How to Become a Money Magnet (TFM 2)

the first and most important thing when it comes to becoming a money magnet and being able to raise capital, what it is it's mindset. And I don't want to start off this call by you thinking it's just a bunch of fluff. Don't worry. We're going to get into some specific details. But I want you to understand that mindset is at the core of everything we're going to teach.

If you don't have the right mindset going into some of these attitudes, I'm telling you, you will not raise the money. And then you will come back to us and say, oh, you know, these methods didn't work. Okay, I can pretty much always track it back to the mindset. I'll literally watch two people do the exact same resource, and one will get money and one won't. And almost always, you know, every single situation, the one that got the money was the one that had the right mindset.

They knew they were going to get the money. They were prepared to get the money. They absolutely knew that they could pull it off. The other one came from a place of scarcity, came from a place of doubt, came from a place of a lack of belief and whatnot. So let's just briefly, I'm not going to waste the whole call, let's just briefly talk about mindset.

And I want to talk to you about mindset with a true story. This is my own personal story, okay? Back when I was, gosh, I'm not going to get this age right. I think I might have been around 20. Okay, back when I was around 20, I was living in Santa Cruz, California, a little beach town, and it was the dot-com boom.

Okay? I was born in 78, so 20 would make it right around 98 or so. So if you remember, the dot-com boom was just starting to hit in the Silicon Valley, and there was companies left and right that were looking to raise capital. Well, I had a company, a friend of mine had started up a company, and he was looking to raise up to $3 million for that company. And he came to me and he said, Chris, you know, how it works is if you raise capital for the company, it's a finder's fee, and it's legal, and it comes, the investor pays it.

And so if you help raise capital, there was, at the time, there was a 5% finder's fee, which meant that if I could raise $1 million, that I'd be able to get $50,000. Now, for me, I was this broke 20-year-old. At the time, I was living in a 250-square-foot studio with roommates, which makes it even funnier. But I had never raised money before. I had never done anything like that before.

But the opportunity presented itself, and I said, what the heck? What do I have to lose? Worst case, someone doesn't. Give the company $1 million, and I don't get anything. I'm really no worse off.

So what do I have to lose? So get this. Right off the bat, I had a very naive belief. I was totally naive. I didn't know that it was difficult to raise $1 million.

Nobody told me that it was difficult. Nobody told me that I didn't have the right experience. Nobody told me that, you know, because I didn't go to college, I wouldn't be able to do it or whatnot. I just thought, hey, you know, there's an Internet boom. Who wouldn't want to get involved?

And I don't really know any millionaires, but I'm sure if I got the buzz out there that eventually I'd be able to find one. So what happened was I went out there and started talking to as many people as possible. I mean, every day, 20 or 30 people, and I was working connections. You know, and I was saying things like, hey, who do you know that might be interested in investing in a hot dot-com startup? You know, hey, who do you know that might want to get in on the ground floor of a local dot-com company that could be positioned big?

Right? Right. At the time, I didn't even know what I was doing, okay? But I just, all I was doing was putting out feelers. I wasn't making any promises or guarantees.

I wasn't talking returns. I wasn't, I didn't want to be doing anything that might be illegal, and I didn't know enough about raising capital. So I was just very ambiguous and very generic. Just like, hey, who do you know that invests? Do you have any friends that are accredited investors?

I'd love to hook them up with somebody that can explain this opportunity. So it was like 20 to 30 people. Now, after about two weeks, I hadn't had any investors yet. I had maybe a couple kind of lukewarm leads, but really no investors. And part of that was, you know, I was just like a kind of a broke kid.

You know, all I really knew was a bunch of other broke kids. I didn't really have the connections yet. But what I did was I didn't give up. I had the right mindset. And after a couple of weeks and a bunch of rejection, I don't know, maybe over 100 people rejected me at least, I had a friend who said that his dad, his dad had worked for a company in the Silicon Valley.

I think the company might have been Cisco. I can't remember offhand, but I'm pretty sure it was Cisco system and had cashed out and, you know, cashed out of the stock and had some money in that. He didn't know if he'd be interested, but he might be interested. So I got the phone number and get this. It's just such a true story.

