Introduction

There have been no millionaires before me with the last name Wimbrey. I am the first one. My father was a trash-man. He was a very hard worker; all I saw in him was hard work. He was not a millionaire, but my father’s mindset to expose my siblings and me to the multimillion-dollar homes from his sanitation truck route had a direct bearing on my vision, hunger, and passion for massive increase.

Vision is created only by exposure, and whether he knew it or not, my father teed up my vision exactly the way golfers tee up their golf ball for a better view and advantage to swing for distance and momentum. I don’t know anyone on either the black or white sides of my family who had a million in the bank when they died. Growing up, I never expected an inheritance or looked forward to getting access to a trust fund when I turned 18. Nothing like that existed for me. But it will for my children because the book you are about to read was written by a true, genuine, first-generation millionaire.

However, I want to take a step back from the money for a moment. First, I want to talk about your character. Becoming successful—becoming that first-generation millionaire in your family—has everything to do with the character you bring to the table. Before you can even start thinking about the money, the success, or the clout, first you must—must—have a conversation with your character. Your true character, the person you are when it is just you and you. Without the right character in place and without knowing who you are and what you are capable of, you will never achieve and maintain true success.

True success should begin within. You make the success! The success should never make you. This is why the millionaire mindset must begin from within, so that you not only gain but also maintain and sustain that which leads to generational wealth.

That is what this book is about. It is not about closing sales or how to run a multimillion-dollar company or how to cash in on your side hustle so you can quit your day job. This book is about building the character you need in order to succeed. I firmly believe that people who continuously work to develop their internal success of personal character will ultimately have many external successes.

Almost every millionaire I’ve helped coach or train, every personal business client I’ve coached, and every person I’ve mentored was broke and hungry for a greater life when I met him or her. Today, many of them are worth millions not because of their business acumen or their ability to convince the people they meet to buy something. No. It’s because I have ingrained in them the exact millionaire mindset that has been ingrained in me, the three most important keys they need in order to have the character of a first-generation millionaire. If you don’t build these keys—these mental muscles—and exercise them constantly, your success will be miniscule and fleeting.

Before you start flipping through the book and rushing to Pillar 1, ask yourself if you have the desire to disrupt the past to create a new you. There are no shortcuts here to obtain the true mindset of a first-generation millionaire. Absolutely no cutting corners. There is no cheating. This is your life. You must do the work.

To get started, answer the following questions:

•   Do you have the drive to transform yourself into a person who knows for a fact that you will not die working but rather, die watching your work lead to generational wealth?

•   Will you grant yourself permission to implement a foundational vision statement that says the following: “I will not leave debt to my children and my children’s children, but rather I will leave generational wealth. My family members will be able to live off of my work, which will tee them up for their personal works even if their paths are totally different.”

If you answered yes to one or both of those questions, you are ready to embrace the mindset of a first-generation millionaire. Duplicating the millionaire mindset is far greater than duplicating an industry or product. Products and industries change and can even die, but the millionaire mindset is designed to last for generations. Are you ready to be the person in your family who finally creates lasting wealth? If so, you must be ready to learn about yourself, to allow yourself to discover things that you thought you had forgotten or hidden away, to transform into someone who has the character of a first-generation millionaire. If you truly have a burning desire xxto implement this mindset and take on the assignment of becoming a first-generation millionaire, then I invite you to read on.

The three keys essential to the character of every first-generation millionaire I know are these:

Value: Do you value yourself and your abilities? If you truly want to succeed in life with a solid foundation, first you need to understand and appreciate your personal value. Just as every human being’s thumbprint and DNA are unique, there is something unique about you that only you were designed to leave on this planet before you depart.

All of your personal answers will be uncovered and revealed page by page during your journey of completing this book. Your personal value is directly linked to the personal confidence and posture that you bring to any conversation, deal, or presentation. Confidence and posture show up only when you can truly identify and walk in your God-given value. The world benefits for many generations from those who tap into their true personal value.

Faith: Do you have faith in yourself? Not in your ideas. Not in your team. Not in your product. Not in your website. Not even in your family. In yourself. When things go south, when your best employees quit, or when your product gets trumped in the marketplace, do you have faith that you will be able to start from scratch and create success all over again? You must have faith in yourself and your abilities. Otherwise, the very first wave will wash you away completely.

