I'm going to show you how to invest your

money to turn cash into more cash. And

it doesn't matter how much experience

you have. The rules are the same. After

building and exiting three companies,

becoming a multi-millionaire at 28, and

voted number one angel investor in

Canada, here's what I've learned. Rich

people don't start with stocks. There's

actually two more stages before that

that most people completely skip. And

that's what keeps them broke. Starting

with stage one, trade your time. There's

only two things you can trade to get

more money. Time and money. When you're

young, you invest your time. You got all

the time in the world. You get around

mentors. You show up. You work late. You

stack skills. You build reps.

Essentially, you use your time to invest

in you to get a return. Time is the

first resource you ever have. You can

waste it or you can invest it. Dude,

when I didn't have all the money, I used

my drive time to learn, listen to

audiobooks. I got around other people

that were smarter and I got curious and

quiet and I executed so they'd want to

pour more into me. I took on projects

where I didn't necessarily get paid a

lot so that I could get exposed to

bigger ideas. I took my time and I put

myself in a place where the time got me

a return. You can make decent money

trading your time, but eventually you're

going to hit a wall because you won't

have a shortage of money. That'll start

to pile up, but you will have a shortage

of time. Stage two, buy back your time.

Think about it. When I hire a stock

broker to invest for me, I'm buying

their expertise to invest in a market

that I don't have to go learn so that I

can get the return without doing the

time. Warren Buffett is literally

deploying billions of dollars into

companies and he's buying all that time

it took to build that company using his

money. One of the best ways to figure

out where to buy back your time is using

a process I call the buyback loop. The

first thing we have to do is audit our

calendar. We have to look at everything

we've done over the last two weeks and

really write it down. Then you highlight

everything in green that lights you up,

everything in red that takes your

energy, and then yellow is kind of

mediocre. And right next to it, I write

down, is this a $1 sign cheap to pay

somebody else to do for me, or is it a

$4 sign if I had to pay somebody to do

things at my level? Then you grab

everything that is a$1 or $2 sign in

cost that's red or yellow, and you make

a bucket, and you put it in a bucket.

What you do with that bucket is to

transfer your task. Delegate the red

stuff, the yellow stuff, the low value

stuff to anybody else. So you want to

invest your money to get all those

things out of your calendar to other

people so that you can go to three,

which is fill your time with high

leverage work. These are the things that

light you up that make you a ton of

money. For most people, these are

revenue generating activities, things

when you're out there talking to people,

talking to customers, understanding the

product, the innovation. It's not

getting bogged down in emails and

scheduling and purchasing stuff that

other people could easily do for you.

You see, in business, you don't want to

just hire people to grow your business.

You want to hire people to buy back your

time so that you end up not overwhelming

yourself and you can make more money. I

have two incredible people in my life.

Ann, who is my executive assistant now

chief of staff, she handles everything.

My calendar, my appointments, my emails,

all the interactions with different

people in my life. She essentially

manages the professional side. Then I

have Betty who manages our house, all my

real estate, all my vehicles, and she

reports to Ann. Those two people buy me

literally a 100 hours a week that allows

me to invest my time in things that make

me millions of dollars. And look, if

you're hiring an executive assistant,

but have no idea how to work with them.

I have a complete EA playbook that

teaches everything. It's what I use with

my assistant. Every template, every

workflow, everything my EA uses daily.

