Money is a game. It's not the end game. It's just a fun game. You're
being lied to. Time is not money. Money
is just a scorecard. It's a scorecard to keep score
of how you're living your life. Buy assets. You must
buy assets. Buy assets. Secret number seven
that millionaires don't tell you. They're optimistic about the future but
pessimistic not to lose. Here's the truth, diversification is
great at keeping wealth, but not building wealth. The
secrets that millionaires hold back from you is this. I'm
Lloyd James Ross, seven-figure investor and entrepreneur, and I've helped thousands
of business owners and professionals turn financial stress into
success. If you're stuck in old money habits, overwhelmed by investing,
or unsure where to start, this is for you. I'll give you the mindset
and strategies to take control, grow your wealth, and achieve
financial freedom. It's time to make your money work for you. Have
you ever seen people seemingly make money with ease,
hand over fist, or someone become a millionaire and
you thought, how did they do that? And you've wondered whether you can do
it too. And you start to wonder whether there's something you
don't know, some sort of secret, something that they know that you
don't. Well, I'm here to tell you that that is actually very true. There
are things that millionaires and billionaires know that
you don't. And in this episode, I want to share with you
what those secrets are so that you can start deploying those secrets too.
Because when you know these secrets, you will start to make money as well.
Not just make your money, but grow your money and keep your millionairehood for
the rest of your life. So, buckle up as I share the secrets that
millionaires know that you don't. Secret number one,
money's a game. It's not the end game. It's just a fun game.
And life is a game too. And they play life and
money like it's a game. They don't take it so seriously. And
when I play the money game, I'm exactly the same. Once upon a time, my
dad said to me, son, you don't be too stiff. It's all
just a game. And so since that lesson, I've always
just had fun playing the game of money. So you'll play a
game better when you have fun. And just like what your parents
taught you when you played board games, it's not whether you win or lose, but
whether you have fun. And at the end of the day, we all lose because the
king and the pawn on the chessboard go
back into the same wooden box at the end of the game. and there's no difference
when it comes to your money because we all end up six feet under, dead
and buried. So, if it's just a game and you can't take it with you,
don't be so stiff about it. Start playing the money game like you would a
board game. Have some fun. Secret number two, there are
rules to the game. And there are rules to win the game. So when
you can have fun playing a game and there are also rules to win it, you've just
got to know what the rules are. And guess what? The rules aren't new. They've been
around for thousands and thousands of years. There are specific rules
to the money game, such as underspend what you earn, invest
the proceeds, be patient, give, give, give. It's
not what you know. It's who you know. There are some specific rules to this game. So
part of the process is to educate yourself Get around millionaires
and learn the rules of the game. The beauty of the rules are they're not
that difficult. They're simple, but they must
be followed because if you don't follow the rules, you'll not get the same outcomes as
millionaires. Secret number three, money is just a scorecard. It's
a scorecard to keep score of how you're living your life. So
if you live your life with abundance and reciprocity and
you give and you're kind and you work
hard and you show up and all these annoying traits, that
you think don't matter, if you play life like that, then you'll
see your money grow because money's a scorecard of how much
value you give to the world. In which case, if you don't
feel like you're a person of value, the first steps are to start filling your cup with
valuable things. acquire knowledge, acquire skills,
do things for others, become a person of influence, become a person of
value by giving, giving, giving, giving. So many people don't give anything.
When was the last time you actually said happy birthday to someone? When was the last time
you wrote a letter to someone? When was the last time you gave without expecting
anything in return? And so if you play life like that, I
promise you the score will show that you are great with money because money
will flow to you. Because money is simply a value exchange. The
more value you give to the world, the more money will come to you, okay? It's
a scorecard. Keep score and have fun. Secret number four
is, and it's an old money myth, and I'm sure you've heard this before, time
is money. But what if I told you that the
secrets that millionaires hold back from you is this, time is
not money. What do I mean by that? Time
is not money. What the heck is Lloyd talking about? Here's the
thing. Time is more valuable than money. You
see, most people spend time to save money. Whereas
millionaires spend money to save time. So
if you want to become a millionaire, start putting your time above your money. Start
delegating things below your hourly rate. Start to look at time as
the currency and not money as the currency. Because at the end of the
day, wealth is a matter of how you spend your time, who you spend it
with, and what you spend it doing. After all, what's the point in having a
Rolex if all it tells you is what time to be back from your lunch break? Secret
number five that millionaires don't tell you. They don't diversify. You've
probably heard this before. Diversify your investments. Diversify your
assets. Buy multiple assets. And if you go to
some sort of academic course or you do some sort of program
when it comes to wealth, you will hear this a lot. And I heard it too when I went through university
learning finance. I learned it through the CFA charter program. It
is taught in a lot of schools. And it is taught that Diversification
is important to building wealth, but here's the truth. Diversification is
great at keeping wealth, but it's not so great at building wealth.
