7 Greatest Wealth Lessons Picked By An Entrepreneur Who Finally ‘Made It’

Originally published on Forbes.com

When Roberto Monaco left Tony Robbins’ company to start his own business, he struggled. For 6 years he had worked as a Peak Performance Strategist and speaker for Anthony Robbins Companies. He gave over 3,000 talks–a good number of them in Portuguese, his native tongue– and was extremely successful, consistently ranking as one of the top performers in his role.

But in 2008, Roberto decided to make a change and go into business for himself. Success was not overnight. He quickly discovered that a business owner carries many responsibilities that he’d never dealt with before as a speaker.

Roberto’s search for answers led him to attend one of our live workshops in Utah, where he had the first of many breakthroughs that helped him transform his business, his finances and his overall personal fulfillment. Now Roberto runs a very successful business that has helped thousands of people grow their influence.

Recently I met up with Roberto again on a live Webcast where he recounted several important lessons that I was able to teach him. Here are the 7 lessons that Roberto says helped transform his life and his business:

1) “Money Follows Value”

Says Roberto, “At one time in my life I was really struggling. I went to your training in Utah and I learned a lot of things. One thing I learned was that I wasn’t providing enough value in my life.

“I had to change my belief system and know that even though I’m struggling, I can still be a value-creator. And that’s when I started improving and I have a very successful company on my terms and I love what I do. We’ve helped thousands of people because I learned money follows value.”

If you want to make more money, find a way to bring more value to the marketplace. Even if you’re not at first sure how it will translate into more money, bring the value anyway and the money will follow.

For example–when I used to sell insurance, I brought value to the marketplace by training other insurance agents in town. People thought I was crazy to be training the competition, but I ended up with more referrals than I could handle and my income tripled.

2) “You’ve Got to Invest in Your Soul Purpose”

Says Roberto “When I started my career and started making money, I had extra cash, so I bought a real estate property. I made some money and I got a little bit arrogant without knowing much about real estate investing. It was not part of my Soul Purpose. So I bought my second property, and I lost money.

“All I could hear was your voice, ‘You’ve got to invest in Soul Purpose.’ It’s been one of the biggest lessons, because for any investment, I ask myself ‘Does this align with my Soul Purpose?’ And if it doesn’t, I don’t get involved.”

Your Soul Purpose is your passion, your abilities and your values combined into the best expression of who you are. If the stock market or real estate is part of your Soul Purpose, then it can be a good investment. But if it’s not, then it’s probably wiser to invest in yourself or your business instead.

3) “‘High Risk = High Return’ Is a Myth”

“I always thought to get a high-return, I’d have to take high-risk,” says Roberto, “That’s why in the real estate deal that I did, it was high-risk because I thought I’d make all this money, but I didn’t understand that you can also have high-return with low-risk.”

One of the secrets to generational wealth–that allows wealthy people to stay that way–is they only speculate with a tiny percentage of their money. They build a solid financial foundation and make sure it’s as secure and guaranteed-against-loss as possible. That means investing in things that they know–not blind investments in the stock market. Instead, they start businesses that they influence and control and collect the cash flow indefinitely–or sell them later on for large sums of money.

And it’s the same with me. The highest returns that I’ve ever generated have come from investing in my business–more so than I’ve ever earned investing in hundreds of real estate properties, oil & gas, IPOs or anything else.

4) “The 401(k) Hoax”

“Half of my cash was gone because I didn’t heed your advice,” says Roberto. People are encouraged to put money into 401(k)s their entire working-life, yet, that money is not secure. It is not guaranteed against loss and could be cut in half almost overnight like it was for many retirees in 2008.

The finance industry says that the stock market averages 8-10% returns per year. But 15 years after the record Dow Jones high of the year 2000, which occurred on January 14th, the Dow was up just 0.54% per year after adjusting for inflation. Not 8% or 10% per year, but 0.54% inflation-adjusted over 15 years.

5) “Retirement Actually Means, ‘Out of Use'”

I still remember Roberto’s face when I told him my definition of retirement: it means, “out of use.” It immediately clicked with Roberto, and he now vows to never retire.

Employees are taught to work hard, burn yourself out now, tuck away money all along, so that some day 30 years down the road you can quit and enjoy life. In my book, that’s not a good plan for anyone. But for business owners especially, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Instead of planning to retire from your business in 30 years, retire into your business starting immediately. Stop doing the jobs you hate by delegating or outsourcing until the only thing left to do are the things you enjoy.

When the day comes that you’d rather be fishing than doing even the tasks you love, delegate those, too. That way you’ve kept your business, i.e. your wealth creator, and you’ve enjoyed life along the way.

6) “Invest in Relationship Capital”

“Relationship capital drives everything that I do,” says Roberto. Most people know to invest in mental capital, i.e. education and training. And that can go a long way. But relationship capital is the multiplier that can really grow your financial capital.

The equation looks like this:

Mental Capital x Relationship Capital = Financial Capital

You may have all the answers, but if you don’t know the right people, you won’t have a way to spread your message. That’s why relationship capital may be your greatest source of untapped wealth.

7) “Invest in Your Human Life Value”

Finally, the seventh lesson Roberto points out is to “invest in your human life value.”

Human life value is your internal characteristics–your knowledge, wisdom, experiences and all that make you who you are as a human being. Some people are great at technology, others are not. Some are great at finance, others aren’t. Some are great at building things or engineering, others are better at creativity and thinking-up big ideas.

The more that you can embrace who you are and what you’re good at, and the more you invest in that, the more you can expand your means. Thank you, Roberto Monaco, for pointing out these 7 wealth lessons.