You work hard, but YouTube vlogging is just so so hard. You're not stupid. The gap between you and your goal is simply work and it's hustle.
So, why are you still broke? In today's video, I'm going to tell you something that is either going to make you a lot of money or seriously piss you off. And honestly, it's probably going to do both.
You see, I'm going to walk you through the five broken beliefs that quietly keep people stuck for years, even without them realizing it. And chances are you have at least one of them right now. Because most of you watching this aren't broke because you're lazy.
And you're definitely not broke because you're stupid. You are broke because of what you believe about money. Look, I don't know how much you know about cars.
Maybe you're not as much of a car geek as I am, but every single high-performance car has something called an ECU. And that stands for electronic control unit. It's pretty much the brain of the car.
[music] It decides how much power gets released, how hard the machine pushes. Look, I have cars in my garage that are genuinely dangerous. But if someone went in and tweaked [music] that ECU, these cars would go into limp mode.
And in that moment, all of that power, all of that engineering locked away. Not because anything's broken, but because the system thinks it needs to protect itself from something that it doesn't trust yet. And your brain works exactly the same way.
You see, most successful people aren't sitting there with some magical IQ that you don't have, okay? I've met a lot of rich people. Some incredibly smart, but a lot of them surprisingly average.
And a few that honestly genuinely make you question how they even got there in the first place. But what they all have in common is they think about money completely differently than regular people. And over time, I started to realize that building wealth isn't really an intelligence game.
It's more of a game of beliefs. The beliefs you have around money, around risk, around opportunity, and even yourself. And your belief system is your ECU.
The problem is that most of you watching this are running terrible settings. You are basically sitting in limp mode without even realizing it. And I am going to fix that for you today while we go on this little night drive.
So, with that being said, let's get into it. Now, the first broken belief is probably responsible for killing more potential than anything else in this video. And what makes it dangerous is that it actually feels productive in the moment.
So, let's see if you recognize yourself here. You want to start a business, and immediately your brain starts sprinting 10 steps ahead. Well, what if I don't understand taxes?
What if I need employees? What if I can't manage people? What if it scales too quickly?
What if I fail? My friend, you haven't even made your first dollar yet. Yet, you're sitting here trying to solve problems that don't even exist.
And while you're busy creating all these imaginary scenarios in your head, the one thing that would actually move your life forward never gets done. And I've noticed something very funny over the years because people assume uncertainty disappears once you start making money. They think that there's some magical point along the journey where you wake up and you suddenly think, "Right, I finally understand this whole business thing now.
" That never happens. That point never comes. Let me tell you from personal experience.
When I was making nothing, I had no clue what I was doing. At $10,000 a month, no clue. At $100,000 a month, same thing.
At a million dollars a month, honestly, I still felt the same way. The uncertainty never really goes away. You just become more comfortable operating without having to [clears throat] have every single answer.
And eventually, you realize something. That most of the things you spent months worrying about never actually ended up happening. And the few things that did actually end up happening, well, you figured them out, okay?
Not because you were prepared, but because reality forced you to become prepared. Nobody learns how to manage a team before they have one. Nobody learns about taxes before making money.
No one knows exactly what they're doing before they begin. You solve problems when those problems become real. So, if you can take away one thing from this, let it be this.
Stop trying [music] to solve for level 10 while you were still at level one. And that brings me to the second broken belief. And this one actually, now that I think about it, might even be more dangerous than the first one because it's got nothing to do with action at all.
It's got to do about how you fundamentally think about money in of itself. You see, this broken belief I wish someone had explained to me earlier in life. Most people have a really strange relationship with money.
And I don't mean they spend too much or they save too little. I mean they attach emotions to it. They make every decision around it worse.
Look, we all grew up hearing things like money changes people. Rich people are greedy. More money, more problems.
And after hearing stuff like that for years, you don't even realize it, but eventually you start attaching meaning to money itself. You start treating it [music] like it's good or bad. Like it has some sort of personality.
It doesn't. Okay, money is infrastructure. It's just a tool.
That's it. Look, let me explain it like this. Think about electricity for a second.
You don't have an emotional relationship with electricity, do you? You don't sit there staring at a light switch and go, "Wow, electricity is amazing. " Yes, you understand it.
Yes, you use it. Yes, it serves a purpose. [music] And that relationship you have with electricity is the same way money should work, okay?
Look, I've noticed something very interesting over the years. The people who build serious wealth usually aren't the people obsessing over money every 5 minutes. I know that sounds funny to hear.
