Jay Samit - Future Proofing You

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Potential is a priceless treasure, like gold. All of us have gold hidden within, but we have to dig to get it out.

— Joyce Meyer , A Leader in the Making

ONE OF THE GREAT JOYS of writing a book is hearing from you, the readers. I wrote my first book, Disrupt You! , as a way of helping others to transform their lives. I wanted to break down the business world in a way that made success accessible to all. Disrupt You ! flipped the message of most books: in order to change the world, you first must learn to change yourself. The book connected with readers around the globe (and is currently published in 10 languages).

I was humbled and touched by the response. I received emails from thousands of readers. Readers from dozens of countries shared stories with me of how they applied the lessons in Disrupt You! to their lives and businesses. I heard from a dentist in Pakistan who went from not being able to support his wife and children to having one of the most successful practices in Islamabad. I heard from intrapreneurs who gained the courage to change old companies from within and from single moms building side hustles that gave them the freedom to quit their day jobs. One young reader, still in his early twenties, even drove hundreds of miles to see me speak and thank me. He wanted to tell me that in just two years of applying what he learned in Disrupt You! , he was able to buy his parents and grandparents their own homes. As gratifying as these responses were, the one note that haunted me was from another young man who loved the book, but didn't believe he could make it happen.

At twenty‐something years old, he had already given up on his goals. He hated his dead‐end job and was drowning in credit card debt. He couldn't envision a future beyond living paycheck to paycheck. He felt trapped and defeated. He didn't think success was possible. I read and reread his email, trying to muster the proper response. By failing to prove to him that success was possible for everyone, I had failed him.

What would it take, I wondered, to convince a millennial – or anyone – that they could achieve financial success? He had written me, I surmised, as a cry for help. His pain gnawed at me and kept me up until dawn. Could I take individuals with very little work experience and no family background in business and mentor them into becoming a self‐made millionaire? How long would that take? Could it be achieved in a year? Would they learn the skills to be future proof for life?

This is the story of how I decided to challenge myself and see if I could create a Future Proofing millionaire. For a year, I mentored one individual on how to turn his perseverance into his first million dollars. I took detailed notes of each weekly session and I mapped out the process. My goal wasn't to just mentor one person but to come up with a program by which anyone could Future Proof their life. You now hold in your hand the knowledge and the results of our experiment.

Before I went searching for a mentee, I needed to set up the guidelines for my Future Proofing You experiment. First, I wanted to make sure that the process was repeatable and accessible to all. I was going to mentor someone to do it on their own. I was the coach, but they had to go on the field and run their own plays. To be a fair test, the insights had to be theirs alone. They had to decide what type of business to launch, how to find their niche, and how to acquire customers. The effort too had to be theirs alone. If they didn't internalize the process, they wouldn't be Future Proof.

Since many first‐time entrepreneurs blame a lack of money or access to investment capital as the reason for their failure, I needed to find someone who was broke. My mentor would not get a penny from me (though, in full disclosure, I did buy him pizza at our lunch meetings). I also wanted to show would‐be entrepreneurs that success could be achieved without raising any capital. He would have to use his skills to create a business that wasn't capital intensive and learn to reinvest his own profits to fuel his first year's growth.