97: Creating a Millionaire Mindset in 2025

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0:57Hey everyone and welcome back to the Rich Habits Podcast, a top 10 business podcast on Spotify. My name is Austin Hankwitz and I'm joined by my co-host Robert Croak. Robert is a seasoned entrepreneur in his 50s with lifetime revenues of over 300 million and I'm an entrepreneur in my late 20s with a background in finance and economics. Since quitting my full-time job in corporate finance a few years ago i've built a seven-figure media business and i actively advise some of the most well-known fintech companies around the world as the show name might suggest every episode we talk about rich habits as they relate to business finance and mindset however we try and bring you two unique perspectives one from an industry veteran which is robert and the other myself someone who's still in the process of building wealth and figuring it all out now robert what are we going to be talking about in today's episode in this episode of the rich Habits podcast, we'll be talking about how to create a millionaire mindset in 2025.

1:51As you all know, I'm a Deca Millionaire and Austin is a newly minted millionaire. And there are a handful of very specific traits that we've picked up along the way since becoming millionaires that have not only helped us achieve that status, but build upon it and maintain it permanently. This episode is going to be more mindset focused in nature because we've already provided you the blueprint for how to build wealth in your life but many of you still suffer from mindset hurdles that prevent countless listeners from breaking through in their own personal financial journeys and you know robert it is the second to last day of the year it's december 30th today which means a lot of people are either writing their new year's resolutions they're getting ready to write their new year's resolutions so why not make part of that new year's resolution shifting your mindset to have sort of this millionaire mindset.

2:45These specific traits and even rich habits that will allow you to become a millionaire in your lifetime if you're not already. And if you are a millionaire right now listening, it's always a great idea to freshen up what other fellow millionaires think are things that allow them to make their millionaire status permanent. So this episode is going to be a lot of fun and I'll let Robert kick things off. Yeah, let's start off with point number one is what do you want your life to look like? What are you working toward? What's your vision and how do you achieve that? Everyone has, whether it's a vision board or an idea of what they want their outcome of their life to be.

3:21And although it may go in many different directions along the way, if you have that tenacity and that drive, you will find your way eventually, maybe not in your twenties or thirties, but it will come to you and you will finally get that life that you always envisioned while you were younger and throughout adulthood for all of you to build that because it's in that desire you possess and you just have to manifest it over time to make sure you keep that vision alive to build towards being a multimillionaire. I love this point, Robert. And just to piggyback on it a little bit further, I've become a millionaire in the last call it 18 to 24 months, right?

4:00I'm a newly minted millionaire. And the biggest thing that I changed and my habits and my character traits and everything about me that allowed me to achieve this millionaire status was I stopped drifting through life. I think a lot of my friends, my peers, friends from college, even people that were older than me, I looked at them and they seemed like they were drifting through life. They were living from one, you know, oh my gosh, I hate Monday to oh my gosh, it's finally Friday. They had no purpose. They had no long-term vision. They didn't know where they were going. Life happened to them.

4:30They didn't happen to life. And it kind And it comes back to one of our favorite quotes, which is broke people react, wealthy people forecast. And once I began to have that mindset shift of, I don't want to drift through life anymore. I want to have a plan. I want to have a one year, two year, three year, four year financial plan for me as it relates to becoming a millionaire. And then having very specific action items I can take to, you know, back to, we talked about tenacity and, you know, failures happen left and right. That's part of the journey here, but being able to stay disciplined enough to want to continue to work toward that was just really important.

5:02So not drifting through life is just as important as having that vision. We're telling you, if you want to have that millionaire mindset in 2025, you need to stop drifting through life, need to stop having life happen to you, and you need to start happening to your life. Make those goals, have the vision, know where you're going so that you can too become a millionaire if you're not already one. Now that brings us to our second point, which is discipline. Once you've built that foundation, that vision, the plan, the goals, You know where you want to go. You know what you need to do. Motivation can only get you so far.