It's not the people refreshing their bank account 10 times a day. They are not emotionally attached to every number moving up or down. Because when you are emotionally attached to money, you start making emotional decisions.
And emotional decisions are never a good thing. Look, you start to panic when things go down. You become overconfident when things go up.
You spend when you should save. You save when you should invest. And usually those decisions end up costing you more than whatever number was sitting in your bank account.
Look, I get it. I remember in earlier stages of my career, I remember checking my bank account constantly. Every increase felt amazing.
Every drop felt painful. But eventually I started to realize that the problem was never the number itself. >> [music] >> It was the meaning that I was attaching to the number.
So, here's what I want you to do. I want you to open up your banking app right now. I want you to look at your balance and just pay attention to what you feel.
Is it stress? Is it relief? Is it excitement?
Is it anxiety? Whatever it is, label it, okay? Write it down.
Because that reaction you just had tells you more than you think. You cannot fix a relationship you have not diagnosed properly and that actually brings me to the third broken belief and this one's quite scary because a lot of what you think is you is really just beliefs and patterns that you have picked up over the years. Look, let me ask you this.
If no one on earth could see your life, no Instagram, no friends, no strangers, no one to impress, would you still buy the same things? The same apartment, the same watch, the same car, the same clothes? Because here's something that I've noticed whilst living in a lot of these large metropolitan cities, London, Dubai, New York, a lot of financial decisions people make aren't actually financial decisions, they're social decisions.
People tell themselves they're buying something because they deserve it, okay? Or because it will motivate them or because they finally want to enjoy life, but underneath it, a lot of times it's actually something else, okay? They're just performing and it's unfortunate because the audience that they're performing to cares a lot less than they think they do, okay?
Now before someone clips this up and says, "Oh, Iman says don't buy nice things. " Well, I'm riding around in a Rolls-Royce. Look, I'm not saying don't buy nice things.
I like nice things. I like fast cars. I like nice watches.
I like traveling lavishly. I don't think there's anything noble in pretending as if money doesn't matter, but there is a huge, huge difference between buying something because it genuinely improves your life or because you genuinely love it compared to buying something because you want to signal status or before you prioritize the other things in life that matter. Look, let's not even talk about property, let alone property for myself.
I bought my mother a $4 million house cash no loan, no mortgage, nothing, cash before I bought my first car. So then yeah, later on in my career if I want to buy nice things or buy nice toys, good. I deserve it and you deserve it, too, but just make sure A, it's for you and B, make sure it's done appropriately and at the right time in your career.
You need to understand the place it comes from, okay? Those are two very different ways to go about your purchases, okay? One comes from enjoyment or celebration and the other one comes from insecurity and insecurity gets expensive very fast, I can tell you that.
As I said, I made tens of millions of dollars before I bought my first car. Now, honestly, looking back, I actually wish I'd bought a car earlier. I think like I actually think that would have been good for me and I probably should have treated myself earlier.
But maybe the reason I didn't was honestly, I was just genuinely loving building so much, okay? I enjoyed building. I enjoyed seeing the numbers go up, okay?
And I think that's simply because when your motivation becomes internal, okay? You stop needing these external reminders that you're successful. what a lot of people miss, okay?
If you're making your first $100,000, your biggest problem shouldn't be whether you should upgrade your car or not. Your biggest problems are a lot more boring, okay? Renewing that client, hiring that first employee, launching a new marketing funnel.
Trust me, one bad month can still hurt you, okay? One client leaving can still hurt you. Those are real problems, not trying to impress some people online, okay?
So, here's what I want you to do. I want you to open your banking app again and go through your last month's spending. Find one purchase and just ask yourself honestly, would [music] I have still bought this if no one on earth could have seen it?
Because that's usually where the truth is hiding, okay? You don't need to cancel everything, but name it, call it out, write it down because the moment you can label the pattern, you're already in the process of breaking [music] it. And that brings me to the fourth broken belief.
And this one gets interesting because on the surface, it actually looks responsible. It's the belief that you tell your grandma over dinner and she immediately nods and says, [music] "Good. Better safe than sorry.
" And I promise there's an actual point I'm trying to make. So, let me ask you this. How many decisions in your life right now are being made because you're trying to avoid losing rather than trying to win?
Think about it, okay? People stay in jobs they hate because it feels safe, because it comes with health insurance, because their parents told them that stability matters, because look, I already spent 4 years on getting a degree. And then they don't start their own thing because well, you know, what if it doesn't work out?
They don't post content because they're scared that the people they went to school with might judge them. Oh, well. They don't move countries.
