If you’re like most people, you’d love to have a six or seven figure income.
However, the process for how to get there has always been a little elusive or out of reach.
Is the answer to just put in more hours, work harder, and eventually try to work your way up within your job or career?
Or should you get involved in real estate and invest in the market or stocks?
Or should you start your own business and go the entrepreneurial route instead and focus on building your own empire?
The options are endless…
But what if you don’t have the time or money to start your own business? Or what if you do but you just don’t want to take the risk?
Should you start a side-hustle instead and see if it picks up traction and can actually grow into a successful business one day? That way, you can minimize risk, learn as you go, and get some extra income on the side.
After all, life is much better when you can enjoy a vacation and splurge on a luxury purchase without worrying about covering your monthly expenses.
What if I told you there was a simple way to be able to do ALL that and more?
Over the last 15 years, I’ve discovered, developed and pioneered an incredibly unique and simple framework for how to multiply your income and dramatically accelerate your path to building long-term wealth.
I’ve shared this model with millions of people worldwide.
And today, I’m excited to share this proven framework with you.
What I’m about to share with you will help you do all this, and more…
AND, it’ll help you do it faster than you may have ever even thought was possible.
This is not some theory or philosophy.
You will not get this from a book.
I created and pioneered this framework on my own from my 15-plus years of business and financial experience.
This came as a result of rolling up my sleeves and getting down and dirty in the trenches to figure out the best strategy, order, and sequence for how to build, grow, and multiply both your income and wealth… at the same time!
This framework will give you an inside-look at the “Mechanics” of Money, as well as the “who, what, why, and when” of Wealth.
Below, I’ll share more on each and explain how they work.
I’m also going to show you how you can use each of these 3 pillars to progressively increase your income and start building (towards) real long-term wealth… no matter where you’re starting from (right) now.
My hope in sharing this model with you is that it gives you a practical and direct course of action to take to not only improve your life, but also to build lifelong financial confidence.
For example: if you have an Amazon business or a Shopify business and you are “financially free” but then the algorithm changes, you’re screwed and you’re no longer free. All your income and “wealth” is wiped out.
Yet, if you understand the mechanics of money and wealth; both how it’s created, as well as how it’s grown, managed, and multiplied – you’ll gain a deep sense of financial confidence that can never be taken from you.
This will allow you to thrive and prosper in any circumstance, knowing that you can always count on yourself to build and rebuild as necessary, from wherever you are.
Regardless of whether there’s an economic downturn or a pandemic, you know deep down that you have the knowledge, resources, and resourcefulness to truly grow and thrive through any circumstance.
After reading this page, you’ll be one step closer to that, armed with knowledge and wisdom you will carry with you for the rest of your life.
It all starts by understanding the 3 most fundamental “building blocks” of money and wealth, which are the 3 pillars in The Wealth Triangle below:
Let’s dive in 🙂
The first pillar is what I call high-income skills.
How I define a high-income skill is:
A skill that has the potential to make you over $10,000/month or $100,000 a year (however you want to calculate it)
In this case, you are trading your hours for dollars.
But you’re trading your hours for high dollars.
You’re taking your skills, your experience, your talents, and you’re delivering value to the marketplace in exchange for money.
So what are high-income skills?
It’s any skill that makes you a five figure income a month, including copywriting, consulting, sales, closing, and social media management.
Even a career such as teaching ballroom dance is a high income skill if you make over $100,000 a year doing it.
Why is it important to have a high income skill?
Your high income skill gives you income and comfort.
It provides the “stability” that’s at the base of your wealth triangle, while you gain income from two other sources.
High-Income Skills are the #1 most important thing for you to develop and focus on, regardless of whether you’re just starting out or are already great at what you do and make a good living.
Continuing to focus on growing, expanding, developing and diversifying your high-income skills is one of the smartest, most high-leverage things you can do to grow your income at any stage.
When you’re able to bring several high-income skills together, you’re able to not only produce the highest level of value for your clients and customers but it also gives you the ability to command top-dollar for the quality of work that you do.
High-Income Skills are also the most critical component in many businesses. People want to do business with people who are highly skilled at what they do. When you focus on developing high-income skills, you create opportunities to generate a higher income.
Develop & Leverage A High-Income Skill that can make you $10K a month.
The majority of my books, courses, and programs are focused on how to do that.
If you’d like to discover what high-income skill you were born to do, or how to grow and develop the most highly in-demand high-income skills, check out the links in the resources box below. I’ve assembled a list of some of our top free and paid resources to explore.
Now the second piece of the puzzle is what I call a scalable business.
I define a scalable business as something you can start and grow without a whole lot of infrastructure.
For example: a restaurant is NOT a scalable business because every time you want to open a second location you have to sign a long lease and put in a lot of money to renovate the place and hire a lot of people to operate it.
This is not very leveraged or scaleable.
On the other hand, an internet type business or an eCommerce business is something that you could grow without a lot of infrastructure or overhead, and without having to hire a lot of people.
However, do not be confused by this example and think that the only way to have a scalable business is to have an online business.
A scalable business is not defined by the TYPE of business you do…. it’s defined by HOW you do it.
Here’s another example to illustrate the difference:
If you are doing SEO as a sole proprietor, making $10,000 a month – that’s a high-income skill.
If you transition that into doing reputation management for a company and you take on different types of clients and build a business model where you have a team and you’re not doing so much of the work yourself – that’s a scalable business.
What makes it a scalable business?
You’re leveraging the team, systems, and technology instead of your personal time, energy or skill.
This is what makes it a scalable business.
Again: it’s not what you do. It’s how you do it.
Why is a scalable business important?
Your high-income skills provide you with income.
Your scalable business provides you with cash-flow.
