Look, if you’ve ever dreamt about how to become a millionaire or how to become rich, this video will expand your thinking and make it possible. It’s important that you listen. Being a millionaire means you are middle class these days since there are over 1700 people a day in America alone who become millionaires. Every three days, there’s a new billionaire in China. You see, 10 years ago, I walked out of a dire situation with $25 to my name. As I sit here in front of you on the camera, I have an eight-figure net worth that’s been evaluated by multiple banks. That’s not just my businesses either. I’m talking about my assets, cash in the bank and investments.

I don’t say that to try to brag, but to show you what’s possible and to tell you that I know how to become a millionaire from experience. That’s what I want to share with you today. When I left the prison walls in 2008 with $25 to my name, I knew there were two things that were going to happen in my life. Number one was I’d never go back to prison. Number two, I’d never be as broke as I was at that moment. I knew that broke is a mindset. Not having money and not being a millionaire is a mindset. The world and force of average will put limitations on your life and try and hold you back from the right mindset to succeed.

We tell ourselves we want to be millionaires, but if we don’t believe that we can actually learn how to become rich, then we’ll never, ever become a millionaire. The first step to becoming a millionaire is believing. I’m not talking about some hokey law of attraction like this old phrase: “If you believe, you shall achieve.” I’m saying that if you don’t believe you’ll actually ever become a millionaire, you will not become a millionaire. When I was about 16 years old, I remember driving down the North Dallas Tollway, which is where my office is located now. As I was driving, I looked at all the huge buildings and the giant structures.

And by the way, I’m inside the biggest building, because that’s how we do it in Texas and that’s how we do it at Break Free Academy. So, I saw all these giant buildings and Lamborghinis and Ferraris rolling down the Dallas North Tollway, and I thought, who are these people who own these cars? Who are these people who rent out office spaces in these buildings? Who are these people who own these buildings and how can I be like them? I pointed toward the skyline and told my friends in the back of the truck, “One day I’m going to have an office in one of those buildings, and I’m going to drive a car like that. I’m going to be rich.”

My friends had been stealing clothes for extra money; they had been selling drugs and everything else. They all just laughed and shrugged me off. And not to be a dick about it, but guess who’s having the last laugh now? I believed what I had said was possible, that I could learn how to become a millionaire, where my friends, the people that I was surrounded with at the time, did not believe it was possible. They thought that I was maybe high, which I might have been. They thought I was talking smack, and dreaming. When you say you want to become a millionaire or a billionaire, or that you want to have a lot of money and learn how to become rich and successful in life, that you want to start your own business, most people will call you a dreamer.

Well, listen. You have to have a vision. A dream is a vision. You have to have a vision for dreams to come true and you have to believe that you can make that vision a reality to become a millionaire. Step one is that you must actually believe that you deserve to be a millionaire. You must actually believe that you can learn how to become a millionaire, that you can actually learn the steps it takes to become rich. Step two is coming up with a plan. When I left prison, my plan was to get a job in the banking industry making money doing something I knew. I thought I would work my way up the ladder until I actually owned the bank. My plan did not go according to what I’d envisioned, but at least I had a plan.

I’ll tell you more about that story in a second. So I applied at one place. And I had never been turned down for a job in my life. Matter of fact, I’d never had to apply for jobs. People had always reached out to me and recruited me. But this time, I went into a place called Credit Solutions. The office was at the top of one of those huge buildings over on the tollway. I remember walking in and seeing TVs on the wall in front of every cubicle and a Red Bull machine. Everybody was all amped up with headsets on, and they were super excited and pacing. A board with all these numbers on it listed people who had made sales.

I learned about the story of this single mom making 400 grand a year working there. When I heard that, I thought, this is going to be a cool job. The company conducted a Boiler Room-style interview. Like what happened when Ben Affleck walked into the room, and there were only 10 people there. They cut everybody but three other people and me, then asked us to come for the second interview. One of the tricks I used to get that interview was I didn’t try to be like everybody else and talk my way into the interview. I sat there and listened, and I only answered the questions they asked me. I didn’t assert myself strongly. I demonstrated that I knew how to be a closer by showing empathy and only listening to the person who was interviewing me. That is how determined I was to learn the ropes of how to become a millionaire.

Fast forward a couple of days. I came back, and they said, “You know what? You’re hired. We like your style. We think that you’ll be a good closer here. You’ll be a good fit for the company.” Then they made me fill out all this paperwork. Two days later they called back and said, “We did a background check, and you can’t work here.” I was devastated. It was the first time in my life I had been turned down for a job. I’d been a top performer at every job I’d ever had. Then I’d gotten locked up in federal prison. I had some firearms I shouldn’t have had, and I take self-responsibility for that. I did my crime and I did the time.

