¶ Money is a game.
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
¶ Time is more valuable than money.
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
¶ Investment focus for wealth.
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
¶ Optimism in challenging times.
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 for financial freedom.
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
¶ Building wealth strategies.
check out the links in the show notes and follow me on all social media platforms, at LloydJamesRoss for more. See