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A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to speak with Aaron Darko from MillionaireAt24.com and creator of PushButtonMoney.  After looking through his blog a bit, I realized he talked a lot about creating the right mindset in order to be a successful entrepreneur.  Having the right mindset is not easy.  I hope this interview will give you some insight on how Aaron thinks as well as how you can apply it to your life.

Thanks Aaron.

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Interview Transcript:

Jack Liu:  Hello, everyone. I’m here with Aaron Darko from MillionaireAt24.com. Aaron’s an up and coming young entrepreneur who blogs about entrepreneurship on his blog. He’s interviewed some of the top people in the field, such as Derek Johnson from Tatango.com, Neil Patel from Crazy Egg; Tracey Walker, a network marketing leader; Coach Deb, the Twitter Queen; Yanik Silver, which we all know; Matt, founder of Flippa, 99Designs, and Sitepoint; as well as Michael Dunlop, probably one of the biggest names on the Internet now. So Aaron, it’s great to have you with us.

Aaron Darko:  Hey, Jack. How you doing, man?

Jack:  Great, man. Why don’t you tell us a little bit more about yourself and, of course, tell us why you started Millionaire at 24.

Aaron:  Well, I’m 21 now. And the reason why, basically, let’s go back to when I was at school. OK. So I finished school, went to do my A levels, which English people would know as basically high school. And then, after high school, went to university, and I was really pumped up to go to the university. And at the time, I wanted to become a lawyer, because I thought that’s the only way I’m going to make the big bucks, if I become a lawyer. I didn’t go to law school. It’s like university over in England, and then afterwards go to law school.

Jack:  OK.

Aaron:  So I did that for two years. And basically, I meant to go back this year, May. It’s now June. I meant to go back in May to do my exams, because I failed my second year.

Jack:  [laughs]

Aaron:  I didn’t go back because, at the end of my second year exams, which was in summer of 2009, I decided to take a year out of university because I was into this Internet marketing stuff. And I actually went to a seminar in October of 2009, with my dad, and it was about Internet marketing, make money online sort of stuff. And then, ever since then, I was like, “You know what? I need to scrap the normal nine to five conventional job thing and just go full time Internet marketing.” So in December of ’09, I quit my part time job, whilst I was living where my college was in Coventry, in the UK, and went full time on the Internet. Started my blog in December, and six months later I’m getting interviewed by Jack. [laughs]

Jack:  [laughs]

Aaron:  Actually, to answer your question full on, the reason why I started Millionaire at 24 was to inspire people and lead by example, because I figured there’s not many leaders in the world, and I wanted to be one of those leaders that inspires my generation, my generation of people. What Derek Johnson said on the interview I did with him the other week, he said, “University is a holding tank for people who don’t know what they want to do in life.” So that’s exactly what I found when I was at college. Some of the people there, in fact, most of them, didn’t really know what they wanted to do after they graduated. So that’s part of the reason why I started Millionaire at 24, to make people realize that, look, you can actually get rich on the Internet. And that’s why I’m interviewing all these successful people. So it’s not just me saying it. It’s third party validation, that, “Look, these guys are doing it. Let’s all do it.”

Jack:  Yeah. I definitely agree about the school thing. I’ve been out of school for four or five years now, and even now people still don’t know what they want to do. I’m a big fan of Robert Kiyosaki, “Rich Dad, Poor Dad.” I’m sure you have heard of him, right?

Aaron:  Yeah, yeah.

Jack:  That was the first book I read and I thought, “This is a game changer right now, a life changer,” my perspective just totally changing. So I can definitely agree with you about school. It’s not really letting the youth in our generation reach their potential.

Aaron:  Yeah, absolutely. Robert Kiyosaki, he’s not against education. He’s for education. All rich people are for education. But there’s different types of education. This is a quote from Jim Rohn. He said, “Formal education will get you a job.” What’s it’s called? Yeah. “Formal education will get you a job, and something else education will make you become wealthy.” Self education.

Jack:  Yeah.

Aaron:  So he’s basically saying that if you go and study, go to all these seminars about wealth creation, personal development, then you’re going to become wealthy, because what they teach is leverage. The formal education system is designed for you to work, because otherwise, if the system wasn’t designed that way, we would have no workers. Everyone would be an entrepreneur, [laughs] and there would be no businesses because you need employees.

Jack:  [laughs]

Aaron:  So it kind of counteracts itself, but that’s the capitalist system, and the leaders prosper.

