How I Made My First $1,186,042.63
- Mar
- 12
- Posted by dustin sanchez
- Posted in Business Soapbox
- 0
1) THE SWIM TEAM
When I was 8 years old, they put me on the neighborhood swim team.
Saturday Meets I’d race against other 8 year old boys.
Usually I lost.
There was this 6 year old girl named Vanessa Proctor, who would literally swim laps around me in practice.
Vanessa, Rebecca, Kylie, my sister Rhenee…basically every girl destroyed me all week in practice.
I went to every practice religiously 3 summers in a row, and I never really got any faster.
I guess I sucked at swimming.
2) BILL WATSON, DON MEYERS…BAND CAMP
In 6th grade I played the trumpet.
I was one of the worst players in 6th grade.
Couldn’t understand it because I went to every practice.
Don Meyers was the band director.
He outlawed the word “can’t.”
He taught me to ignore failure and keep going no matter what.
One time he stopped rehearsal during my solo and said, “Dustin that was great.”
That was important.
In 8th grade he let me be an office assistant. I got to work on an Apple computer and spreadsheets circa 1989.
That was important.
In 9th grade we started marching band.
The band directors were Bill Watson, Diane Burton, and Don Meyers.
At that time I was probably one of the mid, not quite last chair, trumpet players.
I met Charles Carson, Ritchie Malone, Scott Harvey, Robert Chambers, Gary Brandt.
These guys were trumpet royalty…still are.
They went to every practice, then they practiced after practice…before practice, and even during practice.
I got the message.
I started going to rehearsal, and then practicing 3-4 hours a night every night after rehearsal.
It drove my sister crazy.
Thank God I had no talent.
I’ve seen talent ruin so many people.
Screw talent. I was just going to work my butt off.
That was my whole game plan.
Practice until my lips bleed.
And I did.
Every high school picture I got fever blisters, open lip wounds.
If you look close enough, 30 years later, you’ll see a mouthpiece shaped scar on my lips.
I was first chair senior year.
Bill Watson changed the culture.
Everyone bought into his vision.
He showed us how to start a movement.
Every time we messed up on the practice field, we teenagers voluntarily dropped down and cranked out 20 pushups.
You’d leave practice with 100 pushups logged in.
Diane Burton demanded excellence. She kept you humble.
One time she critiqued Charles Carson.
And I thought Charles walked on water.
He went straight to the practice room…after practice.
Charles came back the next day and he was better than perfect.
That was an important lesson.
3) US NAVY NUCLEAR POWER PROGRAM
Integrity is doing the right thing even when nobody is looking.
Avoiding even the appearance of impropriety.
At 17 my parents signed a waiver and I joined the US Navy Nuclear Power Program.
How does the United States Navy park several nuclear reactors in Downtown San Diego?
Integrity.
Why has the USN had zero nuclear accidents in over 70+ years of operation?
Integrity.
Right now a gang of teenagers and twenty year olds are operating 50+ nuclear reactors, on no sleep, crap food, and underwater.
They are the Charles Carson of the engineering world.
All because of integrity.
Doing the right thing even when nobody is looking.
Doing the right thing even when nobody would blame you if you did other wise.
Defaulting to honesty.
That was an important lesson.
4) TIM FERRISS
I read a book called “The Four Hour Work Week,” when they put me on academic probation in law school.
Tim said, “You can just do stuff.”
That was an important lesson.
Because I thought you needed a degree on the wall to be happy.
I was an engineer during the day, and I went to law school at night, and I slept on Sunday afternoon for a few hours.
Because I thought you had to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or an engineer to make it in this world.
I thought somebody had to give me permission to be successful.
But Tim said, “Hey, you can just do stuff.”
I started just doing stuff.
Failing in public.
I was the Charles Carson of failing.
But Don Meyers said just keep going.
Bill Watson said get your reps in.
Diane Burton said be execellent.
You need to practice after practice.
And I did.
I’d wake up at 3am to work on my failing business ideas.
Be an engineer from 7am-4pm.
Drive to law school from 430pm-530pm.
Law school from 6pm-9pm.
Back home at 10pm to crank out 400 pages of cases and statutes.
In bed by midnight, 130 at the latest, back up at 3am.
I lived like this for 3 and a half years in law school.
Run longer, sleep less was my motto.
One day one of the businesses hit.
5) CAN’T GET RICH SLOW
Don’t drink coffee, clip coupons, invest 12% of your income into a 401k for 35 years, then when you’re 70 you can retire rich and die 3 years later.
It’s bull crap.
Everything popular is wrong.
And everyone selling you this line of crap got rich by selling you this line of crap.
But what about taxes?
If you didn’t pay three million in taxes last year, then you don’t have a tax problem, you have an income problem.
You don’t need cash to get rich, you need cash flow.
You need monthly recurring cash flow that far exceeds your expenses.
And then you need to make big moves.
That’s what I did to make my first million.
Tim Ferris taught me how to start a business wherein attorneys give me $1,000 – $5,000 every month.
I went from zero per month, to $10,000 per month, to $30,000 per month, to $50,000+ per month, etc.
I didn’t put that money in an IRA, I put it in a nearly zero interest bank account.
Then one day the scamdemic hit, and I bought 4 rental properties cash, refinanced all the money back out.
Free houses.
When you have cash flow, you can amass a huge savings, and when you have huge savings, people will give you free stuff.
Like 4 free houses.
Then those houses all appreciate in value (if you do it right).
But what if your toilet breaks.
If you have cash flow, you don’t care when a tree falls through your roof.
If you’re making $70,000 every month, it’s no big deal to replace a $17,000 roof every now and then.
And if you sit down and think every day…think and read and think and read and experiment until one of your businesses doesn’t fail…people just throw money at you.
That’s basically how I made my first million.
If this post gets 10 shares, then tomorrow I’ll tell you how I’m making the second million five times faster.