You can then use your income and cash-flow to grow your net worth with a third income source (high-return investments).
I will explain this in more detail below.
For now, here’s a brief summary of the steps to take:
Develop a high-income skill you can use to earn at least $10,000 a month.
Once you are making at least $10K a month (or $100,000/year), you can start a low-capital business (ie: an online business).
Something that doesn’t require employees or a physical location.
Apply your skills to create a scalable business and fully commit to this process until you hit at least $250,000 a year in revenue.
If you want to see a detailed roadmap of the 9 phases of growth that every company goes through in the process of going from startup to 100M+ a year in revenue, scroll down below to see “The Dragon Path” framework that I created.
This framework will help guide you through each key stage of business growth, starting from where you are right now.
It will also map out exactly what you need to do to grow to the next level.
Disclaimer: this is only applicable if you decide you want to start a scalable business.
To be clear: not everybody *should* have a scalable business.
It’s definitely not for everyone. In fact, most people aren’t cut out for it.
Business can be risky.
Cash-flow issues are what suck most small businesses dry.
Regardless of how good you are at “budgeting” – every business owner I know has hit a point where they had to dip into their savings or another source of income just to cover their expenses and/or make payroll that month.
A lot of people rack up credit card debt, take out loans and lines of credit to either get things off the ground or carry them through rough patches.
These are just a few of the unique stressors that come with having your own business. It is definitely not for the faint of heart.
Even if your business has already been proven and validated, unless it is firmly established and consistently yielding steady profits, it can take an unexpected turn that will cost you a lot of money.
I want to make this disclaimer as a word of caution:
You do NOT have to start a scalable business as a *necessary* part of your progression through The Wealth Triangle.
In fact, there are plenty of people who do very well in life by just focusing on the 1st pillar of the triangle (high-income skills) and doing it well.
If you take the income you earn with your high-income skills and properly combine it with the 3rd pillar of The Wealth Triangle (which I’ll reveal in the next section) – you can accumulate a great deal of wealth without ever having to start your own business.
In fact, I’m going to share a couple stories of people who have been able to amass a multi-million dollar Net Worth in ten years, with a low six-figure a year income and no scalable business.
But first, I want to introduce you to another important model I created for how to build a scalable business (for those who want to do that).
Following this model will show you how to grow and scale your company more intelligently.
I found there are 9 distinct stages of growth that every business goes through, throughout its company lifecycle.
After starting and growing 24+ companies through these stages, I was able to see a lot of common patterns and challenges we go through at each stage.
I had to learn to navigate these challenges successfully at each stage in order to be able to get to the next level.
What you’re about to discover is the simple framework I created in order to map out each of these stages more clearly for you.
This framework will give you a clear and simple roadmap for how to successfully scale your company through each key stage of business growth.
Note: this is the same framework I use when working with founders and CEOs inside my advanced private advisory group: Dragon100™.
My team and I regularly use this framework to help our clients scale their business through each stage predictably and sustainably (while also helping them grow into the CEO they need to become in order to do it).
This model will also give you a brief look at what kind of growth opportunities you can expect to face as a CEO at each stage, too.
When you’re able to grow past the challenges you face at each level, you’re able to “unlock” the next level of growth.
The problem is:
At each new level, you encounter a totally NEW set of obstacles.
If you compare it to a video game, there’s a new “boss” you have to beat at every level.
In other words: the strategies that got you to where you are will not get you to where you want to go.
To get to the next level of growth, you need a new set of strategies.
Not only that, but you actually need an upgrade in your overall mindset and “identity”.
You have a different role to play at each level, which is why each stage has a different name and role associated with it.
This defines who you have to grow into as a leader in order to be able to get to the next level.
This is what we help people do inside of Dragon100.
As a Dragon 100™ member, you’ll gain the skills, capabilities, resources and knowledge you need to dramatically scale your business to the next level.
Whether you want to maximize the value of your business in order to SELL it, or you just want to dominate your industry and create a global empire, or anywhere in between – we’ve got you covered.
If you’d like to learn how to get more in-depth support and advising from me as you work to grow your company, click the button below to discover more about the Dragon100™ Advisory Board.
Note: Dragon 100 is the *only* place where you can get personalized guidance, advising, and mentorship from me on your business (outside of my private consulting and equity-based advising clients).
If you want to work with me more directly, click the button below to learn more about consulting and strategic advising options.
Note: availability is limited, and is done on a case-by-case basis, by application only. To see if you qualify, click the button below to apply.
In addition to consulting and advising options, we also have two different companies within The Dan Lok Organization that focus on Investments and Acquisitions.
If you’d like to learn more about our current Investing and Acquisition opportunities, click the button below to learn more.
Note: must meet specific criteria in order to be considered.
I know it’s not as sexy as what most people think of when they think of building a “scalable” business (ie: making money while you sleep without having to do anything).
Yet, consistent positive cash-flow is the not-so-sexy part that makes it all happen.
Too many people these days decide to start a scalable business in order to “not have to work” one day.
While this may be a great goal to aspire to achieve one day (having your business run and grow without your involvement in the day-to-day operations), it’s definitely NOT where you should start when you’re just starting out.
Most people are way too focused on trying to generate “passive income” before they’ve truly figured out how to generate a consistently healthy and predictable amount of active income, first.
That’s because our culture has sold us on the dream of having a business that makes a ton of money without us having to do anything.
While this may appeal to the most primitive part of us, it’s not realistic to expect this when you are first starting out. Or even in the early stages of growth.
Focus on using your high-income skills to build consistent and positive cash-flow, first.
After that, look at how you can begin to leverage various forms of “scalable infrastructure” in order to help you free up your time, energy, effort and focus.