Those who consistently build faith in themselves will ultimately tap into a much higher degree of personal purpose. I am going to expose you to the exact practices I use even to this day to build my faith in myself. I was born in poverty, and my first memory is of when I was homeless and living in a shelter for battered women. The most vivid memories after that are when I failed the second grade and when I had a teenage felony arrest. These are just a few of the many obstacles that I will share with you in this book. But through it all, I still had faith. I decided at the age of 20 that my past would not dictate my future! That mindset alone was and has been one of my foundational faith keys that have led me to become the man I am today.

Commitment: Do you have the commitment to take this all the way? Are you honest enough with yourself to ensure that you will give this effort 100 percent of your energy 100 percent of the time? Without commitment, quitting is too easy. Without commitment, you will never be a first-generation millionaire.

Think of wealth mastery and the millionaire mindset as a house you want to renovate. You can change the doors, redo the windows, and add a garage, but there are some walls that your contractor will tell you that you cannot touch. These walls are integral to the structure of the house. Without them, everything will start to crumble. These three keys—value, faith, and commitment—are like those walls. The house was built around them. You are no different. You can’t play with them, you can’t negotiate with them, and you can’t succeed without them.

Let’s talk about value. When I was about 25 years old, I was asked to speak at a prominent church. I wasn’t asked to speak to leadership or the congregation but to the leaders’ children. The youth of the church. Now, I am always ten toes down, ready for anything, when talking to young people. I was the troublemaker and class clown when I was young, and I looked up to those people who came to speak to me, so I am always looking for my past self in the crowd when I am speaking to young people. I want to be able to handle him or her before he or she jumps.

But this crowd was different. These weren’t kids who were forced to be there, rolling their eyes from the get-go. This audience was made up of the children of the leaders we all respect. They were being exposed to phenomenal teachings every day. They were constantly surrounded by greatness. It was in their blood. I had to improve on what they already knew, so the topic I chose that day was something all children should hear about starting from a young age. I spoke to them about their personal value.

I started my speech by pulling out a hundred-dollar bill. I showed it to them and asked, “How much is this worth?” They said it was worth a hundred dollars. I folded it in half and asked them again, “How much is this worth?” Again, they said it was worth a hundred dollars. I asked them why the value didn’t change when I folded the bill, and they told me, “Even folded, it is still worth a hundred dollars.”

“What if I fold it again?” I asked. Now it was a quarter of what it once was, but the children said it still worth a hundred dollars. “You’re telling me that if I decrease the size and visibility to a quarter of what it was, that the value is still there?” That was when they started looking at me like I was crazy.

“Yes!” they all screamed.

“What if I fold it again? What if I crumple it up and throw it on the ground? What if it gets mud all over it and it looks like garbage? What if I step on it? Then what is it worth?”

“Brother Johnny,” they shouted back, “it’s still worth a hundred dollars!”

With emotions extremely high, I enthusiastically asked, “So, you’re telling me that as long as it stays intact—as long as I can smooth it out, rinse it off, make it straight—there is nothing I can do to this piece of paper to cause it to lose its value?” They all nodded back at me. Then I asked them, “What would you do if someone stepped on your dreams? Crumpled up your ambitions and aspirations? Folded you in half? Mentally, emotionally? Would you lose your value?” Silence. Then I asked them, “How can this man-made object, this bill made of paper, have more value than you, a God-made object?”

You must value yourself or you will never be a first-generation millionaire. People from any bloodline who have ever accomplished something that has never been done before can always trace that accomplishment back to their breakthrough in understanding and accepting their personal value. It is one of the core characteristics you need to succeed on this journey. If people try to fold you in half, crumple you up, or step on you—and they will—you must be sure that nothing and nobody has the ability to take away your value. Knowing this as a certainty and exercising this value is something I learned from a young age. This book will show you how to internalize that feeling and use it to empower yourself as you work to accumulate your first million and beyond.

The second key is faith. I’m not talking about your faith in God. I’m talking about your faith in yourself. Where is that faith in yourself? In your abilities? In your drive? Before you answer those questions, think about the last chair you sat in; perhaps the one you are sitting in right now. When you went to sit down, you didn’t check the chair first. You simply walked up to it and sat. When you go to a restaurant or to see a play, you don’t inspect the chair in which you are about to sit. You just sit. You have faith that the chair will hold you up. Now, do you have that same faith in yourself? Or do you say to yourself, “What if I call this person and he or she says no? It’s going to hurt my feelings.” Or, “What if my employees don’t think I know what I am doing?”

You didn’t talk to the chair about being there for you, about doing its job, about not letting you down. But when you have to do the thing that needs to be done, do you start asking yourself if it’s even possible? If so, why? Why do you have more faith in the chair than you do in your own ability to be a first-generation millionaire? You must have faith in yourself or you will never succeed. It’s a fact that I have proven over and over again.