5:34Watching those motivational YouTube videos, if it's some person working out or some guy doing a deal or some woman doing something awesome, right? Like motivation can only get you so far, but having the discipline to show up each and every day. Now, something I learned about discipline, Robert, over the last couple years as I became a millionaire was that it's okay to have bad days. You don't have to show up 100 % every single time, but you showed up regardless. And showing up and putting in just that extra 1%, 1 % better every single day, just a little bit better every single day will allow you to over time compound these days, weeks, months, and years one over another over another that will just tremendously change your life if you do things in the right way.

6:16And staying disciplined, just as important it is to work toward a goal, means staying disciplined to avoid and ignore other things. Something that I definitely fell victim to in the beginning was this like shiny ball syndrome. And as you know, Robert, we're going into year three of this podcast and we've built it into something amazing. Throughout the last three years, there's been countless things that you and I could have gone and focused on or tried to quickly build or do something for fun, right? But like that takes away of the compounding we've already begun building with this podcast. And so I guess what I'm saying is like, if you have something going for you and you're able to have an outsized impact on your time and your effort by working with other people and you're moving in the right direction, don't scurry away from that for a short term win or a shiny ball syndrome gain if it's professionally or financially over here.

7:06When again, you have something that's compounding over there. Focus on what's working and continually show up every single day to that. Again, this podcast is going on year three. No one listened to the show for the first 40 episodes, Robert. I mean, there's a couple hundred people. Now we have hundreds of thousands that come back every month. So it's just so different to show people that like this took three long years of never missing an episode. That's showing up. That's discipline. And that's not focused on shiny ball things over here. Yeah, I think one of the most important takeaways, and that gave me chills, is the fact that we live in a comparison-based lifestyle.

7:40Every day when you're on Instagram and TikTok, you're seeing the fabricated highlights of other people's lives, especially the motivated ones and the motivational channels that act like no one ever takes a nap. No one ever sleeps in. No one ever takes a break. No one ever has a bad day. And it's all rainbows and unicorns. And I can tell you the buck stops here. I have days where I don't feel like doing as much. So I take a couple hours off. Do I take naps? Absolutely. If I feel like crap that day or I have a headache and I want to go cuddle up and relax for a while, I do it because at the end of the day, I have built a life that allows me that freedom just like you have, Austin.

8:18So don't get it twisted that all these fake gurus out there and these accounts that are telling you that you got to get up at four in the morning and you got to read three books before noon and you got to do a cold plunge and you got to make your bed. That's all bullshit. That has nothing to do with building a millionaire mindset. that has to do with them selling you something and selling you on a theory, not getting caught up in the shiny ball syndrome, but also lastly on this point is not letting lifestyle creep get in the way. So many people, when they start becoming successful, they're building the business, they're finally making real money, they get caught up and they lose discipline and they start buying all the toys, investing in too many businesses and they forget about the discipline that got them there and staying focused on the business at hand so they can optimize their gains and their wins within the business that they're already doing.

9:11You know, Robert, there's a motivational speaker named Eric Thomas that I used to listen to all the time growing up. And one of his more famous speeches is sort of around this idea of like, you finally made it to the big leagues and now you want to relax? You put in all the work, you went from a college athlete, now you're a professional athlete and now you want to chill? And so it's like, you finally built your base, right? You put in the hard work, you finally got a hundred thousand invested, or, you know, you got half a million dollar net worth, or you just bought your first home or like things are finally moving in the right direction for you.

9:43And now you want to get lax and celebrate. Now you want to go eat out more. Now you want to go spend more time doing whatever during the week or go, go golfing more or go get on the jet ski, whatever's going on with you. Right. It's like, just know to this point of like lifestyle creep and shiny ball syndrome and all these different things that come with discipline, they're going to come and they're going to come in forms of like, hey man, like I'm here visiting for a couple of days, would love to catch up or, you know, maybe it's family, maybe whatever it's going to be. But just know that one of the most dangerous animals, the crocodile is very easy to kill.