They don't ask that girl out. They don't take risks not because they can, but because they are so busy playing defense all the time. And look, some defense is good.
You should wear a seat belt. You should have savings. You shouldn't put your net worth into some random crypto coin that some guy on Twitter told you about, okay?
Look, I'm not saying be reckless, but I did realize something quite early on. No one builds an extraordinary life by only trying not to lose, okay? It doesn't work.
Because when you're constantly playing defense, your brain starts optimizing for comfort instead of opportunity. You stop asking what's the upside and you start asking what's the least painful option. Those are very different questions.
Look, when I moved my base to Dubai six years ago, people thought I was insane. When I started YouTube 11 years ago, people thought I was insane. When I dropped out of school at the age of 17, people thought I was insane.
If I had spent my entire life trying to remove all the risks before making a move, I would probably still be sat twiddling my thumbs waiting for permission. The people you look up to, they're not fearless, okay? I have met more than enough successful people to tell you that.
These people still feel uncertainty. They still doubt themselves. They still get anxious.
The difference is they don't allow that fear to make the final decision. Because at some point, you realize something. >> [music] >> Playing defense only protects what you already have.
Playing offense is what actually changes your life. And the worst part is that people spend their entire lives >> [music] >> protecting a life that they don't even like. And that brings us onto the fifth and final belief.
And I wanted to end on this one because out of everything that we've covered today, this is the one that's probably cost people the most. And look, we all know how the saying goes, time is money. Look, I need you to be really honest with yourself for a second.
How many times in the last year have you convinced yourself that this next thing was going to be the thing to finally change your life? The new business model you saw on YouTube, that new AI tool that someone on TikTok said was replacing their entire company, the new guy on Twitter posting a screenshot saying he made $83,000 in 14 days doing something that you've never heard of before. Look, every few weeks it's something different, okay?
And every time you see it, your brain lights up like it's a casino machine. This is it. This is what I've been missing.
Everything changes now. So, you start learning more about it, you update your Instagram bio, you tell three of your friends that you're starting something new, and then a week later, you quit. And by the way, it's not because you actually gave effort and it didn't work out.
It's because the excitement wore off and the reality showed up. Because here's the truth that no one wants to hear. Making money honestly is painfully, painfully repetitive.
It's boring. Okay? It's answering the same emails, fixing the same problems, having the same conversations, doing the same thing over and over again long after the dopamine disappears.
Look, when I first started my agency, I was doing the outreach sitting in school. Literally sitting in class with my laptop open while my teacher was talking. During lunch, I wasn't hanging out with anyone, okay?
I would sit there reading business books or doing more outreach. Then, I'd get home and edit videos for my agency clients. It took me hours and hours and hours, okay?
No flashy TikTok montages, no fancy Lamborghini in my car, no watch me make a 100K in 7 days, just doing the same boring over and over again for months before anything meaningful happened. And that's what most people miss. They think they have a business model problem.
Most of the time they don't. They have an attention problem. Because the person who sticks to one proven thing for 5 years will absolutely destroy the person who switches every 6 months every single time.
And here's the thing, it's not because they're smarter, not because they found some sort of magical opportunity, but because eventually repetition turns into skill, and skill eventually starts looking like talent from the outside. So, look, before you click off this video, I want you to promise me one thing. Figure out which one of these five beliefs is costing you the most right now.
Not all five, just one. Because most people watch a video like this and think, "That was interesting. " And then they do absolutely nothing differently tomorrow.
Please do not do that. Pick the one that hits you the hardest and pay attention to it for the next week. Because once you become aware of these things, you start noticing them everywhere.
You notice yourself trying to solve problems that don't exist yet. You notice yourself chasing the next shiny opportunity. You notice yourself making decisions that don't even make sense.
And eventually, you realize something. You never really had a capability problem. You had a settings problem.
That ECU example I gave you, that's you. Okay, you were just running on terrible software. Now, look, I know today's video leaned very heavy into mindset and psychology, and a lot of us into like actual practical [music] money-making advice.
So, I know you're sat there thinking, "All right, cool. Well, how do I actually start this? " Well, I strongly [music] suggest you go check the link in the description.
There's a free YouTube video I created earlier in the year. It's probably my most popular video this year, and it breaks down a bunch of different business models, and it compares the pros and cons to each, and it will show you, based on your personality [music] type, which one makes sense for you to move forward with. I strongly recommend you go check out that YouTube video after [music] this.
It should point you in the right direction. And with that being said, as always, I'm watching from afar, and I'm rooting for you.