When presented with an opportunity to expand my team, I got on a plane to go to South Africa on my own dime, to Australia on my own dime, to London on my own dime. My company didn’t want to send me. The company’s leaders didn’t want to take the risk; they didn’t want to invest in something that was not a sure thing. But I had faith in myself. I knew that if I went to those places, I could build the relationships, build the partnerships, and create something out of nothing. I had faith that the very same executives and partners who stayed behind would soon see what I was capable of achieving and follow me across continents. I want you to have that same faith in yourself. Take your faith that a man-made chair will hold you up, and apply that faith to yourself. Only when you are able to do this will you have what it takes to be a first-generation millionaire.

Alongside value and faith, there is commitment. When I say “commitment,” I mean your definition of being committed, not someone else’s. Commitment requires a personal connection to an assignment. If you are working on something that you cannot create a genuine connection to, that should be your first red flag. What you are working on now is someone else’s assignment. It’s not yours.

That said, when you are first starting out, the best way to understand the idea of commitment is to become a part of other people’s commitment to their assignment for a season. By working on others’ commitment, you can expose yourself to new ideas, hone your skills, and figure out what it is that you want your own commitment to be. You can find your own value in raising up their work. By working with other people initially, you can learn about what you love and put your stamp on something as you work on it. Use these experiences as a jumping off point before you commit to a project that really speaks to what you love and what you are good at.

You know what you are masterful at—everyone is masterful at something. But when you are blessed and gifted in a certain area, it’s so easy to hide behind someone else’s definition of greatness. Even if you know better. Just because someone says you are the best salesperson, promoter, or marketing mind he or she has ever seen, that doesn’t mean that it is your best. I am at the top of my field. I have been speaking in front of hundreds of thousands of people every year for well over a decade now. My companies generate nine figures a year in global production. But that is still not my best. I am writing this book because I want to commit to what I am called to do and help you do the same.

To understand your commitment to your goal, imagine a vending machine. If you want some chips but you feel like eating only half the bag, you still have to put in the whole dollar. The machine will never give you half the chips for 50 cents. If you put in 50 cents, the machine will give you nothing. As a matter of fact, just like life, it will reject your efforts and spit your coins back out. You need to commit to the whole bag. You need to put in 100 percent, the whole dollar. There is no negotiation.

You may say you want to be a first-generation millionaire, but then you try to negotiate your life away. You don’t commit to waking up two hours early to chase leads and do research. You don’t stay at work late to follow up on calls and ideas. You just want to put in that 50 cents and get that half bag of chips.

This is where I tell you to stop that behavior now. Before you read any further, you must commit to the whole bag. You simply cannot negotiate commitment if you want to be a first-generation millionaire. Negotiate your desire to have everyone like you. Negotiate what you are OK with when others talk about you behind your back. But never negotiate your commitment to this journey. You will not become a first-generation millionaire without first committing to it 100 percent.

If you know that you cannot give everything you have to these three keys—value, faith, and commitment—stop reading now, and put this book away until you can make that personal commitment, or give this book to someone you care about who is hungry and has a burning desire to be that breakout generation. This book is designed for those who want to awaken the giant that lives within. This book is for those who will commit to the commitment!

These keys will be the foundation of your character, which will bring you that success and allow you to keep it. The character that will pick you up when you fall. The character that you will pass on to your children’s children so they can continue on this path.

If you are obsessed with the numbers in your bank statement, your rank in a company, or the amount of sales you bring but you do not think about your character, you will fail. I can give you all the information you need on how to close a sale, pitch to investors, or run a business, but it won’t mean anything unless you invest in your character first. This book is your first step toward investing in your own character. These three keys will carry you on this journey to being a first-generation millionaire.

Remember that hundred-dollar bill that keeps its value, no matter what. Remember that man-made chair in which you have so much faith. Remember that vending machine that demands you go all in or get nothing. If you truly want to have this, to build this, to be a first-generation millionaire, you need to have faith in yourself. You have to value what you bring to the table. And you have to commit to your cause. This book is not for just anyone and everyone. It is for the people who are willing to change the trajectory of their lives. It is for those who are ready to change who they are in order to take the next step—those who are willing to do the work and own the person they will become.

This book is your road map to greatness. Do the work. Lock it up. Make it happen for your family and yourself. Everything you do from now on is in your control. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

With these keys and the lessons from the journey we are about to embark on together, success is standing right in front of you. Build and maintain that true character—who you are when it is just you and yourself. Laying this foundation is the first step to becoming a first-generation millionaire. Let’s get started.