This can be done through technology, systems or people to help with fulfillment and delivery.
That way, you can spend more time focused on GROWING the business (instead of RUNNING the business)
Just doing this ONE thing alone can take you from $100,000 a year all the way up to $250,000 to $1M a year.
You can even grow as high as $2M – $5M/year… depending on your specific business model.
If you work on taking your business through each of the 9 key phases of business growth I outlined earlier, this is all very doable.
As you work to build your scalable business, make sure to continue to focus on your primary high-income skills. They will help ensure you are able to generate enough income, no matter what unique challenges you may encounter at each stage of business growth.
Why is this important? Because business can be risky. One unexpected event can eat up a lot of your money (especially if you’re not careful).
Even if you’re smart about how you run your company, you can never be fully prepared for an economic downturn or pandemic.
So unless your business is proven, established and consistently yielding steady profits, continue to utilize your high-income skills while you work to build a scalable business.
Your high-income skills will make you money and guarantee that you have the means to pay yourself, no matter what happens in your business.
The third component is what I call a “high-return investment”.
Now, how do I define a high-return investment?
A high-return investment is an investment that will provide you with at least a 10 percent annual return, year in and year out. In some cases it could be more.
Now, a high return investment doesn’t provide you with income, but it builds your net worth.
One example of a high-return investment is Real Estate.
I have a friend who is a high end photographer with his own team.
He makes a six figure annual income.
He started investing in real estate twenty years ago.
Today, he has a portfolio of about 250 units worth $20 to $25 million.
I share this example to show you there are people who have built a significant amount of wealth without ever having to build a scalable business.
If you’re smart with your money and put it into high-return investments, you can become very wealthy just by leveraging your high-income skills properly and then investing it wisely.
If you can boost your income to 120,000 a year, you can create a million dollar net worth in 7 to 15 years (not counting your house or car) if you keep your expenses in check.
I share this to give you a taste of what’s possible once you discover how to properly leverage “high-return investments”
Here’s one other thing I want to add to inspire you even more:
In the example I mentioned above, with my friend who’s a photographer and built a portfolio of 250 units worth $20 to $25 million on a low six figure a year income.
To be clear: he managed to do this while only focusing on just ONE high-return investment vehicle (real estate).
Imagine how much more he’d be able to do if he was able to leverage several different high-return investment vehicles?
What if you were able to do the same thing and also managed to get other investment vehicles working for you too? Things would start to add up real quick 🙂
Also: keep in mind — this example was spread out over 20 years.
If you do all the right things but fall short of my friend, you could still wind up with a couple million dollar net worth 🙂
Remember: a high-return investment doesn’t provide you with income, but it builds your net worth.
This means: you still have to continue to focus on generating consistent income and positive cash-flow in the other areas of focus.
Until your investment gets so big that you’re able to live off the interest of the “core capital” you invested.
However, if you have an existing business already, it may be best to consider investing any extra left-over capital you might have in there instead.
This is especially true if you have an existing business that’s both profitable and reliable and generates consistent cash-flow.
If that’s the case, it may be better to invest any extra money you have into marketing in order to grow your cash-flow and core capital.
You can then use this to generate more of that cash-flow to either put back into the business or re-allocate into high-return investments.
Generally speaking though: any $1 you put into your own business in the form of marketing and sales will generally generate a much higher return than most investment vehicles out there.
As business owners, we often forget about the immense power and return that we can get from our own business, when properly leveraged.
For example: there are very few places where you can invest $100 to $1,000 into marketing and advertising and see a return of $1,000 to $10,000 so quickly and so consistently, often within just a week or two.
So if you have an existing business with reliable and consistent cash-flow, I’d encourage you to reinvest any extra funds back into your business (if you’re looking to get the best possible return on your money).
However, if you don’t have a business yet…
Or if you have a business but are looking for ways to diversify your portfolio of investments, it would be wise to learn about the different “high-return investments” you can leverage.
Check out the resources below to learn more about investing…
Do you want to have money working for you? Do you want to know how to manage and invest your money better? This one secret is the reason why the rich get richer every single day.
The bigger the system is, the greater the increase. Growth whose rate becomes ever more rapid in proportion to the growing total number or size.
Growth of a system in which the amount being added to the system is proportional to the amount already present: the bigger the system is, the greater the increase.
As the great Benjamin Franklin once described it:
That’s probably the simplest explanation of compound interest you’ll ever read.
On their own, each of these 3 pillars are incredibly powerful.
The “Exponential Elevation” Effect is what happens when you combine the power of exponential growth models with proven wealth elevation principles.
The concept of “Exponential Growth” was first introduced in 1798 by Thomas Robert Malthus, an English scholar, cleric, and influential economist in the fields of political economy.
The exponential growth model is based on the idea of the function being proportional to the speed to which the function grows.
When this gets applied to money and wealth, the results are often dramatic.
For example: if you experienced a growth rate of 10-25% within each of the 3 different pillars of The Wealth Triangle – it would quickly compound and have a multiplicative effect on the overall system..
With the exponential effect you’re able to experience at each level, compounded several times, over time, you could quickly experience a 200%-300% rate of overall growth on the amount you started with.
In fact, this can happen in a very short amount of time.
This can send a giant ripple effect throughout the entire “wealth ecosystem”
As they like to say: “A rising tide lifts all ships”
This is what happens when you learn to properly leverage and apply the power of The Wealth Triangle.
You create a ripple effect that magnifies everything it touches…
These 3 currencies form the foundation of Your Personal “Wealth Blueprint”
Yet, so few people or programs ever talk about this.
The majority of people focus all their time and energy talking about marketing and sales; how to get more clients, how to make more money, grow revenue, etc.