I lost that job due to my criminal history. Back then I lost my chance to learn how to become rich for a lifetime, too! But I would have more chances. I went into federal prison a millionaire and came out with $25 to my name due to a divorce and losing everything while I was in there. It was a grueling and very challenging time in my life. Then I thought I’d nailed my dream job, but I didn’t. I would have to figure out a different way to learn how to become a millionaire, After that happened, a friend of mine called and said, “They’re hiring over at the bank where I work. Let me see if I can get you on over here.”

At that point, my beliefs had been tested. I told my buddy, “I’m not sure they’ll even hire me, man. The other company turned me down even with my W2s and other paperwork.” He said, “Our bank’s the biggest bank in Texas. They’re not failing. They’re not going under. They’re doing a really good job. I think that they’ll like you and my boss is a fair guy. You can sell your way into the job if you just close him hard enough.” I was up to the challenge. So, I showed up, and for two hours I sold the boss, a guy named Rob, on why I should work there. I promised him one thing, too. “If you give me 90 days, I’ll break every record this company’s ever seen before.”

I kept that promise. I was about 60 days in when I started breaking records and feeling like maybe this time I had actually locked into the secret of how to become a millionaire. They had to come up with new titles and plaques for me because I had done business single-handedly, and that had never been done in that business before. But I was hungry. You’ve got to eat, dog. I had made about $30,000 in one month and had received the company’s gold award. I was the first person who was a one-man team ever to receive that award. Receiving it meant that you’d made $70,000 in one month in sales. Slowly, but surely, I was learning how to become a millionaire again.

After paying the company their commission, I got about $30,000 because the split was 43%, and it sure felt like I was learning how to become rich! I remember turning on the news one day (because we were allowed to watch it at the time). This was before the news became negative like it is now. We would watch the jobs report, the bond market and the stock market. That day, there was breaking news. Right up the street, at Credit Solutions where I had applied for a job, the feds had raided the place. Apparently, they had been lying to people and hadn’t been operating in the best interests of their customers.

I thought to myself, thank the universe I didn’t get that job. Because if I’d have gotten that job, as an ex-con, I’d have definitely gone down with the company. They would have probably blamed it on me, and I’d have been the scapegoat for the whole damn operation. I thought it’s like Garth Brooks says, ‘sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.‘ I was so thankful I hadn’t gotten that job. Then I doubled down on my job. I figured “Everything is working out for a reason. I didn’t get that job for a reason. And I can still become a millionaire; I can become the branch manager of the largest independently owned mortgage bank in the State of Texas. I can work my way up. Rob gave me a chance. I’m not going to let him down. I’m breaking records already. I’m going to own this company one day. I’m going to figure out how to become rich yet.”

In 2010, Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Act into law, and one of the provisions of the bill stated that if you’d been a felon in the last seven years, you couldn’t have a federal license. State licenses were converted to federal licenses in the financial industry. The state was cool with me, but the feds wouldn’t give me a license because I was only three years outside the crime I had committed. Boom, I was out of a job. I went from making $300,000 a year to unemployed. And I was devastated again. Why was it so hard to learn how to become a millionaire?

I thought, why does this stuff keep happening to me? But then I remembered the Credit Solutions’ issue, and I knew, that happened for a reason. This happened for a reason, too. Just because I’m no longer working the plan to become the top banker and have my own branch, just because I need to figure out how to become rich (again) it doesn’t mean I can’t find another plan. That was when one of my real estate agent friends ran into me and said, “Why don’t you check out internet marketing, and teach loan officers how to do what you did when you were a mortgage officer?” So, I started on that path.

I began recruiting a few loan officers and teaching them what I knew. Those first couple of people experienced success, and then more and more experienced success. The Hardcore Closer brand was founded, and I taught loan officers how to make good money. People were getting results, and everybody on my team was winning. All my clients were winning. That led me to realize; I’ve gotten really good working with loan officers. Why don’t I expand to real estate agents? So, I started helping real estate agents with their businesses. I worked with the favorite real estate agents you see on TV. I did events, coached them and built programs with them. This was a great time in my life. Things started adding up.

I got to the top of my game in 2013, but I had a business partner who was doing some stuff behind the scenes. I gave the guy a little sweat equity in the company, and then he developed a drug habit. I would catch him inside my apartment when he shouldn’t have been there doing things he shouldn’t have been doing. I don’t like drugs. If you do cocaine or whatever, I’m just not down with it. I’m against it. I’ve sold cocaine in my life, and many salespeople have sold cocaine. But I think after 30 years, it’s time for you to give up on drugs. Listen to Jay-Z and the guys who sold cocaine. They’ll tell you about it. 