Jack:  Yeah. So I actually thought you were 24.

Aaron:  Oh, no. [laughs] I’m 21 right now.

Jack:  OK. So how are you with your time line, to be a millionaire at 24, then?

Aaron:  It’s going good, man. I’ve been interviewed quite a few times recently, and I’m getting more and more exposure, which is always good. The reason for starting my blog, another answer to your question previously, is because I’m building a platform for myself, for my future business. So, from here, from my blog, I can then go into different things, such as speaking, coaching, all that sort of stuff. So it’s the platforms, like Gary Vaynerchuk.

Jack:  Yeah.

Aaron:  He was the wine guy. He started his blog. A year later he’s on Conan, and then he just gets all over the media. That was what inspired me to start my blog, because I saw Gary Vaynerchuk doing all these keynote speeches, and ultimately I want to be a speaker, so I thought, “Why not start a blog and then get my voice out there, get my message out?”

Jack:  Aaron, I love it. I’m just reading his book right now. Yeah, I definitely agree. You have to start your own branding. Anybody can do it now, with the Internet, with the blogging. You couldn’t do that 10 years ago. Opportunities are wide open for whoever has the time, persistence, and the dedication to do it.

Aaron:  Exactly. And Gary Vaynerchuk always says, “It’s all about the hustle.” Everyone has time. Even if you work a nine to five job, which some people listening may do, you can hustle. From when you get in, you eat dinner, and then hustle from that time, let’s say it’s seven o’clock in the evening, till about one o’clock in the morning. If you really want it that bad, you can make time. There’s no such thing. I don’t believe that excuse, “Oh, I haven’t got the time.” There is always time. Bill Gates doesn’t have a 26th hour of the day, but he is still able to make shit loads of money. [laughs] It’s all about making the time. There’s no excuses in life.

Jack:  Yeah. One of my questions here was, I saw that you interviewed so many people at the Yanik Silver Underground Seminar. Who was the most interesting person that you interviewed, and why?

Aaron:  I think it has to be Matt Mickiewicz, the owner of Sitepoint and Flippa.com and 99Designs.com, because he’s just so on my level. Because I don’t want a job, right? I don’t want a job. I said I’d rather be broke and be working on my brand than have a job. So that’s exactly where he’s coming from as well. He said, “Live cheaply for a few years.” Because he started when he was 14. He said, “Live cheaply for a few years, and then build your brand, build your business, and then you can enjoy the rest of your life that other people can’t because you’ve made that sacrifice.” And it’s all about the sacrifice. And he was making more money than his parents when he was 14 years old.

Jack:  That’s crazy.

Aaron:  [laughs] It is amazing. He would go out of class to make deals with these businesspeople, who had no idea he was 14 years old, may I add.

Jack:  Wow.

Aaron:  [laughs] He’s a great inspiration.

Jack:  Great. That’s awesome. What’s one lesson that you learned that changed the way you run your business now?

Aaron:  Listen to people who have done it already, who have done what you want to do and are very successful at it. You can’t listen to, well, for example, your parents, who haven’t done what you want to accomplish, because they obviously don’t know anything. You have to listen to people who have done what you want to do. It may sound obvious, but to some people, common knowledge is not common practice, so you have to keep on repeating this stuff. So listen to people who have done what you want to do and are very good at it.

Jack:  OK. So you mentioned that you’re building your personal brand now because you want to be a speaker or a coach in the future.

Aaron:  Yeah.

Jack:  Is that definitely something you want, you see yourself, long term, in about five years or so?

Aaron:  Yeah, I’m not sure about coaching. I think that will just evolve naturally from people asking me about certain things. But even now, I get messages on Facebook and my email from people asking me, “Can you look at my blog? Am I doing anything wrong? What should I do better?” So, I can probably evolve that into a coaching program. I’m not sure right now but, my short term goal is to become a speaker and speak to colleges and schools about entrepreneurship and the Internet because people don’t really know that the Internet is such a big opportunity for people and people don’t really know that, so that’s my message that I want to get out.

Jack:  Yeah. Do you think the Internet has peaked? That might be a silly question but…

Aaron:  Say that again.

Jack:  Do you think the Internet has peaked?

Aaron:  Oh do you mean as in saturated?

Jack:  Yeah.

Aaron:  No, not at all, man. We haven’t even scratched the surface yet. They envisage, I think, this a statistic   in three years’ time, there’ll be 79 million more people on the Internet trying to make money online.