While this is great and useful, it’s only 1/3rd of the equation. When you only focus on one part of the equation, you don’t ever truly see the big picture.
If you fall prey to short-term thinking, you don’t even see the opportunities you’re overlooking.
Profoundly powerful principles like compound interest and exponential growth.
Our short-term thinking often has us so caught up in our own limited perspectives that we often can’t even foresee or imagine the second-order consequences that we’re creating for ourselves in the future.
In other words: we don’t actually see what we’re missing out on.
Which is why it’s so vital for you to really get the importance of this.
In order to build true and lasting long-term wealth, as well as a deep sense of financial confidence that can adapt and thrive in any circumstance, you need to understand and master all 3 pillars of The Wealth Triangle.
For example: I want you to imagine hitting the “financial sweet-spot” with one of your investments and making 10% to 25% back on every $1 you invested.
Now, imagine this happened in ALL 3 pillars of The Wealth Triangle.
Meaning: you were able to grow your income, cash-flow, and return on investments by 10-30%, EACH.
This would quickly start to add up and have a very powerful multiplicative effect that would ripple throughout your entire “personal wealth ecosystem”.
Right now, you may have at least ONE of these 3 currencies working relatively well already.
Perhaps you’ve learned how to figure out how to get paid well for your high-income skills (or maybe you’re still under-charging?)
Or maybe you made a wise investment and got a good return on something.
But the question is: HOW did you get there?
It’s easy to trick yourself into thinking you have a lot more of this figured out than you really do.. especially when you start to experience success in one of these pillars.
When we experience success, we often get a false sense of confidence.
We sometimes let it get to our head and become a little cocky and overconfident. Our ego and pride can keep us from seeing clearly.
But even worse: it can keep us from being open and learning.
Which is why staying humble is so important.
That way: if someone presents us with something we could do differently, we can truly open and learn from it (instead of pushing it away with our ego because we think we’re doing fine already). To each their own, of course.
However, if you’ve only begun to leverage one or two of these pillars…
You’re leaving a HUGE amount of money and missed opportunities on the table by not learning how to properly leverage all three to the fullest.
However, you can turn that all around in a second…
All you have to do is look at all 3 of these pillars holistically.
Within minutes, you’ll be able to see where your current strength is, as well as where you might be lacking.
For example: if you struggle with income and cash-flow and it seems like there’s never enough money in the bank, you likely aren’t charging what you’re worth or you’re not properly managing and budgeting your expenses and cash-flow.
As you work with these principles and grow in all 3 pillars, you’ll notice an increase in your overall sense of financial confidence and well-being.
Money and wealth are no longer some elusive mystery reserved for a special fortunate few who are lucky enough to be “in the know”.
If you simply follow the steps I laid out in this model, here’s what might start to happen to your financial growth and confidence…
As you can see, this can quickly start to snowball, over time.
Especially if you raise your overall “exponential elevation” quotient (Which is the real X-factor and exponential multiplier here).
When this happens, you experience a rate of exponential growth that was previously unimaginable and inaccessible.
This is why people always say to “invest early” and start when you’re young. So you can take advantage of the incredibly powerful compound effect that it has over time.
The sooner you’re able to apply that same level of thinking here, the sooner you’ll be able to hit that “financial sweet-spot”.
That ‘upward hockey-stick’ form of exponential growth…
You start seeing new opportunities you’ve never seen before.
You’re able to find new ways to multiply your money.
You’re able to create more leverage through high-return investments.
As you do this, you feed each part of your “personal wealth ecosystem” which then ends up rippling out throughout every part of the system.
Once you see this working in your life, you finally start to understand what people have been saying this whole time when talking about the importance of working smarter — not harder.
It’s like a “light switch” suddenly went off and you now get it on a new level.
This is the magic behind The Wealth Triangle™ framework.
See, the real magic happens when you choose to combine and apply all 3 of these elements together to create an even greater exponential quotient for all the ‘currency’ inside your personal wealth ecosystem.
This has an even greater multiplicative effect on your life, and dramatically accelerates your growth.
The problem is: hardly anyone ever talks about this….
I know many successful people who use one or two of these elements, but very few use
all three.
When you use all three together, you’ll get to enjoy having a much greater “Exponential Elevation” Rate, which will have a positive and multiplicative effect on everything you do.
But there’s more to the story than that….
This is about so much more than just accelerating your “rate” of growth by using more pillars of the triangle.
This is about more than growing and scaling your business (or even hitting your goals and your revenue numbers).
This is about you growing your sense of “Financial Power”
This is about you elevating your financial well-being, while also creating lifelong “financial confidence”.
The kind of financial confidence that has a rock solid foundation, that is truly sustainable and scalable, that is “future-proofed” from any major economic collapse.
You can follow it in a very simple, linear and sequential way.
Although The Wealth Triangle™ framework may sound deceptively obvious and simple — do not let its simplicity fool you.
The simplicity of this model is actually one of the true markers of its genius.
Leonardo DaVinci, a famous renaissance artist, italian polymath and creative genius once said:
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication”.
The great Albert Einstein echoed the mastery found in simplicity in another quote saying:
“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”.
So if this sounds a little simple or obvious when I explain these principles, you have to understand that I’ve spent the last 15 years learning, growing and mastering these elements through trial-and-error, in order to be able to stand here today and convey them so simply.
Here’s what I can promise you:
If you follow this simple 3 step path I just laid out for you, you’ll be able to grow your income quite quickly and dramatically accelerate the process of building true and lasting long-term wealth.
