24 Hours in Dubai: Lessons from a Millionaire CEO

Hello Stoic Investors,

Today I want to share with you the three things I learned from spending 24 hours with a CEO of an online company, who’s making 15 million in revenue per year.

I want to talk about this because I strongly believe that what he taught me probably will change the trajectory of my life.

Let me give you some context.

Some days ago, I went to Dubai to meet Jack, this amazing entrepreneur (we will call him Jack to keep him anonymous).

I basically spent 24 hours in Dubai, because I had to go back earlier than expected due to some personal issues.

And considering the flight expenses and the ones I made in Dubai, I practically spent €3.000 in total for this 24 hours trip.

Perhaps some of you might be wondering:

“Was it really worth it?”

And I can tell you absolutely yes!

Here are the three main lessons I've been able to learn from him:

1. Care less about what others are doing and just go through your path.

One of my curiosities was whether he has a big network of people to discuss different opinions with.

And to my surprise, he doesn't.

He doesn't talk with other entrepreneurs, and the fact that we were meeting was an exception due to our similar background and different things that helped us to connect.

What he said stuck to me a lot because he told me:

"I already know what I need to do, so I already know what I need to do in my company. I have a direction, I have a vision of where I want to go, and I don't need the opinion of others to validate it or not."

He also said that is probably helpful when you are a beginner to hear a different point of view, but at a certain point, this becomes an obstacle.

And I totally feel that because I have this problem.

I always try to find the best possible option, and the only way to do that is to see what everyone else is doing.

There's no end to the comparisons you can have with other people to understand what you should do, not just to envy them.

So if you're someone like me who thinks to be a perfectionist, but in reality is just planning and planning without taking action, you're not actually taking an extra step — you're just staying in the same place without making any changes.

2. If you want to be a successful person, you have to do everything that is required to be one.

This means that if you want to be in the top 1%, you need to behave like the top 1%.

You cannot do what the rest of the 99% of people are doing and expect to be in the top 1%.

Jack is very disciplined in his days, meaning that he does the same thing every day, Monday to Sunday, without exception.

And when I say disciplined, I mean EXTREMELY disciplined in his days.

What we perceive as 'being productive' will never reach the extreme level of productivity that Jack demonstrates.

Without ever skipping a day, for six consecutive months while in Dubai, Jack wakes up at 5 every morning to work until 9 for his business.

I've always considered myself to be very disciplined as well, but I've realized that he's on a completely different level.

But from this, you can understand that there's a consequence to discipline, or rather to dedicate your whole life to a certain purpose.

Because it's actually understandable that he is much ahead of other entrepreneurs given that he dedicates all his time to grow and improve his business.

But the question is:

“Would you make the trade-off?”

Because I think I could also do a routine like that.

I could work from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. for 6 months straight.

I think I have the capacity, but do I have the desire to do that?

Probably not.

I'm fine to take it a bit slower and dedicate myself also to other areas which are important to me, like my family, friends, my passions and hobby.

But the lesson here is that if you want to achieve extremely crazy results, there's a trade-off.

And so you need to find the balance for you.

3. Think about the long term.

This is probably the one that will change my behavior further the most.

Because you always hear this, but probably it's difficult to make a practical example out of it.

And so I think this will help you a lot.

As we said, he has a business that makes 15 million revenue per year.

And when we met, the first thing I asked was:

"That’s awesome, but what's your margin? How much money are you taking out of this?".

His answer really shocked me.

He told me that actually he’s not taking out anything, and he doesn't even know what’s his margin.

Everything he gains, he reinvests it on the business.

He said:

“I don't care what I'm going to make this month, the next month, even the next year. I just want to grow my business, and maybe when it will be worth over 1 billion, that's when I'm going to start worrying about profiting something from it."

Thanks to this, I understood that I also should stop thinking about the short term of how much I'm growing in my personal network, if I want to keep moving forward with my business.

I want to keep helping people becoming financially independent, and I'm going to strive to be more long-term focus, because that's the way in which the players that are winning are playing.

Don't care about your salary right now.

Don't care about how much money you're making from your business.

Just care about what you're building, something that will compound and grow in wealth over time.

So, if you want to change your life today, note down these three key lessons:

1. Care less about what others are doing and just go through your path.

2. If you want to be a successful person, you have to do everything that is required to be one.

3. Think about the long term.