If you want to smoke a little weed, if you want to drink, if you want to relax that way, fine. But cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, crack, that’s loser stuff. That stuff won’t teach you how to become a millionaire. And with my criminal history, I don’t want to be surrounded by people doing loser stuff. I don’t want it to cost me my life and my freedom again. Because like I said, when I walked out of prison, I knew two things. I’d never go back and I’d never be as broke as I was right then. When my business partner made some bad decisions, I had to cover his debt so we could sever our ties. Also about that time, my wife who I had married after I had been released and who had been with me since I had started over and stayed with me until my success, left me as well. 

In December of 2014, it was like the end of the world was coming. I had paid off a bunch of debts. I had just endured a year-long battle for divorce, and a year-long battle of getting rid of my business partner. But I still had a plan. I still believed that I could become a millionaire because I had tasted success several times. Everybody thinks the path to being successful is a straight line up. But what it really is is up, down, up, down, up, down, like a Morgan Wallen song. 

Oftentimes, you’ll experience more downs than ups on the path of learning how to become rich. But it’s the ups that matter. If we only focus on winning, and we don’t focus on the downs, then eventually, we’ll get there. After the drama settled in my business and personal life, I was free again. I had no business partner I was enslaved to making a bunch of terrible decisions that I had to split my profits with. I no longer had a wife who was not supporting me, who dragged me down, until I got mad, and who caused turmoil in my business. Like Atlas, the weight of the world lifted off my shoulders.

My trajectory immediately took off again. I started making more digital products. I started writing books. I started helping business owners. And not just realtors and loan officers, but people who owned businesses, coaches, entrepreneurs, people who owned roofing companies, people who owned billion-dollar companies, people who owned nine-figure companies. I helped millionaires as I was in the process of becoming rich myself. Then I helped multiple millionaires. Business escalated because I stuck to the plan, which was to become one of the best internet marketers of all time. My plan was to leave a legacy and to help as many people as possible live a better life through my podcasts, like the Get Your Mind Right podcast that you should be listening to the first thing when you get out of bed every morning. 

You can find it on iTunes, YouTube, SoundCloud. It’s everywhere. I have another podcast as well that allows me to give back called The Hardcore Closer podcast, or THC podcast. I created the blog HardcoreCloser.com in 2012, to give back to the sales community. I have the largest sales group on Facebook where I do nothing but contribute value because I want to make a significant impact in the marketplace, I want to help more people learn how to become rich doing what worked for me. I knew if I continued to deliver value to the marketplace and stick to the plan of recruiting clients, I would get there. In 2016, I had my first-million-dollar year. I had already been a millionaire, but then I became a millionaire on paper. You know there’s a big difference.

I occasionally write for Entrepreneur Magazine, and I wrote an article about what it was really like when you become a millionaire. When I wrote that, I was a millionaire on paper. I talked about my journey. I wanted other people to realize how I thought: I’m the guy who when he gets to rock bottom, has a jackhammer with him. I’m going to dig as deep as I can. And when I take off, a rocket ship will be strapped to my back, and there will be a huge trajectory that others won’t have. At the time of the publication of the article, I drove a car I was leasing for $400 a month. I lived in a decent penthouse, but it was rented. I wore a Fitbit for a watch and T-Shirt and jeans.

If you go back and read the article on Entrepreneur.com, I actually said that the people who have nice things like exotic cars, and multiple houses, and millions of dollars in cash in their bank accounts typically have over a $5 million net worth. As a person who today has over a $10 million net worth, now I have the nice watches. I have a fleet of exotic cars. I have the multimillion dollar home. I have the real estate portfolio. I have the stock portfolio. I have the seven figures in cash in our operations account and in my bank accounts. I want to help you learn how to do what I did. I want to help you become a millionaire…or more than a millionaire. I want to help you learn how to become rich.

The reason I share this with you is because I stuck to a plan. Again, step number one was for me to believe that it was possible. That against all odds, against all setbacks, against all take backs, against the forces dragging me down, against being put through the ringer, I still believed learning how to become a millionaire was possible. Most people, if they had not gotten the job at Credit Solutions, would have thought it was impossible for them to make it in life. Most people, if the Dodd-Frank Act stripped them of their $300,000 a year income, would think it was impossible for them to become a millionaire. They would have said, “Maybe I just need to return to a normal life.”

Most people, after they’d built a business up to $50,000 a month, only to have their wife leave them and their business partner make bad decisions, would think, well, maybe I’m not supposed to be doing this in the first place. Maybe I can’t learn how to become a millionaire. But that wasn’t the case with me. I believed that I deserved a successful life. I told my friends when I was young, “One day I’m going to be in those buildings, driving those cars.” I didn’t even know what the hell I was going to do at that point in my life. I just knew that I was going to do it and that I would become rich. So, if you want to truly become rich, you need to believe that you can become rich. But you need a plan. Step three is that you must actually execute on that plan no matter how many setbacks you have.