By sharing this model with you, I hope to provide you with a practical course of action to improve your life (while also helping you build true and lasting, financial confidence, long term)
The reason I stress the importance of building “financial confidence” so much is because everyone else in the industry is always talking about ‘passive income’ and ‘financial freedom’
But the truth is: there’s really no such thing as financial freedom, only financial confidence.
Just because you are free today doesn’t mean you are free tomorrow.
Everything can change overnight, in any business.
At the rate everything is evolving right now — especially technology — it’s very likely that everything we know will change before our eyes.
It may not happen overnight, but it always happens faster than we think.
Mastering these foundational wealth principles is what will give you the strength and resilience to truly adapt and thrive through any circumstance.
If you understand the deeper mechanics behind money and wealth; both in how it’s created as well as how it’s grown, managed, and multiplied – you’ll have a deep sense of financial confidence that can never be taken from you.
No matter what happens, you’ll move through a world with a deep sense of confidence, knowing you can adapt and prosper in the face of any challenge.
Whether it’s an economic downturn or a pandemic, you have the knowledge, resources, and resourcefulness inside you to rise to the challenge and thrive.
You now have a deep understanding of the three most fundamental “building blocks” to building wealth.
Each of these 3 pillars are three VERY different ways to do it.
In fact, the way you approach each of these 3 pillars will vary a great deal based on where you’re starting from today.
Now herein lies the challenge…
People who want a higher income often ask me:
“What should I invest in?”
“What business should I start?”
My reply is none.
They think investments or a business is the way to make more money (even though they have low income)
Develop a high-income skill first and make that $10,000 a month.
Trade hours for high dollars because this gives you stability.
Before you try to work on the other 2 parts of the wealth triangle, make sure you get this part right first.
People who hate their job and are working in corporate often quit in order to start their own business.
But without the proper knowledge and skills, they usually fail.
Here’s the bitter truth no one ever told you about starting your own business:
You need high-income skills in order to succeed in business.
Let me give you an example of why these high-income skills are so important…
Let’s say I’m a “social media manager”.
I’ve been doing eCommerce, working with clients, helping them with social media, and driving traffic to their website. I’m making six figures a year.
Suddenly, I see an opportunity: a product I can sell online using social media to drive traffic to it.
By the time I start that business, I already have the skills.
I’ve got what it takes in social media, online marketing, and driving traffic.
I’ve already done it, and so now I’m stacking on my previous success.
Many entrepreneurs don’t have high-income skills but they find what they think is a scalable business and sink their entire life savings into it. You see it happen a lot on entrepreneurial shows like Dragon’s Den or Shark Tank.
They don’t know anything about business but they came up with this amazing idea, mortgaged their house, put up everything they owned, borrowed from family and friends and now they have 2,000 board games sitting in their garage.
Then, they ask the Dragons (the investors on Dragon’s Den) to give them money to invest in their business to get it going… and the Dragons say No.
Because they know the risks involved.
I made similar mistakes in my own businesses, too.
The difference is: I was always focused on how to increase my earning ability with high-income skills since my days as a copywriter in my early 20’s. Then later as a consultant, coach and speaker too.
So although I made some bad investments like: doing 10 tech ventures as an angel investor and losing money on all 10 deals…
Or going into marketing and losing money…
My high-income skills were very consistent from year to year.
This is what gave me my base income and a sense of security through all those years. I eventually made loads of money from my other investments, but I knew that I could always count on my ability to make money for my base income using my high-income skills.
While I built my scalable businesses, my high-income skills continued to make me money; making $15,000 as a speaker on stage or $100,000 as a consultant.
Trading hours for dollars, yes.
But the key is: trading hours for HIGH dollars.
If you’d like discover what high-income skills YOU can leverage to help you trade your hours for high dollars, click the link below to take the quiz and find out the #1 high-income skill you were born to do.
This will help you build a stable secure and reliable income, regardless of whether you decide to build a scalable business or not.
If you’re not ready to start your own business and just want to learn how to create a new income stream outside of your current job, this quiz will help you figure out how to do that too:
In my line of work, I often see CEOs or founders trying to build a scalable business.
However, the majority of them are not actually not meant to do that. At least, not yet.
Why? because they lack the leadership skills needed to do that.
Building a scalable business requires you to leverage OTHER people’s time and energy effectively (instead of yours).
This requires good management and leadership.
Management and leadership is a VERY different skill set to learn than the skillset it takes to market and sell yourself successfully.
Most entrepreneurs don’t realize this until later, though. Often much later.
This usually happens after they’ve passed 100K-500K/year mark and have tried to hire contractors and employees to help them grow but then started running into issues and had to fire them or had them quit.
Most entrepreneurs end up burning through people left and right, unable to find the freedom or leverage they were truly hoping for when they started their business.
Then, they end up feeling like they lost out on a bunch of money AND time. Time and money spent training that person, and then even more money and time trying to replace that person.
The truth is: you don’t have to be a big business owner to do well in life.
Yes, we often read about entrepreneurs who sell their company for $50 million or $100 million.
However, you never hear about the guy who just LOST a 100 million dollars. He or she is not on the cover of a magazine. You only see the ones who made it, not the 10,000 that failed.
That’s because when people fail, it’s not very entertaining to talk about it.
For example”: Elon Musk built this company and sold it for millions of dollars. He had a vision, started two companies, lost all his money and was in debt. He was days from bankruptcy. But he raised the money and now he’s one of the smartest and most successful people on the planet.
So in regards to whether you should invest in a business or invest in yourself? I would say: invest in yourself first.
Warren Buffet said investing in yourself is the best thing that you can do.
Anything that improves your own talents is a great investment, because nobody can tax it or take it away from you.
If you’ve maximized your talent, you’ve got a tremendous asset that can return 10 fold.
Now what I did is I stacked my high income skills.