What do I mean by that? Let me give you an example. There's a saying that says, don't
put all your eggs in one basket. And you may have grown up with your parents telling you
that. Of course, if you have them all in one basket, you drop the basket, all the eggs
break, okay? But Andrew Carnegie, who in
the early 1900s was the richest man in the world, he
actually owned US steel, made the most steel in
the world. He was from the Gilded Age, a
titan of industry. And once upon a time, he
and J.P. Morgan sat down and J.P. Morgan was one
of the world's greatest bankers. And they were doing a deal and
Andrew Carnegie sold US Steel to JP Morgan for
$400 million. And at that point in time, Andrew Carnegie became
the wealthiest man in the world. And one of the lessons he
taught and shared was that he said, put
all your eggs in one basket, but watch that basket. because
that's how he became the wealthiest man in the world. He had one
business, US Steel. He did one thing. He made steel. He
didn't diversify. He focused his investments. And if you look at
the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, of Jeff Bezos, of
all these titans of industry in today's world, every single one
of them had one thing. They put all their eggs into one
business basket, and they scouted the basket, and they watched the basket. They
still watched the basket. So the trick to this wealth game is, Don't
diversify too early. Put all your eggs in one basket,
but make sure you understand the basket, you understand the eggs, and you watch it
very closely. Just quickly, if you're ready to take control of your finances but
feel stuck on where to start, I have a solution. My
book, Money Bias Happiness, simplifies investing and
wealth building with practical steps to help you achieve financial peace.
Get your copy via the link in the show notes and let's get your money working for
you. Now back to the episode. Secret number six that millionaires don't
share with you is this. They have high
standards in all areas of their life. Meaning this, how
you do one thing is how you do everything. So
for example, if you're drastically overweight, it tells me
that you don't have a great deal of discipline. Unless of course you're suffering from some medical
condition, but it tells me you don't have a great deal of self-discipline. So
when I wanna do business with someone, I probably won't do
business with someone who has no self-discipline, not to eat too much food. As an
example, put all the hate in the comments. But it's a fact, right?
And this is why when I want to do business with someone, I go and play golf with
them. A buddy of mine said to me once, he's now a business partner incidentally, he's one of our partners, one
of our businesses. And I've known him for about 15 years. And
why I got into business with him is because I've played golf with him. In fact, he taught me
to play golf, which is cool. And I said to him, hey, why would I want to play golf?
And he said to me, well, tell me if you could play golf for four hours
with a CEO and you have four hours of uninterrupted time with them, would
that be valuable for you? And it was like this penny drop moment. I'm
like, oh my God, I need to start playing golf. So
he started teaching me how to play golf. And we're on the golf course one day and he said to me, you know why it's
great to play golf with people? And I said, because you can spend four hours with them uninterrupted. He
said, besides that Lloyd, what else? I said, I don't know. He said, because you
can see how they play the game. Because how you do one thing is
how you do everything. So if you play golf with them and
they cheat, they lose their temper, they kick their ball
to the hole instead of playing the hole, they aren't fair to others,
they treat the groundskeepers with contempt and they're rude, all
of these traits will come out on the golf course at some point because how
you do one thing is how you do everything So if you want to get into business with someone, go
and play golf with them Secret number seven that millionaires don't
tell you. They're optimistic about the future, but pessimistic not
to lose. So you have to have a level of optimism and everything
will be great. And also, oh my God, everything can also be
not great. And it's this weird pull you have in both directions. So
you can't just be a pessimist and a bear, but you gotta be a bull. You gotta be excited
about the future. and you have to know that it's all going to
work out, which is quite challenging sometimes. But someone once said
to me, as a millionaire, if you want to be a millionaire, never bet on the end
of the world, because even if you're right, you'll never make any
money. So be an eternal optimist. Just understand
the world's gonna get better and be better. And just understand too that we're living in
the best time ever. So you're alive now watching this. You
are now the ultimate human being because you've lasted all these generations all
till today. And you're living on the precipice of greatness
in history. You're on the event horizon of humankind. And
so that's an incredible place to be and you're gonna win. And you have
to have that attitude that you've gotta be an optimist. The world's gonna get better and you're
living in the best time right now. Secret number eight, they don't let
the opinions of others dictate their actions. They independent thinkers,
and they realize very quickly that opinions don't amount to much. So
here's an exercise I'd love you to be able to do. If you don't believe me that the opinions of
others don't matter, then here's what I want you to do. I want you to go to the supermarket
this weekend or today, and I want you to
go and get your groceries. I want you to put your groceries into the
trolley, as many as you can get. and go to the counter, and
when you get to the counter, and they rack up the bill, and you can see,
beep, beep, beep, they scan the items, and
you can see the bill rack up and it says $200. Here's what I want you to do. I
want you to pay that person with the opinions of
others and see what they say. And lo and behold, you
realize that they're worthless. And so millionaires realize
this, and that's why they don't care. Because at the end of the day, people are
afraid of being judged. What if I told you you're
going to be judged anyway? You'll be judged if you do, and
you'll be judged if you don't. So you may as well do, which
means you're being judged no matter what. You're judging me right
now. You'll either like me or hate me, or you'll be in between, but you're judging me.