If you want it, just go to Instagram,

Dan Martell, and DM me the word YouTube

EA and I'll send it right over. People

will say to me like, Dan, I can just do

this better myself. I say, of course you

can. The problem is is that you'll

always be stuck being the person that

can do this. You never learn how to work

through somebody. The next level for

most people is actually learning to let

go. See, most people like to spend time

to save money. I will drive 20 minutes

out of the way to save 3 cents on gas. I

like to spend money to save time. And

because I'm a good time trader, it's why

I've been able to create the wealth in

my life. So, now that you bought back

your time, we can move on to stage

three. Let your money work for you. I

just learned this simple concept when I

was young, that I need to get my money

to do the work where it makes me enough

money where I don't have to work. See,

most people start here cuz they think

that's what they're supposed to do. And

that's why they stay stuck. They start

investing in funds and stocks and real

estate because they got a little extra

money and they want to feel rich. And

I'm investing. The problem is is they're

not good enough yet. And even if they're

good enough, they haven't learned how to

buy back their time. And that's why they

stay stuck. Now we're ready to have our

money make money for us. See, the 1%

don't get rich from stocks. They got

rich from stage two. They got rich from

understanding how to buy back their time

so they can make more money. So they

have a lot of money to invest in things

where they have equity, where they own

things. When I was in my mid20s and I

started to pile up my cash, I realized

that I had enough money to invest in

other businesses. And that's when I

became an angel investor. One of those

deals, for example, was a company called

Intercom. So, the founder shows up at

our office. I'd met him at an event. He

shows me this new product. I think it's

cool. I've got money saved up to make

those kind of investments. He's telling

me he's going to meet with Marissa Mayor

from Google and Jack from Twitter. So, I

invest. That company became a

multi-billion dollar company. And when

you ask me how much time I put in, the

answer is none. I deployed my money, my

money grew, and I got really good at

making those investments. That's why I

became the number one angel investor in

Canada because I bought back my time to

learn the skills to find the

entrepreneurs to invest in that allowed

me to have my money work for me. I've

learned that having money in a bank

account doing nothing for me is not how

I get my money to work for me. And what

my job is is being a professional

capital allocator. I got money. I want

to allocate it. What do you got? Here's

my portfolio. Here's what I know. I

stick to what I know and I put my money

to work. To me, dollars are like little

potential workers that need to be put to

work. If you leave them in your bank

account cuz you're like, "Oh, this feels

safe." They're not working for you.

There should not be money just sitting

around waiting. Waiting, yes, to be put

to work, but not just like lazily

hoarding it up. When you get to this

stage, here's a few things that I think

about to make sure I know where to put

my money. First, I like to invest in

what I know. My new philosophy is unless

I have an unfair advantage investing in

something because of my background

experience, I'm not going to do it. I

either put my money into boring

investments like the S&P through an

index fund with low fees or I invest in

software in technology cuz that's what I

know. I remember one of my mentors said

to me, he said, "Dan, making money is

easy. Keeping it is hard. When you get a

lot of money, take half, put that in the

don'ting lose it pile and the rest of

it, that's what you get to reinvest in

yourself, in your business, in growing

things." You know, you want to hear a

good story. This is hilarious. I'm not

an idiot, but sometimes I can act like

one. Guy comes to me and he's like,

"Hey, I got this investment where if you

invest in medical supplies through this

nonprofit, we can give you a triple

return receipt on your money to write

off on your taxes." And I was like, I

hate taxes. Tell me all about it. And he

even brought me to a seminar. And I went

to this seminar and there's 100 people

in the room and they're talking about

this investment strategy and here's how

it works and then we give you this. So,

we did it. Seven years later, I end up

paying hundreds of thousands of dollars

in back taxes because I listened to

somebody explain something I couldn't

explain. So, make sure that you can

explain your investments in one simple

sentence to somebody that doesn't know a

lot. If it's too complicated, stay away

from it. The second is the investment

has to always be true. See, if you're

always chasing fads, you will get burned

by the fads cuz essentially all you're

doing is playing a lottery game. I'm a

software guy. I'm an innovation guy. I

look for where the future is going. But

in my decisions to invest, I'm still

following the human part of it. I'm not

sitting here going like, "Oh, I think in

the future humans won't talk to each

other. I think they'll just beam things

through their brain." That might happen.

But if I'm investing today, I'm not

investing at that level. I'm investing

in things that are aligned, right? What

will humans always need? They'll always

need housing. They'll always need food.

They'll always need experiences. They'll

always need clothing. These are things

that will always be true. They might

change in the vehicle that it's

delivered, right? It used to be

delivered on a horse, then a car, and

now it's over the internet. But humans

will always buy stuff. Those are like

the fundamentals. And then the third is

play the long game. If somebody came to

me and said, "Hey man, I can make you

10x on your money in the next 6 months."

I say, "Cool, no thanks." They're like,

"But don't you want to know how to get

rich?" Good news is I'm already rich by

not playing that game. I like to play

long games. If I'm going to invest my

money, I want it to make me a lot of

money over a long period of time. Why?

Cuz then I'm saving my time. I know some

people that actively manage their

portfolio that do worse than managers

and they lie to themselves and they're

spending all their times refreshing,

checking the stock, doing this. I'm

like, bro, why don't you go do the thing

that makes you the most money and put

your money in this thing that averages

10, 12% a year and has for 100 years and

go stock more cash into the vehicle.

Don't play short-term games, especially

with short-term people. All right, stage

one is where you got your money. Stage

two is where you bought back your time.

