal out,
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  deal in, deal out. Every time I got paid, pay myself some, bought
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  shares, pay myself some, bought shares, pay myself some, bought shares. And
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  like I just played that game for quite a while, I still underspent
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  my income. So whilst my wife Alicia and I could go on holidays, she was
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  working full-time as a paralegal, I was working six days a week, we
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  didn't go and buy Range Rovers, we didn't, we still live
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  in the same apartment. that we did 12 years ago.
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  We still haven't left it. And there's a real secret there with wealth creation, which
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  is pretty much the sameness of sameness of same. So the
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  way that I invest my money now is the same as what I did 15 years ago.
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  The same place we live in is the same we did 12 years ago. The same,
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  the same. You would see me in these episodes, I'm wearing the same t-shirts. The
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  same cut, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same, the same.
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  There's a lot of magic with wealth
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  building, which is the same. Once you figure out what works, why
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  change it? And that's what happens to people a lot. They'll
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  change direction so much, they just don't get any traction. And
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  you see this in how many times they shift where they live, what car
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  they drive, what clothes they're buying, what type of
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  investments they're buying. They do it over multiple businesses. Oh, there's another
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  shiny business, I'll go there. And they get no traction. So what happened
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  to me when I was in the property industry and buying these shares, I started
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  to see my portfolio grow. And my portfolio was
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  probably at about $300,000 by then in 2014, maybe
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  $250,000. It wasn't massive because remember, I didn't buy a house. So I had the equity
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  that would have gone into a house and I was paying about $550 a
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  week rent. But I was also splitting it between my wife and her sister who was living with
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  us at the time. So my rent was like $200 a week. When you think about it,
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  that's crazy low, right? So I've always tried to keep my costs
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  low It's just the most effective way to almost guarantee
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  you're gonna get ahead It's easier to manage the cost than it is
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  to increase your income in my opinion You have more control over that and
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  so 250,000 roughly in the portfolio working
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  six days a week in property and I remember one day I
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  sat down and thought Just quickly, if you're ready to take control of your finances but
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  feel stuck on where to start, I have a solution. My
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  book, Money Buys Happiness, simplifies investing and
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  wealth building with practical steps to help you achieve financial peace.
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  Get your copy via the link in the show notes and let's get your money working for
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  you. Now back to the episode. I want to become a millionaire. Now
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  I want to do it. What do I have to do? How long is it going to
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  take me? And I remember sitting in the office at 7 o'clock at night. I pulled up an Excel spreadsheet,
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  and I put in $250,000, whatever the portfolio was.
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  I'm saving $25,000 a year, buying stocks. I have no debt. This
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  is my income. I think it's probably going to stay very similar. Hopefully, it goes up
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  if I can do more deals. And I realized it was going to take me
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  15 years to become a millionaire. And at the time, I was probably about 30, 31. I was like,
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  oh. Oh my God, I want to be a millionaire at 45, 46. Like
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  what am I going to do? And I realized I can't cut them anymore. Like
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  I still want to have a reasonable life, but I was like,
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  well, I need to increase my income. So how was I going to do that? And
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  then my sister introduced me to a business model called network marketing,
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  accidentally fell into it. And I tried the products, got in shape, actually went on
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  to win a bodybuilding competition using the products, which is really life-changing for me.
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  And then I helped other people get the products and use them. And
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  so my wife and I with my sister built this network marketing business on the side
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  with the objective to increase my income by $25,000 a
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  year, which is, by the way, only 500 bucks a week. It's
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  not like heaps. So what if we could keep doing my
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  real estate deals six days a week, and then make
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  an extra $500 a week network marketing, and take the extra money and invest it into shares.
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  And by doing that, I was doubling my saving rate and doubling my investing rate,
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  which means I was going to cut the
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  time in half. So I was going to be a millionaire in seven and
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  a half years instead of 15 years. It was simple math.