It's almost amazing when I think back to try to tell it here that this is back. I didn't have a pay phone. I didn't have a cell phone. All they had was pay phones. I went to the library.

Literally the local library. And I remember being right there outside of the library. There's a bunch of homeless people around and everything just because of the city I was in. And here I am on the pay phone calling up this complete stranger to pitch them on a million-dollar investment. And I didn't really know what I was doing.

But I was naive. I believed in myself. I had the mindset. And now let me pause right there. So picture this scene.

You've got a young 20-year-old kid in some kind of skateboarder gear at the local library where basically the lines to use the Internet were about 10 people long filled with homeless people because it was just, you know, it was the only place you could even get online. And everybody was broke and struggling. And here I am cold calling, you know, some sort of referral for some stranger to invest a million dollars into a company. And the most I had ever made in a month was like a couple thousand dollars paycheck. So at the time, I'm just a young broke kid.

Now, pause. Now, what I want to do is. I'm going to take you back just a few steps. And I want to tell you my motivation. That $50,000 referral fee, I already knew exactly where I was going to spend it.

I had spent the last two weeks and those nights literally dreaming of what I would do with that money. And after thinking of all the different things, because to me at the time, $50,000 was hitting it rich. That was like winning the lottery. I mean, I was, you know, on a day-to-day basis, I was, you know, looking around my house for spare change to try to get enough money. To be able to go down to the coffee shop to buy a cup of coffee so that it would curb my appetite for the entire day because I didn't have any money to spend.

And then I would come home at the end of the night and I would eat two or three packages of Top Ramen until I was bloated and stuffed. And that's how I would sort of live my days back then. It was just grinding, you know. A lot of times I didn't even have money to ride the bus, so I would end up walking. So it's just where I was in a mindset.

A million dollars was so far away from where I was, but the motivation was that $50,000. And specifically. I knew that with $50,000 that I could buy my mom a mobile home. Some sort of a mobile home or a motorhome or RV or something. I could buy her own house because she was struggling to pay bills.

It was really tough. And at that time, that was my motivation. I thought, man, our life would change completely. It would just change completely if I could get $50,000. So let's go back to that scene at that pay phone.

That motivation was inside of me. I wanted it so bad. Right? But I didn't want to act needy, and I didn't know a lot about it. So I called this guy up.

And I introduced myself, and I said I was referred to him through, I think it was his nephew or cousin. I can't remember the exact referral. But I said, do you have five minutes to talk real quick? He said, sure. I said, well, look.

I was told that you made some money in Silicon Valley and that you might be interested in looking at investing in a new dot-com startup. I said, I don't want to waste your time. But here's what I'd be willing to do. I'm part of the company. I would be willing to set up a one-on-one meeting in Santa Cruz for you to meet the founder of the company.

We'd love to simply just show you the business plan and see if it's a good fit. And if it's a good fit, then great. Let's take the next step. And, you know, look, if not, no sweat. You know, we'll buy you a cup of coffee or whatever, some lunch.

Just no sweat. Flush it down the toilet, and we'll each go our own way. Does that sound fair? Does that sound reasonable? Are you willing to come take a look at this?

And the guy was just really cool. He said, yeah. Absolutely. I'd love to come take a look. So a few days later, we're meeting up in this apartment of the owner of the guy who's trying to start this company.

And he's presenting the business plan. And this guy just, this investor just goes, hey, this looks awesome. I'd love to invest. And he goes, how much are you looking for? And the guy, the owner says, we're looking for $3 million.

The investor says, you know, I don't know if I could do $3 million. But I might be more in the million-dollar range if that would work with you. So anyways, one thing led to another. And this guy ended up thinking a deal and investing in that company. This is when I was about 20 years old.

Okay? So real quick, because I don't want to take the whole phone call telling this story. What I want to do is I want to highlight something here, which was for the first time in my life, I had experience doing business on a high level that was so far out of my normal realm of what I do on a day-to-day basis. And it really wasn't that hard. In fact, you know, fast forward a few months, I was in a, I joined a network marketing company.

And it was about a $200 buy-in for people to join that company. And it sort of hit me. It sort of hit me that it's not the amount of money that is more difficult. Okay? This is what most people think.