First, I developed copywriting.
Then I learned to sell on the phone.
From sales, I learned how to do marketing.
Then, I transitioned into consulting when I noticed people didn’t know how to set up a marketing strategy.
After that, I evolved into speaking, such as platform selling.
Then I started doing joint ventures and deal making.
Over the years, I’ve gained a treasure chest of skills.
These are all these tools on my tool belt, that I can call on anytime and make money with it.
Each of these skills has the power to make me several hundred thousand a year at minimum.
Many of them make me millions a year.
I don’t think I can ever stress the value and importance of this enough.
Take the time to build high-income skills.
Then, stack multiple high-income skills on top of that.
You will never regret the time, energy or effort that you put into learning, growing or developing your high-income skills.
They will pay you back over and over again, in multiples, throughout your life.
Not everybody should have a scalable business.
It’s definitely not for everyone.
In fact, most people simply aren’t cut out for that.
The good news is: you don’t need to have a scalable business to live a good life or to build true long-term wealth.
In fact: you can become very wealthy just by learning how to properly leverage your high-income skills well and then putting a portion of the extra money you make back into “high return investments”
Here’s what I found:
“If you can boost your income to 120,000 a year, you should be able to create a million dollar net worth in 7 to 15 years (not counting your house or car) if you keep your expenses in check.”
For example: I have a friend who is a high end photographer with his own team. He makes a six figure income.
He started investing in real estate twenty somewhat years ago.
Today, he has a portfolio of about 250 units worth $20 to $25 million.
So do you *need* to have a scalable business? No.
If you want to start one, make sure you’re up for the challenge of it and follow along through the model that maps out the key stages of business growth under Pillar #2.
And remember:
A scalable business is not about the TYPE of business you do. It’s HOW you do it.
For example: a lot of people join network marketing because it’s a scalable business.
The challenge is: 99% of people don’t make money in network marketing.
Why? Because they are using network marketing as an “escape” from their job.
But you can’t escape from something, you’ve got to escape to something.
You can’t escape from your job and jump into something to get rid of it.
Many who try network marketing or multilevel marketing (MLM) get rejected and say it’s terrible. Yet, there are other people who are making a lot of money with MLM marketing, and others making no money.
Just like in real estate, there are people making a lot of money and people making none. It’s the same. It all depends on YOU.
So whatever you decide to go into — whether it’s a scalable business, a network marketing company, or a real-estate venture — make sure you go into it with the RIGHT MINDSET.
This is the #1 most critical key to the success of ANY venture.
So, let’s say you’ve got your high income skills and you’ve started your scalable business.
When should you invest in something else?
Here’s the answer:
When your scalable business makes so much money you don’t know what to do with it.
That’s when you invest.
You don’t invest when you are still struggling and only making a few thousand a month.
Many people making $2500 at their job see an infomercial about buying real estate with no money down and then fall for the idea because they think it will get them out of the rat race.
They buy the course for $69.95, and pay in two easy payments.
They learn about real estate, buy a couple pieces of real estate, and then the tenant suddenly moves out. Then, they have repairs to make, no money to do the repairs, and then go into foreclosure.
They lose everything and form a belief around how investing in real estate doesn’t work. But the reason it didn’t work was because they didn’t have the first piece of The Wealth Triangle in place (the actual skills).
Regardless of what you decide to do start by focusing on the high-income skills that will get you to at least $100,000 a year in income.
Why am I so insistent on you getting to $100,000 a year in income?
After you have your high-income skills and are making $100,000 a year, there’s a BIG shift that starts to happen.
Less than six percent of the population makes over $100,000 a year.
Less than one percent of the population makes over $325,000 a year in income.
When you reach that high of a percentile, something changes.
Suddenly you start to see yourself as one of the top income earners in society.
Then, you begin to stabilize this as your “new normal”.
For example: it’s very rare to see someone who makes five figures a month, drop down to making only $2,000 a month.
Why? Because the $10,000 a month has become their new comfort zone.
If their income drops below that, they will do whatever they can to get back to $10,000. It becomes their new normal.
One of your goals should be increasing your income every year.
It doesn’t matter if it’s five percent or ten percent a year.
Keep increasing it and increasing your value.
One thing you can do to increase your income is to start a scalable business.
When your scalable business is generating a lot of cash, put it into high return investments.
This will grow your net worth every month and give you stability.
If you’re nervous about starting a scalable business but you’ve already developed a high-income skill and have a good amount of experience under your belt, you actually lower your risk of failure and also increase your chance of success.
If you don’t want to build a scalable business to generate cash-flow, you don’t have to. You can increase your income in other ways.
One thing you can do to increase your income is to start learning more high-income skills.
You can also start “combining” and “stacking” several high-income skills together in new ways to create even more valuable offerings in the marketplace.
This provides additional avenues to generate income. It also creates more value to offer to your clients/customers or your employer(s).
In short: you can never go wrong by developing your high-income skills and being innovative in how you use them to create more value.
When you have a high income skill, it tells me a few things about you:
You’re probably good with people. You have a good work ethic. And you’re probably at ease with selling and delivering a lot of value to the marketplace. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be at that income level.
That means: if you were to decide to transition into a scalable business with all that experience under your belt, you lower your risk and also increase your chance of success.
Another reason why it’s so advantageous to have a high-income skill *before* you get involved in a scalable business is because something like this could happen:
Let’s say you start an eCommerce business… it’s growing, you’re acquiring customers and driving traffic and it’s doing well. You decide to scale it. But where do you come up with the money to do that?
All your money is put back into the business.
You have a model that works but you have no money to scale it.
At this point, you could take out a loan or bring in an outside investor and give them percentages of your equity to fund your expansion and growth.