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  So I was like, this is going to be the strategy. This is my strategy. This is
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  it. So we got after it. I stayed working. I
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  didn't jump out of my job. I would do appointments in
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  the office and go downstairs and get on the phone and do network marketing. Go back upstairs, do an
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  appointment, do marketing. It's just boom, boom, boom. On weekends, we'd
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  drive and fly to Sydney to learn more about network marketing. We would do things on
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  the weekend. In the evenings, I'd pick Alicia up from work, go home, sit in the car, do
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  the work, do the work, do the work. And we did that for four
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  years from when we started in 2014, 2018. And in that
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  time frame, we reinvested a lot back into building that business. But
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  what we developed is about $180,000 a year of extra money
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  on the side while we're in our jobs. And I realized at that
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  point, we were able to add about another half a million dollars to the
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  portfolio, maybe $400,000. And by the time I
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  left my job in the property business in 2018, the
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  portfolio was at about $650,000. And as I left that in 2018, by the
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  time 2020 rolled around, the portfolio had lifted from $650,000 to $700,000 up
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  to a million dollars. So I'd left my job We
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  went full-time in our network marketing business in 2018. The portfolio
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  was at about $650,000, was paying us passive income from dividends, which
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  is what allowed us to get out of our jobs as well. It wasn't just the side hustle, it was a
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  combination of that for me to pay my rent and everything, and then also the
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  side hustle of $180,000 a year. Alicia left her job, so
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  we're basically financially independent. And the portfolio then
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  grew as COVID hit. And I remember picking up my phone one day
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  before I wrote this book. I was like, I really want to write a
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  book about how we did this. Because if you think about it, we became financially
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  free out of the rat race in our 30s. Completely
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  free, which is unbelievable, really, when you think about it. And
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  back then, especially. And I had a million dollar portfolio. I was like, well,
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  this is interesting. Didn't own any property. I'd like to be able to get it
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  to a million bucks before I write this book. And I remember before we launched this
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  book down in Corumban, I looked at my phone, pulled up my portfolio, and
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  it was like $998,000. It was just sitting
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  there. I was watching it, I was watching it, and watching it. I was like,
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  oh my God, I want it to be a million bucks, I want it to be a million bucks. And I scrolled
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  the phone down, hit the record button, And I recorded, and
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  I'm sure if I pull up the recording now on my phone and go back far enough, I could find
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  it. And I recorded it as it clicked over to a million bucks. And
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  I remember sending the video to my little sister and saying, look at this, it's a million dollars. And
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  at that time, it's like, you kind of, you have this fantasy of
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  what happens when you become a millionaire. You're like, oh, my life's gonna change and it's
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  gonna be amazing. And then the marching band never came in.
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  And I was like, oh, we're
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  millionaires, that's it. No debt, million
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  dollar net worth, free. And then
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  I wrote that book about it, about how other people could do the same thing. And I've been
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  helping people ever since to do the same thing, following the same system, the same strategy
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  as what we've done. And it's in that book. And
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  then beyond that, we do other things. now multi-millionaires. But
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  what's interesting is the strategy really changes. Underspend your income, find
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  ways to add extra money with a side hustle or business, invest
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  the proceeds consistently into the same sort of asset class that you understand
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  and be patient and it will grow over time. Those
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  three steps of underspend your income, find ways to make extra money
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  and invest in assets that you understand are the three components and
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  steps that I talk about in this book, and they're repeated in this book. There's
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  two extra steps in here for mindset and mentorship, which speeds things
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  up. But the concepts remain
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  the same. And that's where this sameness comes into
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  wealth building that people really underestimate, that gets them in a lot of trouble because
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  they get bored. And one of the things you got to do when you're trying
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  to build wealth is keep the mundane exciting. And so what's great
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  about this is that little network marketing business we built and started in
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  2014 is now still in great condition and growth and it
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  pulls in so much money still every week for us. And we're still
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  the number one leaders in action for the company in the country. People don't really realize that
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  either. Last month, number one in the country. And this is a side
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  hustle for us. And we've been able to take that extra cash, put it
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  in shares, of course, but we've got to be on other businesses. We've built a financial education business.
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  We've authored three books. We've got this podcast. We
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  just bought a laundromat business, which produces passive income for us.
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  We just started a little partnership events business. Now we have four
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  businesses. Books, podcast, education and
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  investments. And so all that stuff kind of compounds over
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  time, but it started with that decision to make the
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  first million. But you see when I did it, there was an actual measurable
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  like, shit, I need to increase my income here. Okay, now we need to invest it.
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  Now we need to not do anything else. And I think it's in the not doing anything else
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  and sticking to your knitting and focused on what's working and
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  repeating it. That's where the magic lies. That's the story of how we
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  became millionaires initially. It's a real life story. It's in our
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  books. And if you haven't heard it, I'm sure if you go back on
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  the podcast at the very first episode I did, I perhaps speak about
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  these three stages and money grows on trees, which is where
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  I got the name of the podcast show from. Because what I discovered was
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  if you know how to invest money, it produces dividends, which
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  is like pulling the prevailing $100 off the money tree you
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  plant in the backyard. I'm so excited to share this with you because this
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  is a real measurable path to wealth that doesn't require
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  you to buy property. And it's doable because I've done it. And
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  that's why you can see a lot of my ads and so forth on Instagram. They
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  talk about anti-property. Not that I don't believe in it, it's just... I
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  wanted to do a different way, and you're welcome to as well. So I hope you've enjoyed the episode and
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  you've taken some lessons from that story. It's a real story. There's ups
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  and downs. It's not smooth. But if you really wanted to go out and become a millionaire,
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  the first step you've got to do is decide. And that will make all the difference.
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  Once you decide, if your why is strong enough, the how will look after itself. So
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  if you've enjoyed this, share the episode. Hit the Subscribe button. Leave me a question or
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  a comment below if you're watching on YouTube. And I'll talk to you in the next episode
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  of the Money Grows on Trees podcast. Thanks for listening to Money Grows
• 14:58
  on Trees. If you enjoyed the episode, leave a five-star review on Apple
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  YouTube so you never miss an episode. And if you're serious about building wealth,
• 15:09
  make sure to check out the links in the show notes and follow me on all
• 15:12
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