Stop spending money on stupid stuff.

It amazes me how many people are walking around looking the part, playing the role of the person who has a bunch of money. Ironically, many people who are trying so hard to look and play that part don’t actually have money.

When I first started in door-to-door sales, we were the top producing team in the region. I was managing a group of about fifteen to twenty guys, and we were knocking doors to sell solar. There was a big team competition, and whoever won was able to take their team to do some group activity.

We decided to go to a nice restaurant down in Beverly Hills and have the company pick up the tab. We went to this restaurant called Fogo de Chao – a Brazilian steakhouse.

If your cholesterol is getting a little bit too healthy and you want to bump it up, then I highly recommend going there for a few days.

That time in the restaurant was my first glimpse of anybody with real money. I grew up in a poor town with not a lot of opportunities – where the fanciest restaurant was Chilis.

Talking to the waiter in this new environment, we asked, “What famous people have you seen come in?”

He told us about the UCLA football team – how much meat they would eat before or after games and stuff like that. He listed some celebrities he’d seen walk in. Eventually, we ended up talking about the wealthiest people who come in.

What he told us was pretty surprising. The wealthiest people who came into the restaurant were the most unassuming guests. He said, “If I see somebody walk in and they’ve dressed to the nines, wearing a $15,000 watch, sunglasses, designer shoes, and a three-piece suit, I know that they have money. However, they don’t have a lot of money. They’re trying to prove to everybody else how much money they have because that’s where they find significance. He went on to explain that the people who have real money, the ones from the 90210 zip code, would walk into the restaurant wearing sweat pants and a tee-shirt, or a pair of jeans and a sweater. They’re the most unassuming people out there because they don’t care what people think. They have everything that they could ever want or need.

I remember being tempted all the time – and I still am to this day – to go out and buy my dream car – an Audi R8. It’s taken a lot of discipline not to get those things, not to drive the exotic cars, wear expensive watches, or get a custom suit made.

I find so much more value in taking that money and investing it into things that produce more money. When I do make those types of decisions, they can be made on a whim without it affecting my bank account.

Get mentors, get people in your life that you can learn from. Look at what they’ve done in the past, the mistakes they’ve made, and learn from them.

Economies change. There’s a correction coming at some point, and you don’t want to be the guy caught with your pants down, having to get your car repossessed because you overleveraged yourself in a time when things were going well.

Grant Cardone was driving a used Camry when he had over a million dollars liquid in his bank account. That takes a lot of discipline, but he went out and bought an apartment building and then bought another one, then bought another one, and now he bought a Rolls Royce cash. He flies around a $45 million jet that he paid for cash. He does whatever he wants now because he was willing to make the sacrifices early.

Get used to practicing that as well.

• Delay gratification.
• Learn from other’s mistakes.
• Understand that money doesn’t last forever.
• Play the long game.
• Stop spending your money on dumb stuff.