But when you have your high income skill first, you have money to scale.
You know your bills are taken care of, so you can invest all your profit back into the business (if you wanted to).
Some people have a scalable business they want to grow but they also need to eat. So they take more of the profit out to pay for their day-to-day expenses, which slows down their growth.
Having a high-income skill gets rid of this problem. You’re able to cover your expenses without having to pull money out of your business.
This allows you to reinvest ALL the profit you make back into your business to fund and accelerate its growth.
The Wealth Triangle was designed to be used by both Entrepreneurs and Employees, alike.
Whether you are an employee, contractor, service provider, entrepreneur or business owner… applying the 3 pillars in this framework will transform your financial destiny.
If you’re a Coach, Consultant, Adviser, Mentor or Sales Professional, learning and applying this methodology will not only transform YOUR financial future, but it will also help you transform the lives of your clients.
The Wealth Triangle™ works differently based on…
IF you have an existing high-income skill(s)… or NO high-income skill…
IF you have an existing product/service(s)… or NO product/service
IF you have an existing company… or NO companies…
IF you have an existing network/audience… or NO network/audience…
It also varies based on your income, your revenue level and cash-flow,
as well as your total available capital.
So, it doesn’t matter if you only have $30k-$50K/year in income, $50K-$100K…. $100K-$250K… or $500K to $1M/year and beyond…
We’ve helped clients implement these 3 pillars into their lives with great success at all levels… (it just looks a little different based on where you’re starting)
Yes, absolutely. What you invest in will depend on where you are at.
However, there are a few foundational pillars that are essential to invest in throughout your entire journey through The Wealth Triangle.
The 2 main things you want to invest in are: yourself and your skills.
This is the #1 most important thing to invest in if you’re at the 1st pillar of The Wealth Triangle.
Investing in yourself means investing in your own personal growth and development.
Here’s what that looks like:
Working on your mindset; to expand your sense of what’s possible and to clear any limiting beliefs holding you back from creating what you want.
Another way of investing in yourself is working on improving your own personal productivity and performance. This affects your ability to get things done, and your ability to achieve and accomplish your goals.
Investing in your skills means investing in your own professional growth and development.
Here’s what that looks like:
Working on your high-income skills; to raise your income and earning potential and to find new ways of creating value in the marketplace by using a combination of different talents and gifts. Another way of investing in your professional development is by working on your leadership ability, as well as your communication skills and your people skills.
Both of these elements are important to focus on.
The high-income skills create value for people, while your communication and leadership skills help you communicate and present your value in the marketplace.
So, the very first thing to invest in is always yourself.
Do whatever it takes to upgrade yourself and your skills.
Read books, go through courses, workshops, trainings, seminars, etc.
This will pay the highest dividends throughout your career.
Upgrading yourself and your skills is a lifelong endeavor. You’ll want to keep investing in your development as you continue to develop and grow.
If you are in the 2nd part of The Wealth Triangle and already have a scalable business, it’s still wise to invest in yourself and your skills.
However, when you have a scalable business…
The #1 best thing to invest in for the highest return on your money is…. marketing.
When your marketing is performing well, you could get a 200-300% percent return on your investment.
This would be considered criminal in the stock market. But in business, it’s common.
For example: you could spend $500 on marketing and get a $10,000 sale.
So why would you invest your money in a mutual fund getting only eight percent?
You have much more control over your business than a mutual fund.
The key investing principle applies here: you want to invest in what you know.
If you know your industry better than you know the stock market, it would be wise to invest in that.
Generally speaking, you will have much more control investing in your business than you do investing in stocks.
However, if you’ve already maxed out your business investments and can’t manage to grow any bigger due to capacity…
Or if you’re at a stage in your life where you’re wanting to diversify your investments and leverage other investment vehicles, it may be wise to explore different high-return investment opportunities outside of your business.
I discuss more about investing and the 7 levels of investors in more detail in this article.
Here’s a quick summary of the order you should focus on:
Income, first
Cash-Flow, second
Net-Worth, third.
First, work on your high-income skill to create a stable source of income.
Don’t just cover your regular expenses and have a bit extra for a rainy day fund – have much more than that.
Then, start a scalable business when you have some extra cash flow and a desire to put in the time it takes to create a scalable business..
It’s possible to have a high income without a scalable business.
Not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur, and that’s okay.
I know a lot of people who do very well, even though they don’t have a scalable business.
If you don’t want to go the route of building a scalable business, invest in something that gives you 10 percent or more in annual return.
You can build your net worth completely on one or more high-income skills, along with a few smart investments.
To learn more about developing a high-income skill, click here.
This page will outline the top 5 high-income skills you can develop to make over $100,000 a year in personal income.
When you reach the six figure income level, you’ll experience a permanent shift in your mindset and you’ll never go back to making less than that.
Once you’ve stretched and expanded your “wealth comfort zone” to this level, you’ll never fall back to what you were making before (and that’s a good thing)
So, if it’s your goal or your dream to make a six or seven figure income, it’s totally within your reach if you simply follow the proven path laid out here.
The Wealth Triangle™ gives you a simple, clear, and predictable path that you can follow in a sequential fashion… no matter where you’re starting from. This is part of what makes it so powerful!
With The Wealth Triangle, you always know exactly what you should focus on next and where you currently stand.
If you want to gain an even deeper understanding of all the different components in The Wealth Triangle, I encourage you to check out the resources listed in each section of this page.
I would also encourage you to click around through all the different sections in the FAQ section to learn from some of the most commonly asked questions we get from others.
If you want to get a personalized roadmap for how you can start to build your own unique pathway to wealth – starting from wherever you are today – I encourage you to read below to learn more about how you can book a call to speak with someone on our team.
