How I Became a Millionaire From Earning $7 an Hour

Today on the Your Business Brilliance Podcast Show we show why some people become extremely rich and successful despite having nothing to start with and the "magic formula" that everybody can use to achieve success.Listen To The Full Interview with Matt Theriault[powerpress]Matt's is a very successful entrepreneur, running various business, and venturing into new one. But before he became so successful, he was earning $7 an hour, working a supermarket filling groceries. But before that, he owned an extremely successful and lucrative business producing and distributing music CD. And before that, he was a Desert Storm Veteran. So how does someone go from soldiering to millionaire to flat broke to multimillionaire.Matt run a boutique record label that produced 20,000-30,000 records a month. Back in the day,when records and singles were selling at 7, 8 sometimes 15 times what you would pay for today, it makes a tidy profit.Matt:                I’d say I’ve basically made my millions by the time I was 30 and 31, 32 at that age, each year got a little bit better and better. I stumbled upon a formula that allowed me to generate a significant profit off of just selling 20 – 30,000 records. And if you know anything about the music business, you know, if you sell 20 – 30,000 records, those with major labels will drop you off in a second because that’s a loss for them. But I figured out how to do a consistent release schedule of one album per month and sell that many and it provided a very nice income for myself and three of my buddies and we did that over and over again. The formula just kept on working like clockwork.How is it that a thriving business is making millions can go bust in 6 months? This is a lesson for all entrepreneurs and business owners. The landscape can change right in front of your eyes and your may not see it happening.Matt:                In hindsight it’s crystal clear. The advent of the digital download came along and our consumer....they just change the way they consume music. They stop buying it and found out how to get this stuff for free so they stop going into the stores and buying CDs. And each store…every time we came out with a new release they’d buy a box of 30 and those initial orders is what kept us alive and those initial orders went to ones and twos and so that’s a significant decrease in your…or an impact on your income.Matt:    And so after 6 months and I was poor, broke and lonely, file bankruptcy, wife didn’t really care to be married any longer to an out of work music executive and so I got divorced. I had to eat so I went from essentially a seven figure a year, the year before that to working for $7 an hour at age 34 and I’m working right alongside taking lunch breaks with 16 year olds. So that was quite a humbling experience.Oh the indignity! But you have to do what you have to do to live, to survive. What happens to somebody who’s just lost millions, they’ve lost their business, they’ve lost their life, they’ve lost their wife, they’ve lost everything they knew. What sort of state will they be in?Matt:    Yeah it was the world’s biggest pity party and I would cry on every shoulders that I could find and just like poor me, why always me, what happened, will someone please help me. I did feel like a loser and I felt like an absolute failure and I felt like a victim.I don’t know what you feel like when you’re in the bottom right down there and I hope I never do it and I hope anyone listening to this never has to be in the same position Matt does. But when you are in that position, what do you do? How does it change? How do you come back up again? We’ve heard all these stories where successful entrepreneurs were down in the ditches and then came back up again. But what is that trigger that gets them to started or restarted?A fellow supermarket colleague mentions to Matt that [Tweet "“real estate is the final frontier today where the average person has a genuine shot at creating true wealth” @theDoOverGuy "]. That every night, he starts to check out everything Real Estate. He connects with an relative that worked in real estate and managed to get himself a job at her agency. But no one became rich working for the "man".Magic FormulaMatt:                It was on a Saturday we had an appointment with a client and for him to sign some papers. I showed up on a Saturday with my suit and tie had all the papers laid out on the desk, ready for him to sign and he shows up, I don’t know, 20 minutes later or so and he’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt, signs all the papers and he’s off on his way and now I am stuck on a Saturday left to process his paperwork and then go hold his house open. And I was like, wow if real estate is really the final frontier where wealth is created, I think I’m sitting on the wrong side of the desk because that guy is enjoying life on a Saturday and I’m working. In fact I was working probably 60 – 70 hours a week as a real estate agent.Matt then invested in training and education. He enrolled in courses and began to read. He consumed business books. Books such as Rich Dad, Poor Dad, The Four Hour Week, Gary Keller’s Millionaire Real Estate , and Tony Robbins books. But there one one difference.Matt:                Indeed, but there is a difference and I’ve kind of mentioned it…not a difference but there’s a caveat there. I mean all that information is essentially free and a lot of people read those books. I read and a lot of people have read those books and a lot of people love those books but I think they just kind of read them as entertainment.Yes they educated themselves, they know a little bit more but I somehow was able to do what they told me to do where a lot of other people were just, oh that’s good, I feel really good.So yes, education, essential but you got to back that education with consistent action unless that education is really not…it doesn’t manifested that knowledge is power. The knowledge backed by action is actually what creates the power.Matt:                There’s a Chinese proverb,  To Know and Not Do is To Not Know All. And I read that and I was like, wow I know a lot of stuff but if I’m not doing it, I don’t really know it.What I heard, that absolutely floored me and I’ve had many an occasion to think about what Matt said. Many of us read a lot of books, read many many business books and can quote off the books we have read. But if we had taken just five business book and applied everything in those book, the future may have been different.Next time you pick up a business book or a self-help book and you read through that and you feel good about it, remember; To Know and Not Do is To Not Know at all Links, Resources & MentionsMatt's Website - www.MattTheriault.comMatt on TwitterMatt on FacebookListen To Matt's Full Interview Below[powerpress]Subscribe & Never Miss An Episode.Click on the Platform of Your Choice