- If you're under 30 years old, this video is for you.
Today I'm gonna share with you three
pieces of advice that I wish someone would have
told me when I was going through school
and when I was just getting started.
I know a lot of my fans, you're following my work,
you are watching me on social media,
that you're going to school right now
or you're about to graduate,
or you're still young people,
you're still trying to figure what path you should choose
and what career you should choose, right?
So today I'm going to help y'all with that.
Number One, and that is this,
figure out exactly who you are,
and what your strengths are, early on.
You see, most people they teach you
to work on your weaknesses.
I don't believe in that.
I believe if you spend your life working on your weaknesses,
at the end of your life you have a lot of
strong weaknesses, right?
And what we wanna do is to figure out who we are,
what we are good at, what we are naturally good at.
Chances are those are the things we enjoy doing,
that we have a passion for, right?
Then you pick one or two things that you wanna focus on,
and you wanna put all your energy into that
and you get exceptionally good.
When you get exceptionally good, what happens is
the marketplace will compensate you for it.
So I think I see a lot of young people,
they struggle because they say to me
well Dan, I really don't know what I'm good at,
or, I don't know what I should focus on,
I don't know what career I should focus on.
Well chances are if you don't know
what you're going to focus on,
you have not tried enough things, right?
Because imagine if you're playing sports, right?
Should you play basketball, should you play tennis,
should you play ping pong, should you play golf?
Well if you have not tried different types of sports,
how do you know which one you are naturally
good at and which one you enjoy?
So instead of just thinking about
ok, I guess that's what I like,
try things, experiment, test new things.
Once you've tried enough things, then you know
definitely I know these things I'm not
interested in, and these are the few things that
I think I'm good at, and you put a bit more time
into it, and naturally you see that hey,
what comes easy for you might not be so easy for others.
That's when you know you've found your thing, right?
That's your strength that you're naturally good at,
something that other people are not good at.
So, advice number one, figure out who you are
and what strength you have, and focus
all your energy on that one or two things.
Advice number two, and that is
work for skills, don't work for a paycheck.
You see, a lot of graduates that graduate from school say
hey, I want to make sure I pick a job
that pays me the most, right?
Whoever pays me the most.
This pays an extra dollar per hour,
I'm going to take that job.
No, don't do that
because that's very short-term thinking.
When you work for a paycheck or when you work for money,
you're always making decisions based on
you get paid a little extra, versus what's the overall
vision you have for your life?
Just because your parents tell you
that you should take that job,
you should focus on that career,
or your friends are studying certain subjects
and you say you know what maybe I should study that too,
or a lot of people are studying computer science,
maybe I should get into computer science?
Well, it may not be the case, right?
What are you good at, what do you love,
but at the same time work for skills.
In my early twenties, I was working for
my first mentor, Alan,
for next to nothing for one year.
I was basically a volunteer, right?
I was working in his office, learning from him,
he took me under his wings.
One solid year, I didn't get paid a whole lot.
I was working less than minimum wage,
it would make no sense!
But I learned so much, I always refer to that
year as the million dollar year of my life
because I got a million dollars' worth
of education from my mentor.
So I wasn't working for money, or for a paycheck,
if that was the case I would have said no,
but I was working for skills.
I was working to acquire skillsets
that I could use in the future.
You see, most people who are struggling financially,
they want more income without skills.
You do not have an income problem,
you have a skill problem.
Because the marketplace is always willing to pay
for people with talents and skills.
- 'Cause I'm a pretty young guy, I'm only 18.
But through these three calls,
I was only asked about my experience once.
And it wasn't a very big deal,
I kind of just answered it and that was it!
And throughout my search for influencers,
I've probably exuded that vibe of
I don't have any experience
and I'm very conscious of it,
but through these calls I didn't do that
and it didn't come up, so I'm hoping that maybe
you can learn from this if you're maybe
in a similar spot to where I was
yesterday, a few days ago,
especially if you're young like me.
We don't have to be conscious of our experience
because at the end of the day they're not
looking for experience, they're looking for results.
And, other than that, that's really
all that I have of that realization,
but the best thing about this boom is that
even if this influencer falls through,
I have a few more in my pipeline that I'm
talking to, and even if those fall through
I can go find new ones.
There's influencers everywhere.
Once you know where to look, it's like
running water, there's so many of them.
Other than that I don't have too much to say.
You're closer than you think, take care.
- So work on your skills, work for skills.
Pick an industry, pick a company,
pick someone that you could learn from.
Don't just work for the paycheck, work for skills.
Advice number three, and that is
think long term, not short term.
One of the biggest mistakes I see a lot of
young people make, sometimes on social media,
sometimes some of them I have done business with,
they have a very short-term mentality.
They're trying to make a quick buck,
they're trying to get rich quick,
a lot of decisions that they make, I can see
that it's very naive, and a lot of those
because they don't think long-term.
They're thinking about this month,
they're thinking about this quarter,
maybe some of them think about this year,
but they don't think very long-term.
You see, I look at what I do, people look at,
oh Dan, you're very successful at a young age,
and I'm like yeah, I'm more like
a ten-year overnight success, right?
That I've worked many, many years
to get to where I am today, right?
I paid the price early on.
When I was young, when I was going to school,
the first five years of my life,
when all my friends are going out there drinking,
partying, chasing girls, and just wasting time,
for the first five years of my career,
I didn't take a single day off.
I was working 12-14 hours a day every single day.
In my one-bedroom apartment with my mom.
Staying with my mom, working in my room,
studying, working and learning, and that was it,
I paid a price early, while all my friends
were doing something else.
So you have to understand that
there's a price that you've got to pay,
and you have to think a little bit long-term.
So don't get frustrated when you look at
people from social media and say
oh, this person's got this kinda lifestyle
and he's successful, she's successful, and this and that,
and you think to yourself, oh I wanna get there
I wanna get there in six months,
I wanna get there in one year.
You're not gonna get there in six months,
you're not gonna get there in one year.
You have to adjust your expectations.
Now it doesn't mean you don't have that sense of urgency.
What I'm saying is, the surefire way to
get to frustration is you have this
unrealistic expectation in terms of
time frame and this is where you are.
You're 20 years old, you're 21 years old, you've got time.
Youth is your biggest advantage, right?
That is your biggest advantage that you have!
You have energy, you have health, you have youth,
Take your time.
Jack Ma from Alibaba has a 102-year business plan.
102 years!
That's why he's Jack Ma, he thinks long-term,
he's not thinking about doing things being very
reactive, this is what I wanna do, no.
What's my plan, this is where I wanna get to,
what do I need to do today?
What skillsets to I need to acquire today?
Who do I have to be today?
What habits do I need to give up today that will
set me up for the success in the future?
If you only look at that you'll always get
frustrated because you're looking at
where you are, you're never good enough.
You think you're never good enough.
Don't focus on that, right?
A tree becomes a huge tree not overnight,
years and years of nurturing, years.
And the first few years it's like this tall,
but when it grows strong it's a different story.
So figure out where do you want to be.
If this is where you want to be and this is your goal,
your long term vision, then you reverse engineer,
figure out who do you have to be today
to get that, right?
What new skills do you need to acquire?
What new habits do you need to develop
in order to attain that goal, does that make sense?
Now for all the young people out there,
if there's one skill that I wish someone
would have taught me when I was in my 20s,
when I was 18, when I was 19,
this would be that one skill.
Click the link below and check out
what skill I'm taking about,
the one skill that could change your life.