During this call, we’ll help you formulate a custom-tailored game plan and based on where you are right now and what you’re looking to accomplish.
We can also make personalized recommendations for you based on you and your unique situation.
To schedule a time to talk to someone on our team, apply here.
On this call, we’ll help you map out a personalized strategy for each of the 3 pillars…
We always start by getting clear on your top high-income skills.
If you already know what yours are, please note them on your application.
To discover what high-income skill you were born to do, take the quiz below. This quiz is custom-tailored to you based on your personality type.
It shows you what high-income skill you have the most natural talent and ability to master.
If you get this figured out before you book a call with us, we can be even more precise, specific, and helpful in our recommendations to you.
Take the quiz below to get started:
If you have a business you are looking to scale, we’ll help you come up with an effective strategy to grow your company with power and precision.
We’ll identify which of the 9 phases of growth your business is in right now, and what kind of support would be the most impactful and beneficial for you and your business. Based on that, we’ll make a recommendation for you.
If you have a business you are looking to scale and grow and want to work with me directly to help consult or advise you, check out this page to learn more about how you can work with me.
This lists the different consulting and advising options (space is limited) as well as the Investment and Acquisition options we are currently evaluating.
We also have the Dragon100 Advisory Board for serious business owners who want to gain an unfair advantage in growing and scaling their company with the help of me and my team.
The Dragon 100 Advisory board is the only place where you can get personalized guidance and ongoing mentorship from me (outside of my private consulting and equity-based advising clients).
If you’re interested in joining Dragon 100, here’s a page with all the details and criteria you must meet to be accepted into our private advisory board.
If you’re an investor, I encourage you to explore the different investment vehicles I wrote about to help you diversify and optimize your portfolio based on the 7 different levels of investors I outlined.
If you’re not looking to expand, diversify or optimize your portfolio and are just getting started with your first investment.
If you don’t do any of those things, and leave this page without taking away anything other than this ONE thing – let this be it:
When you’re able to simultaneously leverage all 3 elements of The Wealth Triangle together, you’ll be able to unlock and unleash the “Exponential Elevation” Effect in your life.
This will grow your income and your long-term wealth.
It will also elevate your financial confidence and your financial well-being.
This is at the heart of everything we do in The Dan Lok Organization.
Up until now, building wealth has often been seen as something difficult to do.
In today’s culture, wealth is often portrayed as some elusive, rare and mysterious phenomenon that’s only ever experienced by a handful of people who were lucky to have been born into wealth.
The common belief around wealth is that you’re either:
I’m here to debunk these myths; to transform your understanding of wealth from some mysterious and elusive thing reserved for a lucky few into something incredibly simple, practical, and accessible to anyone.
My hope in sharing this information with you is to put the power back in your hands, while giving you an “inside look” at the mechanics of money and wealth generation.
Now that you’ve gained a deep understanding of the 3 most fundamental “building blocks” to growing your income, cash-flow, and net-worth, you can begin to formulate your own personal action plan for how you can start to build your own personal pathway to wealth, starting from wherever you are today.
After 15+ years of being an Entrepreneur, having started and grown over two dozen 7 and 8+ figure companies, I’ve discovered the systems, frameworks, processes, methods and mindsets needed in order to not just grow your income – but also grow your financial confidence so you can create long-term wealth.
Once you begin to apply the 3 pillars of The Wealth Triangle, you’ll start gaining a tremendous sense of financial confidence and leverage.
Whether you decide to use this new power and confidence to start and grow a scalable business, learn new skills to increase your income, or just create more time freedom for you to enjoy your life, I have found that just the act of understanding this information will cause your entire paradigm of the world to change.
Now that you’ve seen what you’ve seen, you’ll never be able to “un-see” it.
The reason I am so passionate about sharing this information is because I want to give you a rarely-seen vantage point into the process of how money and wealth are generated, managed, and multiplied.
From this, you can begin to understand and extract the underlying principles of Wealth Creation and formulate your own personal plan to grow your income, cash-flow, and net-worth.
All while leading a happy, healthy, balanced, and fulfilling life.
Which is really the source of true wealth and abundance.
First, I want to acknowledge you for finishing reading everything on this page.
Most people leave things unfinished, but you’re different. You took the time to read this all in depth and equip yourself with the knowledge and training to create true long-term wealth.
On this page, I have given you the keys to unlock your success, wealth, and significance.
I’ve shared with you how I think, the lessons I’ve learned in life, and my views on money, business, and wealth.
Now that you have the keys, you have the mind-set as well.
Whenever you’re stuck, whenever you hit an obstacle, whenever you’re facing a problem, you know there’s a solution.
And you know that all you need to do to find the solution is find the right key to help you unlock it.
You have the key to your life – the master key is you.
You are the master key to unlocking everything you want in life.
Whether it’s more freedom, more success, more money, more significance, more relationships, more health, more impact, or more anything, you are in control.
Now, you have a choice.
You can either forget everything I’ve just shared with you or you can apply the lessons and take action to improve your life.
Maybe you want to unlock your productivity.
Maybe you want to develop your High-Income Skills and make more money.
Maybe you want to structure your business differently so it can scale faster.
Or maybe you want to expand your investments so you can leverage the ability to be able to grow your wealth and make more passive income.
Whatever your goal is, I hope this is the beginning of our relationship and that we can take this beyond just what I laid out here on this page.
We can stay connected on social media, you can join me in one of our virtual trainings, or you could even attend one of our events.
Whatever it is, let me know how I could best serve you, and I look forward to furthering our relationship.
Until then, keep learning, keep implementing, and keep taking action.
Here’s to you and your financial being,
Dan Lok