Jack:  Whew, wow.

Aaron:  I think that’s the statistic, sir. To answer your question, no it hasn’t. I think the Internet in five years’ time is going to be going mobile, this is what our coach, Debbie, said as well. I totally agree with this; it’s going to be going mobile. They’re bringing out iPads, iPhone 4s, you know, it’s all going mobile. So, you can access Internet on the move. So, people need to position themselves now to take advantage of the big technology moves that are coming in the future.

Jack:  Yeah, I know someone who’s thinking about getting rid of his cell phone and replacing it with an iPad and Skype. So, he would use Skype to make is calls.

Aaron:  Yes, exactly.

Jack:  He wouldn’t have a cell phone and all he would have to do is go around using the wireless.

Aaron:  Exactly. And, I think television is going to become obsolete as well; no one’s going to be watching TV pretty soon because now, everyone watches video. You go on YouTube, don’t you? You go on YouTube and watch loads of videos on there.

Jack:  Yeah, that’s another thing.

Aaron:  Video marketing is very big as well. Something I haven’t been doing really a lot of but I’m going to pick it up soon. Video marketing, because everybody loves to watch videos, right?

Jack:  Right. So, you do a lot more video blogs, through interviews than actual blog posts. Why in particular are you doing that? Is that something you prefer to more than to write or…

Aaron:  Yeah, I think I like to mix it up. Some days I’ll be like, you know, I can’t afford to do a text blog post. Just upload the video because I have loads of videos that I haven’t even uploaded yet from my hard drive. But, I find video easier for the reader to take in information because different modalities you can see them and you can hear them instead of audio, you can just hear them. And, also, it differentiates myself from other people who do the same things as me. So, if someone else does interviews, they might just do strictly all audio and transcribe it, while I’ll do all the different mediums, video, audio and transcribe it. So, if you like any of those three, it will suit you more.

Jack:  Right.

Aaron:  And it also, I think the viewer likes it more. I’ve had feedback on my videos and people like them. So, I’ll keep on doing what works.

Jack:  OK. Who is your biggest ‘inspirator’ in your life?

Aaron:  My biggest what?

Jack:  Your biggest ‘inspirator’. The person you…

Aaron:  Oh.

Jack:  …in your life.

Aaron:  Oh, I have so many in my life, seriously. I think one of them is definitely   well, actually, one of them is definitely Tony Robbins.

Jack:  Tony Robbins?

Aaron:  Yeah, Tony Robbins is like   I call him my second dad. He’s amazing. I think most of the mindset that I’ve got right now is because of Tony Robbins. He said that if any time in your life, there’s always one part in your life that’s doing great, whether it’s your finances, if your finances are doing great, maybe your health isn’t doing great, if your health is great, maybe your finances are not great. If your health is   if your finances are bad, maybe your relationships are great. There’s always one area of your life that’s doing well. And I can definitely relate to that. And he said, if you want to change any part of your life, you have to first and foremost give it its focus. If you want to change something, you’ve got to focus on it because what you focus on expands.

And, that’s one guy that literally, like all of his stuff, I admit, I have on my laptop.

Another guy is Stephen Pierce; I’m not sure if you’re familiar with Stephen Pierce. But he’s an Internet marketer and he’s like a multimillionaire Internet marketer. He goes and speaks around the world and stuff. And he’s basically a motivational speaker as well. I’ve studied a lot of his personal development stuff and he’s just amazing, man. Some of the stuff he comes out with it’s like   he said, “You don’t get fat by eating one pizza. You get fat by eating pizza on a regular basis.”

Jack:  Right.

Aaron:  And he said, “Success is the result of a few things done correctly every day over an extended period of time. And failure is the result of a few things done bad every day over an extended period of time.” So, success is the execution of good judgment; it’s the result of good judgment and failure is the result of bad judgment done over an extended period of time. And it’s a cumulative   I can’t even say the word   cumulative effects. So, it’s like I just said basically.

And, also about the third influence. So, every day, we’re faced with negativity literally. You put on the news right now, there’s no good news on the news. I think you also agree on that.

Jack:  Always something bad.

