The One Percent

Episode 4 — The One Percent

What separates the people who want success and wealth from the few who actually achieve it? In this Episode, I share the personal experiences that changed the way I viewed money, opportunity, and financial security—and why connecting yourself with successful people can completely change your trajectory. We’ll explore The One Percent, The Great Filter, multiple sources of income, trust, valuable relationships, and why becoming a person of value is essential to getting into the right rooms where the Successful and Wealthy hang out. 

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:16

Welcome back everyone to 10 G for your success and wealth. What happens when you realize you're doing everything you're supposed to? You have the house, the job, the benefits, the retirement, food in the refrigerator, and after paying your bills, you have three dollars left in the bank. That happened to me. And sitting in my car at a gas station the next morning, I had a realization that completely changed the way I looked at success and wealth. I wasn't necessarily poor, I was cash poor. And eventually, I realized something even bigger. If I wanted a different financial future, I couldn't keep thinking the same way. Doing the same things, and surrounding myself with the same types of people. I had to find the people who had already figured it out. We've all heard the expression, your past doesn't define you. And that's true. Failure in your past doesn't mean failure has to be part of your future. But here's the part people sometimes leave out. Something has to change. You can't continuously repeat the same behavior, make the same decisions, associate with the same people, and expect a completely different outcome. For me, one of the biggest changes was finally understanding that everything I've talked about on 10 G, the three keys, the supporting principles, the skill sets, and the mindset aren't mutually exclusive. They have to work simultaneously. But there was something else I was missing. I needed to connect myself with the people who had already solved, conquered, and mastered the problems I was trying to solve. The one percenters. When I started doing that, doors began opening. My opportunities changed, my thinking changed, and ultimately my results changed. I'm gonna tell you what happened in my life that made me realize I needed to change, and why connecting myself to successful people became such an important part of that transformation. Whenever I ask a group of people to raise their hands if they want to become successful and wealthy, everybody raises their hand. But wanting it and doing what's required to get it are two completely different things. I look at much of that other 99% in three broad groups. The first group wants to leapfrog into success. And remember, leapfrogging isn't the same as shortcutting. There's nothing wrong with finding a smarter, faster, more efficient route to your destination. That's shortcutting. Leapfrogging is trying to skip the knowledge, experience, discipline, and legitimate work required to get there. That's where people get themselves into trouble, chasing quick money, dealing with people they shouldn't be dealing with and doing things they shouldn't be doing. The second group consists of liars, thieves, and carn artists. They're not interested in creating value. They're interested in taking someone else's money, opportunity, or idea. And we're gonna talk much more about them in the next episode. Then there's the third group. They're good, honest, hardworking people. They simply don't know what to do. If you're already developing the fortitude to learn what is necessary to attain greater success and wealth, this episode should help sharpen those skills. And if you're somebody who genuinely wants something better but doesn't know what to do next, that's why I'm doing 10G. I wasn't always thinking this way. I used to be part of that 99%, and it took some extremely painful experiences before I began looking at money, success, and security differently. When I was 22 years old, my father developed a persistent cough. Eventually, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. His medical coverage through his job had been eliminated only months earlier. After he died, my mother was left with tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills. In the desperation of trying to get my father medical attention, she had signed paperwork guaranteeing payment of the outstanding medical debt, and that debt potentially put her house at risk. I was still living at home at that time. At that moment, success didn't mean being rich. Success meant helping my mother keep her house, and it meant both of us not becoming homeless. The parting stopped, it was time for me to step up. Together, my mother and I paid every penny of those bills, and she taught me something without ever needing to give me a motivational speech. Don't give up. A few years later, at 25, I bought my first house. It wasn't my dream house, it was a simple three-bedroom fixer upper, but it was mine. And at that point in my life, that was success. So life moved forward. I made money, I spent money, I traveled, I got married, I started having kids. And eventually my wife and I accomplished another dream. In 2006, we sold my first house for a substantial profit and bought a brand new home for $651,000 in the suburbs of Los Angeles. Two stories, pool, spa, a beautiful neighborhood for our kids. I remember standing in front of that finished house with my wife thinking, We did it. But my parents had always told me something. Have a plan B because you never see change coming around the corner. And I didn't have one. Then came 2008. The housing crash hit me right between the eyes, and the Great Recession followed with an uppercut. The equity from the 35% down payment we had put into the house completely disappeared. The house lost more than half its value, and there was more to come. My employer implemented a 15% wage reduction. Layoffs followed, and there was more to come. My mother's health deteriorated. Eventually she was diagnosed with advanced pancreatic cancer. The real estate crash, the recession, the wage reduction, my mother's illness, and the possibility of personal bankruptcy. It felt like everything was happening at once. And then came the night that changed the way I looked at money. I had a job, my wife was working, we had a beautiful house, my employer provided medical, dental, and vision coverage for my entire family. I had a retirement plan, I had a 401k, we had food. From the outside, we had a lot. Then one evening my wife and I sat down and paid the mortgage, utilities, credit cards, and our other bills. We filled the refrigerator and pantry with food, and when everything was finished, we had three dollars left in the bank. Not figuratively, not metaphorically, three dollars. And we still needed gas to get to work. That's when I did something I now call the target shuffle. I knew my target red card withdrawal wouldn't hit my checking account immediately. So I went to Target, bought something inexpensive, and took the maximum $40 cash back. The timing had to work perfectly because my next paycheck needed to hit the bank before Target withdrew the money. I gave my wife $20 for gas, I kept $20, problem