10:14And here's how you kill it right after it eats, right? And so because right after it eats, it's full, it's tired, it goes to sleep, and anyone can go in and take it out. And so why I make that analogy is because it's dangerous when it's hungry, it's dangerous when it wants to continue to work forward and do things that are, you know, helping it reach its goals. But once it hits that goal, it's just another person. So don't ever feel like, you know, you finally got this little thing going, it's finally going for you. And now that lifestyle creep comes up, the emotional spending comes up and all these things like don't fall victim to that, please.

10:45This brings up a very, very important thing that I've talked about for years. I bring it up in all my speaking engagements as well. And that is momentum and making money can be very fleeting. And to your point, so many people, when they finally make it, they get the breakthrough, they start getting the money in, they take their foot off the gas. And I can tell you from experience, especially with momentum, once you get it, do not ever take your foot off the gas until you're sure you're ready because momentum can leave you in an instant and be gone for months, years, and even decades. And it's very hard to replicate.

11:22So keep that in mind. And I'm so glad you brought that up because so many people, I went through this last week. I felt myself whining and complaining a little bit to Elizabeth and people around me in the office because I just couldn't catch a breather. It was one phone call, one meeting, one, this hundreds of DMS, hundreds of emails. I got to get in school and respond and dah, dah, dah. And I was like, what am I doing? I am the luckiest guy alive to be in this position, to have created this personal brand and this legacy that we're building with the Rich Habits Network. And I'm sitting here bitching about it at this moment because I was tired.

11:57And so it's just always make sure you keep everything in perspective when it comes to this aspect of this emotional phase of building these mindsets to become a multimillionaire and sustaining it because it's so, so important. And that really leads us into our next point, continued learning. So many people will say to you, oh, I've been in this business. I've been an attorney or a CPA or this or that. I've been doing it for 25 years and you're supposed to be impressed by that. But many of those people haven't relicensed. They haven't kept learning. If you're a lawyer and you're not keeping up on blockchain and the laws around cryptocurrency, guess what?

12:37You're gonna get passed by from someone that is. And so continued learning is so important. And when it comes to millionaires and multimillionaire mindsets, it's all about reading the news, keeping up on the Wall Street Journal, CNBC, Bloomberg, staying ahead of market trends. You guys all ask how Austin and I do it and how we're so far ahead of the curve. It's because we are voracious readers. We never stop researching, whether it's on X, TikTok, CNBC, Bloomberg, it can be Seeking Alpha. It doesn't matter. We stay ahead of the curve to make sure we can keep you ahead of the curve. Because like I always say, you don't have to be first to an investment.

13:17You just have to stay ahead of the curve. And And that's why continued learning is such an important part of having that multimillionaire mindset. I also want to, though, kind of deviate from this, like, continued learning to making money. Sometimes, Robert, continued learning for a lot of people listening might just mean reading a book about leadership so they can be a better boss at work or having a better relationship with your spouse. Like, it doesn't always have to be so, like, entrepreneur or, like, business or investing focused. Like, continued learning can take any shape in any aspect of your life.

13:49Just we know that millionaire mindset is always learning about what interests you. So you can always evolve and become a better human being and a better version of yourself. And the only way that we become better versions of ourselves is if we continually learn into the parts of us that we think might be lacking. I love the continued learning point. And it's one of my favorites. I reread Atomic Habits parts of it yearly because I always feel like it's good to get those tune-ups to make sure because, you know, for us, Austin, so many people look to us for inspiration, guidance, education when it comes to finance and mindset.

14:24So for me, I always want to make sure that I'm tuned up and that I'm thinking and functioning optimally because then that helps me help others in so many more ways and just keeps me top notch. So that brings us up to the other part of this point that I think we can round out with and that is knowing your weaknesses and Surrounding yourself with people who excel where you don't I've never been great with spreadsheets I'm really good with numbers and incredibly good with breaking down the numbers for investments and buying businesses and all that But I've just never been really good at excel spreadsheets and various types of spreadsheets like that And so I always outsource those.

15:03So always understand in your journey, when you're building and growing these multimillionaire mindsets in these businesses to hire to your weaknesses, not to your strengths. You don't need other people that are good at the same things you're good at because at the end of the day, you need to cover all your bases. So always hire to your weaknesses. So that takes us to our next point, networking. I always say you're one meeting, one event, or one email away from a totally different life. and I believe it wholeheartedly. So many people, they whine and they cry. I don't wanna go to this event. I don't wanna go to this dinner.