Aaron:  Yeah, always. It’s like someone just died every single day. It’s like, “Oh, please, stop.” So, what we have to do then   this is what Tony Robbins and Stephen Pierce, in fact, all of the successful guys say this, is we have to feed our mind with positive stuff. Not just positive, you know, go to garden and it turns out there are no weeds when there really are weeds. We have to basically just feed our mind with this personal development stuff and develop our mindset. Because, every day, we’re getting fed with this negativity and we need to replace that and just condition our minds, basically, for success. So, yeah, those two, Stephen Pierce and Tony Robbins and, obviously, Gary Vaynerchuk as well. Because he so forward; he’s just straight to the point, don’t care. He even swears when he speaks, he’s just funny.

I actually saw him when I was at Yanik Silver’s Underground. I was like sitting in the front row, but then I couldn’t get to speak to him because he had to go really quick. But, yeah, he’s a really big inspiration.

Jack:  So, you recommend the seminar to everyone, obviously, right?

Aaron:  Yeah, Underground changed my life. I didn’t realize at the time. But, I mean, all the connections, all the interviews in my blog, are basically from the people I met at that seminar. So, I can gladly say, with proof, that that seminar changed my life. And anyone who’s interested in this niche, which obviously you are, because you’re listening you need to get your B U T-T to Underground next year. It’s going to be awesome and I’d love to meet.

Jack: What kind of mindset is required to be successful?

Aaron: It takes a different mentality. Its often been said that your very thinking has gotten you to where you are today. So knowing that, what do you have to do? You have to get knowledge off people who know better. Its all about getting yourself a mentor. And you can get mentors in many different ways, Cd’s, Dvd’s, Books, in person – lots of ways. I think the key to becoming successful is being crystal clear about what you want. From that point its plain sailing. When I say plain sailing i mean its easier than most because there is something very powerful about the universe. When you make up your mind to do something and you are totally committed to it, the universe will give you everything you need. Its the truth, even if you dont believe it now. Make up your mind and decide to master an area of your life and dont stop until you do. I’m still on my journey – more and more opportunities are coming my way and its all because I am clear about what I want and I am committed to achieving it.

That’s the bottom line. You gotta know what you want to achieve in life. And spend every single day working towards it. Dont waste time doing things consistently that are not part of your plan. If you dont have your own plan you will be part of someone elses and probably go get a job. So always think big. Why? Well theres 2 reasons. Donald Trump says if you’re gonna think you might aswell think big. And Les Brown says ‘Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll still be among the stars’ So Go For It and live everyday as if it were your last!

Jack:  Is there anything else you want your listeners to know?

Aaron:  Yeah, I’m going to be launching a product soon. It’s going to be on how to make your first thousand online and it’s just going to be, basically, 12 different people giving their strategies on how to make your first thousand. And just look out for that; it’s going to come out in the next two months, less. And, yeah, just look me up on my blog and study this stuff, listen to this interview over and over again, because I like to say repetition is the mother of learning. And you need to keep on feeding your mind, as I keep on saying. It’s so important for your mindset. Because, if you studied this stuff once, then, OK, you’re going to get a buzz, you’re going to be like, “Oh, this is great stuff.” But if you just let that fade away and carry on with your life, you’re not going to have that mindset that is required. You’ll be starting from scratch again. It’s all about momentum, you have to keep the momentum. Keep studying this stuff; keep feeding your mind every single day.

Yeah, and just keep looking out for my interviews and my site. It’s going to be providing lots of value and just look me up and take action. I just forgot that   take action. Listen to this interview and then take action and apply it to your business, to your life, whatever.

Jack:  Alright, Aaron. Well, I want to do one more thing and I’m going to call it the lightening round. I’m just going to ask you a series of questions and you just answer in one word answers.

Aaron:  Alright, sir.

Jack:  You ready?

Aaron:  Cool.

Jack:  Alright. Entrepreneurs, are they born or made?

Aaron:  Made.

Jack:  Brazil or Argentina for the World Cup?*

Aaron:  [laughs] Argentina.

Jack:  Do you carry a Blackberry or an iPhone?

Aaron:  Blackberry.

Jack:  Are you a PC or a Mac user?

Aaron:  PC.

Jack:  And, finally, do you prefer to read or write?

Aaron:  Read or write? Write.

Jack:  Alright. Thank you, Aaron. So, again, this Aaron Darko from Millionaire at 24. Thank you very much for this interview and I hope you guys enjoyed it and we’ll see you soon. Alright, thanks.

Aaron:  It’s been a pleasure. It’s been a pleasure, man. Thanks.

*Note, I was way off with the two teams I gave Aaron.