solved temporarily. The next morning I stopped at the gas station. After putting gas in my car, I sat behind the steering wheel and froze. I remember this cold feeling going through my body, and I started asking myself, What is wrong here? Am I actually poor and I just haven't realized it? And then it hit me. I was house rich, but cash poor. I was medical coverage rich, but cash poor. I was retirement plan rich, but cash poor. I was food in the refrigerator rich, but cash poor. That was the lightning bolt. The lesson wasn't that those things weren't valuable, they were incredibly valuable. The lesson was that I had built a life that depended too heavily on a limited number of income sources. And that's when I began understanding something I kept seeing among successful and wealthy people. They build multiple sources of income. If one income source stops, the entire structure doesn't necessarily collapse. And that realization changed the way I started thinking about money, opportunity, and wealth. I call what happens next the great filter. Think about a telescope. A telescope allows you to take something incredibly far away and bring it into focus. Success works similarly. Most people can see what's immediately in front of them the bills, the job, this week, this month. But the people who consistently build success learn to look further ahead. They ask, Where am I going? What could go wrong? What opportunities are coming? Who already knows how to get where I'm trying to get to? And that's where the one percenters become so important. You don't connect yourself with successful people because you're looking for them to hand you success. You connect with them because proximity gives you perspective. You begin seeing how they evaluate opportunities, how they solve problems, how they communicate, how they protect their time, how they build relationships, how they think about money. And eventually you start seeing things that were previously outside your field of vision. But there's something else you need to understand. Successful people don't automatically let everybody enter their inner circle. They have networks, they have relationships, and trust matters. You don't get into those rooms by walking up to somebody wealthy and saying What can you do for me? Ask yourself the opposite question. What value can I bring to them? Become somebody worth knowing, become reliable, become knowledgeable, become a great listener. Do what you say you're going to do. Protect people's confidence. Don't waste people's time. And don't enter every relationship looking for an immediate transaction. That's where connected, one of the three main keys of Tanji, becomes incredibly important. Getting connected isn't collecting phone numbers, it's developing credible relationships with people of value while becoming a person of value yourself. My business opportunities change dramatically when I began developing friendships and relationships with successful and wealthy people. But getting through the door isn't enough. Trust may get you invited back. Recently I watched Juval Aviv being interviewed on the Danny Jones podcast, and something from that conversation caught my attention. Aviv has had an unusual career that eventually took him into private investigation and corporate intelligence. During the interview, the discussion turned to fraud and the enormous amount of money that moves through fraud and deception. And that immediately connected with something I've learned about success. The more opportunities you create, the more careful you have to become about who gets close to you. Success attracts good people, but it can also attract people who see your success as their opportunity. People looking for your money, your relationships, your ideas, your credibility, your access, that's why being connected doesn't mean connecting with everybody. It means learning to distinguish between valuable relationships and dangerous relationships. And remember what I said earlier about part of the 99%. There are people who don't want to create. As your network becomes more valuable, your ability to evaluate character has to become sharper. Listen, observe, verify. Don't let somebody's confidence convince you they're competent. And don't let somebody's wealth or appearance of wealth convince you they're trustworthy. Access should be earned because the same connections capable of accelerating your success can destroy what you've built if they're the wrong connections. There's one final point I want to make. Success doesn't mean the same thing to everybody. For some people, it's becoming a millionaire. For somebody else, it's buying their first home. Starting a family, building a career, helping somebody who needs them. For me, success has always been multi-level. One of my greatest personal successes happened on December 4th, 2016. That's the day I stopped drinking. For me, drinking had become a hindrance. When I removed it, I became more productive, more focused, healthier. I started making better decisions. Goals that had been sitting on my list started getting accomplished. I'm not telling you that everybody needs to stop drinking to become successful. I'm telling you that I identified something standing between me and the person I wanted to become. And I removed it. That's success. And once my mind became clearer, I was in a much better position to recognize and capitalize on opportunities when they appeared. So here's what I want you to take away from this episode. Don't wait for success and wealth to be delivered to your front door. Look further ahead. Develop multiple opportunities. Become intelligent, stay focused, and become connected to people who have already accomplished what you're trying to accomplish. But don't approach the 1% asking what you can take from them. Ask what value do I need to develop so that I belong in that room? Because connecting with successful people isn't about pretending you're successful. It's about becoming the kind of person successful people trust, respect, and want around them. Get past the great filter, find the right people, become valuable to them, and when the door starts opening, be ready to walk through them. In the next episode, we're going to go deeper into something I touched on today: con artists. The people who are always nearby, ready and willing to steal your money, your ideas, your opportunities, and sometimes they'll do it so skillfully that you won't realize what's happening until it's too late. That's next on 10G. If you found value in today's episode, follow the Ten G podcast and share this episode with somebody who's serious about changing their future. And if you're ready to go beyond the podcast, visit tenjipodcast.com. Join the Ten G community for free and begin with the start of your collection. If you're ready to go further, Tenji Live gives you access to exclusive strategies, members-only discussions, live conversations, and practical ways to put the principles of Tenji into action. And for those looking for more direct access, personalized guidance, and tailored strategies, there's the Tenji Inner Circle. Everything starts at tenjipodcast.com. Be intelligent, stay focused, get connected. Thank you for listening with an open mind, and thank you for listening all the way to the end. I'll catch you on the next one. Peace.