15:38I don't wanna go to this ball. I don't even wanna go to this meeting because I have to wait in traffic for 20 minutes. And it always brings me back to a story. One of my friends that has always been a dog starving in a slaughterhouse because he's surrounded by multimillionaires and billionaires where he lives, but he never wants to engage and go to these networking events because he's not one of them. And it really bothers me And one day he called me from the expressway in LA and he said, man, I'm going to turn around. It's raining and I don't want to sit in this traffic for 25 more minutes to go to this event.

16:10I yelled at him. I was like, you're an idiot. You are right there in the epicenter of everything in your sector of business, but you're not putting in the effort because you'd rather be at home playing video games or watching TV or playing with your dog. And that is why networking is so important. It's not about your comfort. It's about your proximity. There's an old saying out there that proximity to power does not mean you possess it, but it certainly helps. So that is why you want to surround yourself with people that are ahead of you, not underneath you, because at the end of the day, you want to be around people that are going to lift you up, that are going where you're going.

16:46Like proximity. I like that word a lot because it kind of ties into what I wanted to talk about, which was like how important it is to build these long lasting friendships with your coworkers or your bosses from one place to another, because you never know when in the future, you might need someone in your corner that was working with you. Right. I mean, I remember when I was working at this healthcare company out of college, I had a great relationship with my boss. He was a wonderful leader, a wonderful boss. I asked him, I mean, he was very successful too. He's like 32 years old, making hundreds of thousands a year.

17:15And I was like, man, how are you doing this? How did you accomplish all this at such a young age? And he goes, because the CEO of this company was his boss when he used to work at a previous company, and he worked his ass off to impress this guy. And they built a great close relationship. And this guy was, you know, always working and doing everything he could to like, be a good employee for his boss. And so then when he was, I think, 26 or 27, his boss at the time was headhunted to go become the CEO of this new company. And the first person that that now new CEO called on to come with him was my boss.

17:47And so now that's why he was a senior vice president at 30 something years old. And it's because he put in the time, effort, energy, and focus to like, be the not only the best sort of employee he could be for this person, but like having that strategy and wherewithal to know, like, I think this guy is going to go and do really interesting things. Like I should be close to him, this idea of proximity, right? If it's always in the office where he sees me, or if it's just being helpful, whatever I can be. And so I had the same approach with my boss, right? I was always in the office doing what I could.

18:14Just that proximity principle, I think is really important, Robert. So I'm glad you mentioned that. And sometimes too, it doesn't have to be your boss. Maybe it's a coworker. It's just so cool to see how like, whenever you're working around different people, like if people enjoy working with you, they want to help you out. They want to work with you more. And if you're a good person to work with professionally, and that person then goes and takes a new role working for a great new company, making all this more new money. And you say, Hey, can I come work with you two, nine times out of 10, they're going to say yes.

18:42So back to this idea of like networking, understanding, like we're, it's so cool, Robert. And I envy this with people because like we're entrepreneurs, we're solopreneurs, like we don't get to go to an office. So I don't get to surround myself with VPs at, you know, a hundred billion dollar companies anymore. So like, I wish that that was still the case because I miss being around these people who are making these big decisions and doing and introducing these new products and changing the world. So if you are that person working for a fortune 500 or a fortune 1000 company in the United States.

19:10Like don't take that for granted. That's like a really, really cool thing to do. Well, so many people say that your network is your net worth. I see it all the time when I go to networking events or when I go to speaking events, everyone wants my contact. Everyone wants my number. They want to take a picture, but 90 % of them don't do anything with it. They don't follow up. They don't do anything to improve their situation through their network. and I'm the opposite. I take the note in my phone. I take a selfie with that person. I get their phone number, their email, and then I take a selfie and in the note section of the contact, I write down what we talked about, who they're with and why they're in my phone number because when you meet a ton of people, it's hard to remember, but networking is so valuable.