Most people's mindset is that bigger price things seem unattainable. They seem far out. They seem like it's difficult to get. But really, it's not. It's not any more difficult.

At the time, I read a book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and another book called The Cash Flow Quadrant. And in that book, Robert Kiyosaki made the argument that it was easier to be able to buy a big apartment complex than it was to buy a single family home. So it was easier for him to go buy an apartment complex than it was for your average, you know, John and Jane Doe to go buy basically a three-bedroom, two-bathroom house. And here was his logic, was that for John and Jane Doe to go buy a two-bedroom, three-bedroom, two-bathroom house, they have to use their own credit. Okay?

They have to put down, you know, 20% or whatever. They have to be able to qualify for lending. And they have to go through this big, huge, dramatic purchase. But it's all based on them. The bank is going to look at John and Jane Doe and they're going to say, we're going to base this on you.

And then Robert Kiyosaki said, but when I go to buy an apartment complex... The bank doesn't really care much about me. They're looking at something called the cap rate. They're looking at the actual apartment complex and they're saying, how well does that investment perform? What is the cash flow?

What are the rents? What is the property value? What is the potential appreciation? They're looking at that as an investment. And they're looking at Robert Kiyosaki as more of the guy who's simply going to get in and manage that investment.

So as long as the bank believes that Robert Kiyosaki is a good guy to do that, they're not so much concerned with what... Okay. You see, his credit score could never qualify, really, to purchase that apartment complex. It's not high enough. And his cash down, it takes way too much cash down than it would take the average person to be able to come up with.

So they're more focused on the deal. And so he said, one day he had a breakthrough that living on the fast track and doing big deals is actually a lot easier than living on the inside track and doing small deals. But he had to have a breakthrough. He had to have a shift in mindset. He had to have a shift in mindset early on in my career where I was able to find an investor to be able to put money into a deal.

That was so far out of my realm for me to have a breakthrough. Now, later on in life, I needed to raise money for several things. I came across a top-tier direct sales opportunity that had a $20,000 buy-in. And at the time, I was broke. I didn't have the $20,000.

I was actually in a tough financial situation. But because I had the right mindset, I was able to go out and raise $20,000 inside of two weeks. And I was able to help one of my best friends, George Bailey, also be able to come up with $20,000 in two weeks. And both of us started a company together, $20,000 each. We started selling for that company.

Well, guess what? In the first 12 months selling for that company, I made nearly half a million dollars in commission in my first 12 months. So I went from broke to half a million dollars in commissions. But it never would have happened had I not raised the $20,000 to really get started in that opportunity. And raising the $20,000 never would happen if I didn't have the belief and mindset that I can do it.

So you see, belief and mindset is the foundation of everything when it comes to raising capital. And it's so important. Without it, everything that we try to teach you or try to share with you, it's all just a waste. It's all a complete waste. But if you have the right belief, the right motivation, the right mindset, these ideas, and you can even come up with ideas on your own.

You can have anything you want in life if you truly believe in yourself and you're confident that you can go do it. Okay, so belief and confidence is the key. And I want you to take a moment and just let that sink in. I want you to take a moment and believe in yourself enough to say, you know what, I've done some pretty hard things in my life, but I came through. I found myself in situations where the car broke down out of nowhere and I didn't have the money.

But you know what? I made it happen because I needed to fix my car to get to the job, to get a paycheck, to support my family. So I made it happen. Now, what if you could take that same motivation and that same mindset, but instead of using it to fix your car, you could use it to raise $500 or $5,000 or $50,000 or $500,000 or $5 million? It's not the amount of money.

It's the mindset. And for most of you, it's a limiting belief. You just simply don't believe. You don't believe it because you haven't experienced it. But what if you could just have my experience for a minute and say, look, if this punk 20-year-old kid who's scrounging around in his couch cushions looking for enough money for a coffee, living in a 250-square-foot studio, if this guy can go out there and raise capital before he becomes a success or anything, then you know what?

It's totally possible for me, too. It's totally possible. So just ride on that credibility for a minute. Just ride on that leverage. Okay?

Okay. Mindset is everything.