Episode# 033: How to become a millionaire with Chris Hogan
This episode has the legit steps to become a millionaire (no joke).
Let me explain.
Okay, so I saw this guy speak when I went to leadership conference a few years back and I was captivated. He got up there and shared from his heart about all of the everyday people he worked with who successfully became a millionaire. At first (per usual) I was skeptical. He talked about everyone from teachers to firefighters to lawyers to entrepreneurs and how they followed these steps to become what he calls an “everyday millionaire”.
That guy is Chris Hogan and he wasn’t joking.
In fact, he studied over 10,000 “everyday millionaires” (normal people making normal incomes) and he extracted what they were doing and how they were doing it and wrote a book that - in my humble opinion - is going to shine HOPE on this world. No kidding.
If any part of you would like more freedom of time, finances and to learn how you can become a millionaire, too (or if you’re skeptical like I was)... this one's for you!
chris, what did your path look like, your upbringing? what made you end up here today?
I was raised in a lower middle-income family, Kentucky, and my family's very competitive. So growing up when we'd play cards or board games, it was like the mini Olympics. I was preprogrammed early in life. That battle is necessary. Battle is good and winning is fantastic. But being around people that were just amazing mentors for me and my family, my teachers that I was around, and especially my athletic coaches, I've been fortunate to have people to see more, I think in me than maybe I saw it myself at an early age, but I was always coachable. I was always willing to learn and be a sponge.
And so I think that those skills have all translated. I'm moving into the business world, not having much fear because as entrepreneurs we don't have fear, right? We'll take risks, we'll do things. We don't always plan ahead necessarily and understand things because we have this desire and this drive. And so I think all of those things have made me very aware now of understanding the importance, not only of just planning, but also precision. That I want to make sure that I'm aiming my resources, my time, my talent, and my energy and focus in the right direction and for the right result.
Can you talk about that coach you had that changed a big trajectory of your life?
This was back when I was around 11 or 12. And a coach was taking to a group of us and there were three of us in his car at this time. He had taken one friend home and we lived in a more affluent area out and I'll never forget, we dropped him off and it was myself and another guy in there. And as well as my friend that lived there, we dropped him off and then the coach and the two of us would drive into our side of town. And the coach before he pulled out of the neighborhood, he said, hey guys, I just want you all to look around and realize that you could have a house like this one day if you want. He said, you can do this.
This is something you can do. And my other friend continued to talk about something else and I kind of tuned out for the next five minutes. I began to look around and I looked at things differently. I had seen those homes, but I had never visualized me in one of those. I had never thought about it. And it was a statement that he made that really started, not only resonate in my head, it started to really ping around in my heart and I had to start to look at things a little bit differently and start making some choices for myself.
Why don’t most people think or realize it’s possible for them to be millionaires?
Oftentimes whenever we're presented with that question like that, the first place that we go within ourselves, right? We go inside ourselves and we start to ask, is this something that I've ever heard that I could do? Do I believe my close family thinks this is something that could be done. And so the natural response is resistance. I think that's a normal thing initially. But I think what people need to do is really start to drill into and understand there are three areas that are imperative. What you believe the knowledge you have and the action that you take really determined the trajectory of your life. So the doubt people have, it's not anything that I would be offended by it. I actually expect it.
But here's what I tell America. I tell the world. I don't care where you come from. All I'm worried about is where you're going, which means we've all had setbacks, we've all had challenges. And in different start points in our lives, but the reality is that we don't need a permission slip. There's no one that can sign this that gives us the magic. That's the goal. We get to decide that each and every day.
The crisis of responsibility
Wherever you are financially, it's because you allowed it.
More and more people are giving up ownership of their own lives and waiting for someone else or the government or their family or society or the universe to fix it.
What are some things we can do to help people when they're stuck in that way of thinking?
Oftentimes you have a lot of people that are still thinking of that way and I don't see them as a lost cause. I see them as an opportunity. Which simply means they need to shift their frame of reference. I had a friend of mine that was battling cancer. And in my opinion, if anybody that deserves to go through a period of negative was him. But instead he said “I'm getting an opportunity to show people how to handle it.” And I thought, WOW, here's a person that deserves to be able to be a little negative and a little frustrated and a little irritated, but they're still choosing good. Look at it a different way.
That goes back to the whole concept of glass half full/half empty. It's your perception, your perspective. I think people have moved from being of the mindset where we have to blame somebody because if we can blame someone else, we don't have to take personal responsibility. This is a personal choice that people are making. So I just want to encourage people just to look at it differently and just decide for yourself and it's a thing you have to train yourself to do. This is not something that just happens overnight. It's like you said, you grew up in a family that had this certain mindset and thought process. And what we have to realize this as adults, we get to choose for ourselves. Our parents dictated things when we were younger. But as an adult we have the power of choice.
You studied over 10,000 millionaires. Can you tell us a little bit about those people? What were some of the common threads and themes of these everyday millionaires?
Well, I can tell you this, the thing that just blew me away was their stories. Everyone automatically thinks of the fancy lady in a fancy business suit leaning on an expensive car in front of a big house. And the reality is that these are everyday hardworking men and women that are working regular jobs. They're not C suite executives. The number one top three jobs of these millionaires over 10,000 number one was engineer, which doesn't make sense, right? Engineer's plan stuff, number two are accountants. That makes sense. Number three are teachers like college and high school teachers and professors and it, that blew me away because teachers are, in my opinion, underpaid (and underappreciated).
It's not about your income like a lot of people believe you need a big income. Not True. 30 of these millionaires didn't have a six-figure income household. That means if two of them were working outside of the home combined, they didn't make six figures. So it's not about your job, it's not about your income, it's about your plan. It's about being intentional. And walking through the process of putting yourself on a path to become a millionaire.
The mindset of breaking the cycle.
My first book returned inspired released in 2016 and I'll never forget this as long as I live. I was out in Denver doing a book signing and I looked at the line of the lines, decent size and I'm excited. A lady, single mom, African American, she's got a son that's about 10. She's standing in the line, she's holding my book and she gets up to me and
I said “Hello, how are you?”
She says, “I'm great now.”
I said “Well, that's fantastic, can I sign your book?”
She said, “nope.”
I said “Well, do you want to take a picture?”
She said, “nope.”
I said, “Well, ma'am, what, what can I do for you?”
She said “I waited in line to tell you this, and she said…The cycle ends here.”
I want people to hear and understand that where you are right now is not the end result. Where are you standing right now regardless of your financial situation? Is the opportunity for you to have a start point for you to think differently about yourself, for you to think differently about what's possible if you just start to take actions that puts yourself on that path. And I assure you, if you decide right now and you wake up tomorrow and you decide and you keep following that decision tree each and every day, you will achieve more than you ever thought possible.