Stage three is where you put your money

to work. And stage four is where you

build real wealth. Stage four, own the

thing. One of my early mentors when I

moved to San Francisco, this guy named

Naval Ravocant told me this and was very

clear. Wealth is created by owning

things. Wealth is not created by

working. You can't work enough hours to

create the kind of wealth that anybody

in Silicon Valley was talking about. You

have to get there by owning equity. Now,

you either own equity in the business

that you built or you own equity in

other companies. Like we talked about in

the last stage, the stock market may get

you 10% a year and it may even make you

a millionaire, but it's not going to get

you to the point where you can do

anything with anybody at any time. That

is rarified air and that's what I'm

talking about. How many people do you

know that invested in the stock market

and still aren't rich, aren't free, and

many of them had to go back to work

because the market went like this right

when they're about to retire? I know a

lot of 70-year-old people that are still

working because they thought the market

was going to solve the problem for them.

You can become a millionaire investing

in the stock market. Cool. But if you

want to get to a place where you have

millions of dollars being generated

every month when you're not working, you

have to own your own thing. You have to

own equity in other people's things.

See, rich people don't rent wealth. They

own it. If you look at the Forbes list,

100% of them made that money because

they own the business they were in and

then they took the cash and they

invested in other businesses that they

also own. Because equity is the only

asset where the upside is uncapped. Even

in real estate, when people buy a

building, they're like, "Hey, I bought a

32 unit multif family building." Cool.

Guess what? You can't make it do more.

Sure, you can do some value ads. Sure,

you can get some resoning. Sure, you can

try to squeeze as much as you can. Sure,

there's some tax benefit. But at the end

of the day, a business that's growing

without you there can grow as big as it

possibly can. My dad doesn't understand

why I still do what I do because his

perspective is that if you show up, you

work. He doesn't know how I work. So

every time I've sold a company, he

thought, "Okay, you're going to retire.

Okay, you're going to retire. Okay, why

are you still creating?" Because he

doesn't understand what I just shared

with you guys is that I've used my money

to invest in people. So the companies

I'm involved in, I don't operate them.

I've taken my money to invest it in

things I know because I will bet on me

every day all day more than some

money manager in the market. So yes, 50%

of my money. Don't lose it. I

have a great team. They battle test it.

Legal, insurance, and infrastructure and

all that stuff, tax, capital gains,

awesome. Don't lose my money

over here. I invest in me. I invest in

the people. I invest in my companies. I

invest in things that I own where the

equity continues to roll in and grow a

lot faster. So if you're good at

something and you know how to do

something, not investing in that more,

align other people around it, that

ecosystem is a huge missed opportunity.

And that's why I've built Martell

Ventures. Essentially, it's a studio for

me to build tools like Apex that helps

me build other tools within Martell

Ventures and the whole ecosystem of

talent and people in my world. I get a

place to go create with them. For me,

that is my empire. When I wrote in my

book, Buy Back Your Time, Build Your

Empire, that's what I meant. There's a

world where you could create for

yourself that you almost feel guilty for

how you interact and work with the

people because everybody's amazing.

Everybody's building something. And from

an equity point of view, you have big

pieces in each one of those. If you

haven't watched my video on how I'm

building a billion-dollar company, go

check it out. I show you the people, the

process, the whole thing. I'm building

it in public. The best investment I've

ever made wasn't a stock. It wasn't real

estate. It was building a company I

could sell. Even if I never wanted to

sell it, a company that I could sell is

a great company to run. And maybe your

next stage is hiring that person to help

you run it so that you can go work on

bigger things. So don't just graduate

from one stage and get really good at

making money or the next stage and

buying back your time and then chilling

out on a beach. Stack all four. Each

stage feeds the next one. And the higher

you go, the bigger the swings.

Now, if you're still trying to make some

money, let me share this with you. Your

bank account is a lagging indicator of

who you are. What you believe you're

capable of, what you believe you're

worth, right? And you'll never get what

you want. You get who you are. And if

you don't realize that you got to become

the person first, the person that

believes it, then the money will never

catch up. So, understand these are

tactics and strategies, but the best way

to invest is by looking at the person in

the mirror. So, just leave me a comment

below and let me know what you needed to

hear most. What resonated with you most

today that you can take with you to

elevate to the next stage. And remember,

if you want my full executive assistant

playbook that I use with my own EAS,

just DM me the word YouTube EA on

Instagram and I'll send it right over.

Now, if you've ever wondered why dumb

people make more money than you, click

here and I'll see you on the other