You cannot escape judgment. So at the end of the day, play your
game, make your move, make your mark, go for it, because if you don't,
you'll be judged for not having a go. Secret number nine, the
curious, competitive, and they delay gratifications. They
don't buy the nice things immediately. And I'm sure if you've followed me for long enough on
my channels, on the podcast, on my Instagram, wherever it is, you'll
know that I don't put the cherry on top of the cake first. You bake the
cake, you put the icing on, you put the cherry on top at the end, and the
cherry on top of the nice things, the first class flights, the
Ferrari, the beautiful home, You can get all those things but
they don't lay a great foundation. If you put all those things on the bottom of
the cake and you tip it upside down, it's not going to be a great cake. Okay?
So, the nice things come at the end and all millionaires know that
they delay their gratification. Why? It's because they can
then do secret number 10. And secret number 10 is
something my friend Sharon Lecter shared with me and she's the co-author of
the number one personal financial book ever written, Rich Dad
Poor Dad. If you've never read the book, I'm sure you have because a lot of people have, go read
it. But in the book, Her and Robert Kiyosaki, who wrote it together, and
she said this to me on the show, she was on the podcast, and I said to her, Sharon,
what's the number one nugget you can give the audience? And she said, Lloyd,
buy assets. You must buy assets.
Buy assets. What does she mean by that? Well, assets are things that you buy that
grow in value and produce cashflow. People just think that assets are
things that grow in value, but they're not. They have got to produce cashflow. Why is
that important? Because cashflow creates freedom. If
you can invest some of your proceeds by delaying the
nice things that you buy and buy assets like real estate, stocks,
a small business that produce cashflow, you'll be able to develop financial freedom,
which will allow you to scale to millionaire hood and eventually billionaire
hood. Okay, so you must buy assets. Secret number
11. that millionaires don't share with you is this. Your network does determine your net worth.
However, what they don't tell you is that you have to
have three things when you build a network. You
have to have the ability to talk to people and be around people. So
that's networking. But you also have to have
two other things to monetize the network. One, you
have to have some skills. You have to be a useful person to
the person in the network. Otherwise, they're not going to give you an opportunity. And
the second thing you need to go along with the network is you need to have a little bit of money. Because
if you have a little bit of money, then you can actually exploit the opportunities
that you're given. All right, so be someone who's useful. So have the
skills, have a little bit of money ready to go because when the opportunity arises,
you need to execute it. And that's what amplifies a network. So
if you are someone who wants to meet people and build your network, that's great. But what are you bringing
to the table? Are you bringing skills or you're bringing bills?
But you need one of the two. Otherwise, you're not going to be a very effective person
for them to network with either. All right? So your network does determine your
net worth only if it comes with skills and bills. So
there are 11 examples, real world examples, of
what millionaires know that you don't, or certainly
that you didn't, but now you do. So what are you going to do with these? You're
going to take these secrets and you're going to start to deploy them. You're going to start using these
secrets. Use them to your advantage. Use them every single day. Don't
forget them. If you need to come back and listen to this episode again, do that. If you
need to share this with your spouse, a friend, whatever it is, hit the
share button and send them the link to this show so they can understand the secrets as well. Because when
you understand the secrets and the rules of the game, you can also become
a millionaire. And there's nothing I'd love more for you to do by
watching our channel and listening to the show than to become a millionaire. and
build the financial freedom you want, go for it, because these secrets are
now out, which means you can follow them, all right? So if you've enjoyed this episode, go
check out another episode, hit the subscribe button, and leave us a comment. Pop
in the comments below, what is your favorite secret that you're gonna
deploy? And I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to Money Grows on
Trees. If you enjoyed the episode, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts
and Spotify and subscribe to us on YouTube so you never
miss an episode. And if you're serious about building wealth, make sure to
check out the links in the show notes and follow me on all social media
platforms, at LloydJamesRoss for more. See