19:53It's kind of like how you would look at it from a business of the value of your email database. That's the way I look at my network And I probably don't even do a good enough job of getting everyone's phone number and staying in touch with them like I should. But it is so, so important. What's important, too, about networking, Robert, is being cognizant of those people they need to cut out of your network. I think that's equally as important, right? Looking around and saying, man, is there a couple of people that are just like either they're mooching off me or they're bringing me down, they're draining my energy, right?

20:24That's also important with networking and having that mindset going forward is very important, too. Yeah, people say all the time that you are the top five people that you associate with. And I totally believe it. I know of people out there right now today that are in my life, but on the fringe that are intelligent, probably could be very successful if they applied themselves. But because they're caught up with other people that are the ones that are out drinking every weekend, that aren't applying themselves, that aren't trying to better themselves, they're not going to break free from that if they don't break free from them.

20:55So that leads us to our last point. And that is the three biggest mindset hurdles that I see most people suffer from. Number one, lack mentality. Number two, victim mindset. And number three, and we all go through this, is imposter syndrome. So let's break that down a little bit because I think this one really puts an incredible bow on this episode to help everyone really flush out where they're weak, how they can build on their mindset shifts for 2025 to get them into that multimillionaire mindset moving forward. Because I see it every day, whether it's one-on-one calls, people that I do business with in day-to-day lives where they really suffer, where they think, you know, I have this victim mindset.

21:40I grew up poor, so I'll never be rich. Or they have lack mentality and they think, oh, you know, being wealthy and financially free isn't for me because X, Y, Z. imposter syndrome. Everyone goes through that. No matter how many people I've come across that are highly successful, they still have their doubts. Even I have my days where I'm like, I am not good enough. I am not doing enough. I am not there enough for everyone that needs me. So I think this is a great point to really flush out so people can understand there are ways to overcome these mindset hurdles and get that brain in the right place for 2025.

22:22One of my favorite things about this sort of just subject matter with a lack mentality, victim mindset, and imposter syndrome is that as you sit down here, wherever you are, maybe you're at the grocery store, at the gym, or wherever you're listening to this episode, and you look around you, everything around you was created by a human being. And that human being was no different than you. You're probably listening to this on Spotify. Spotify was created by somebody and now it's a hundred billion dollar company that person that created spotify is no different than you they had an idea and they executed upon it you might be listening to this on your iphone steve jobs is no different than you he was a genius but he was a human right and we're all humans so i guess what i'm trying to share here with this like the imposter syndrome is like why not you why not you and once i realized that myself when i was like 24 25 years old i was like yeah robert why not me why don't i go start this podcast with robert why don't i go have a newsletter.

23:12Why don't I go do these things and really try and figure it out for myself? Because if it's not going to be me, it's going to be someone else. You know, I think this idea of fake it till you make it is so true because we're all faking it till we make it. I had no idea how to start a podcast, so I learned along the way. I had no idea how to start a multi-million dollar year business until I did it and learned along the way and made mistakes, right? You have to just do it. You just have to do it. This isn't a Nike commercial, but it very well could be. Yeah. I mean, you think back to me. Let's use me as an example here.

23:40Grew up in a broken home. My father left when I was six. My mother left when I was 11. I lived in the family home with two half-brothers that were drug dealers and very violent people. I had very little help through high school, grade school, and into college. Still made it through college, graduated college, did all the things. I've had a lot of failures in my career, a lot of highs and a lot of lows, but guess what? I never gave up. I could have easily said, oh, I came from a broken home. Oh, my parents left when I was young. There's the victim mindset. The lack mentality could be, oh, I grew up in poor East Toledo.

24:15So there's no reason anyone would ever expect me to be a leader or a multimillionaire or someone that could have a top rated podcast on a company like Spotify on a platform like that. So all of those things have come into my life for eternity since I was a child, but I overcame every one of them because I believed I deserved it and I would not let those excuses get in the way. So like Austin said, it's possible. Almost everything is possible that you desire out there. It's just a matter of you applying, having the tenacity and sticking with it because you can't let your past, you can't let your family life, your friends, you cannot let all of that affect what you become.