I told you my story of turmoil because there are plenty of people who’ll say, “I worked really hard, and I became a millionaire. Life is great. Let’s go to church and worship Jesus and pay our 10%. Let’s talk about how awesome life is and never drink alcohol, or do drugs. We should just smile and have plastic surgery,” That’s not how it works out. I look 50 years older than I did just five years ago. And the reason why is because I have been stressed to the max. Becoming a millionaire is taxing work. I have put the work in because against all odds; I have executed the plan I created to become rich. Against all odds, I have stuck to the path.

Some months, my bills have been over $200,000. Some years, I prayed to have a $200,000 year. And now again, some months my bills are over $200,000. When you’re operating on that level, there is stress against you. Some of my super successful friends run businesses with overheads of a million dollars a month. When you’re operating on that level, even if you’re super successful, there’s a massive amount of stress in your life. I bootstrapped my entire business without taking bank loans, without taking investors on, without somebody keeping their thumb on me to control me. This is how I wanted to learn to become a millionaire, without the money of others. But there are many ways to get there and I can help you on your personal path.

I’ve not done it all by myself. I have a team of awesome people and employees who have helped me along the way. I kept my eye on the prize and bootstrapped it without outsiders coming in and interfering. Because of my experience with the bad business partner, I never wanted anybody else to control my destiny again. The experience I had with the licensing bureau, with the NMLS was enough. I never wanted a governing body to have control over my future again. I never wanted an outside force controlling how I could become rich, or if I could become rich. Now I sit here in front of you, with an eight-figure net worth, telling you how to become a millionaire. And I want you to know it’s worked for thousands of people just like you.

I can tell you from experience because I did it without any cheat codes. I did it without any assistance or influx of cash. I didn’t have rich parents or venture capitalists or any other help. The other day, somebody was laughing at me saying, “This guy doesn’t even know how to use a balance sheet.” Well, guess what? My balance sheet is always positive because I don’t owe anybody money. The truth is you can do the same. If you genuinely want to become rich, if you want to become a millionaire, then all you have to do is A) believe that it’s possible, B) come up with a plan, and C) execute that plan by any means necessary.

The plan is not always going to work. You have to run audibles. You have to pivot. When I thought I was going to become a millionaire owning the bank, and then lost my license, I had to pivot. I had to run an audible. But my plan remained. I was still going to become rich. That’s how determined I was. When I thought I was going to become a millionaire working with celebrities and then my business partner got me in a jam and my wife left me, the plan didn’t work out the way that I wanted it to. But I stuck to the plan, and the plan was always “work hard, deliver value, never let a client down, and eventually, I’ll make it.” I’m telling you right here in front of you today that I made it.

You might think, these are really simple things, Ryan. And of course, that’s my talent: taking big complex goals like creating seven figures of value in your life and making it really simple so that you can understand how it was done. Most of our comprehension skills never evolved past age seven anyway. If you talk to people at a Harvard level, you lose people. I simplify what I talk about. I put sales first, and follow what the Navy says, “Keep it simple, stupid.” And I do this because the easiest operating systems are that ones that are easily understood. You can break down how to become rich into a formula! How crazy is that? Crazy enough to work.

If you’re looking to get rich and this video inspired you, leave a comment down below. Make sure you share it with somebody who needs to be inspired. Who can believe against all odds they deserve to become rich, they deserve to be a millionaire. When the force of average in life slaps you and tries to hold you down to keep you from unleashing your greatness, when the laws of this planet and everything else tries to keep you from doing what you know you need to do and sticking to your plan, just remember this story.

I’m telling you right now, I’m proof that if I can make it against all odds, then you have no choice but to make it as well, especially if you have a college degree. Especially if you come from good parents. Especially if you’re smart. Especially if you don’t have a criminal history. A guy on one of our Facebook posts said earlier today: “There’s no way I could stick to a routine like that.” I replied, “You’re exactly right because whether you believe you can, or whether you believe you can’t, you’re right.”

If you believe that you can become a millionaire, you can’t simply say, “I’m going to become a millionaire” without having a plan. That’s a surefire way to fail. But if you believe that you can become a millionaire, you believe you deserve it, and you put a plan in place to make that happen, and then you execute it, there’s nothing in the world that can hold you back. The mind gets what it focuses on. If you simply focus on getting what it is you want in life and doing everything it takes to make that happen, you’ll get it. You will get rich. Sign up for my personal coaching at www.bfaentourage.com