People often ask me what I did to build nine companies that all crossed the million-dollar mark. They sit there, waiting for me to break out a binder full of detailed notes and strategies, assuming that I have a holy grail method that if they only knew—they too would be a millionaire.

The truth is that strategy may be able to make you money. But being able to make money alone won’t turn you into a millionaire. The number one thing that keeps people from getting to millionaire status isn’t their inability (or even unknowingness of how) to generate a million dollars or more every year—it’s living in a box. 

Boxing yourself in

Living in a box means approaching your life from the forced or prescribed perspective of someone else. This happens with gurus, experts, and mentors who have strict protocols in place for achieving a specific desired result. Whether that’s in life or business, there’s actually no one system, process, or choice that is right for every person on the planet. 

Does that automatically mean that someone else’s process won’t work for you? No. But it also means that there’s an equal possibility that it won’t work for you or will need to be tailored to you in some way. 

But the box itself is not the problem. The problem comes in being disconnected from your ability to discern the difference between something that is right for you or not. 

Do you know how to feel whether or not something is right for you? 

This is where most people go wrong. Instead of tapping into whether or not something feels right, people will tap into whether or not something feels good. And the truth is that the right choice doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes the right thing for you pushes your comfort zone and makes you want to run in the opposite direction. 

That’s why it’s vital, if you want to become a millionaire, that you learn what your body’s response is when something feels right—when it resonates with you at your core. By cultivating this skill, you learn how to bring yourself into alignment.

“No matter how tough the chase is, you should always have the dream you saw on the first day. It’ll keep you motivated and rescue you from any weak thoughts.” – Jack Ma

The alignment key

Alignment is a state of being in tune with the path, experiences, and decisions that are right for you. This is key on your path to success. Being out of alignment will cause you to question yourself, to make the wrong decisions, and to go down paths that can cost you years of your life (not to mention millions of dollars in your bank account), headed down a road of unnecessary mistakes. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

A big part of being in alignment is learning how to trust yourself and sense what’s right for you. In life, you learn pretty quickly that the way things look on paper aren’t often how they go. For better or worse, there are curveballs you can’t avoid or see coming. Despite not knowing everything that’s coming your way, your body is programmed with the ability to discern (a lot of the time) which choice to make in order to avoid some of those curveballs. 

Whenever you’re out of alignment, your fear gets confused for your direction. 

As humans, there’s a desire to avoid pain and run toward pleasure. The problem is that fear isn’t always provoked by a real threat. Sometimes, fear is triggered by the perception of danger—and in the 21st century, the idea of changing and upleveling can be perceived by your mind as dangerous. When that happens, you will engage in self-sabotaging behaviors—which means you’ll be running in the opposite direction of your millionaire dreams all in the name of doing what feels good. 

So how do you stop this pattern and get into alignment if you haven’t learned to discern between choices that feel right and choices that feel good? 

You value hack it.

An easier way to get into alignment

Feelings can be difficult to sort through, especially if you’re just getting used to the difference between what feels good and what feels right. Luckily, there’s an easier way to help yourself learn the difference between the way you experience both of those things in your body. 

First, write out your core values—bonus points if you list them in order of priority. Once you’ve done that, put them on a note card, post it note, or something else handy that you can grab easily. When it comes time to make a decision and you start to sense that something doesn’t feel good, gets uncomfortable, or challenges you—pull out your values. 

Which decision could you make that most aligns with your values? Which decision honors your priorities?

As you start to align yourself with your values in your decision making, then you’ll start to move into greater alignment with your success. You’ll start to recognize the patterns you somatically feel in your body, so that eventually, you won’t need the note card anymore. You’ll learn to identify when something feels right to you so that you can take action on that thing much faster. 

This is the number one mindset secret to becoming a millionaire—ditch boxing yourself into someone else’s ideas and get into alignment so you know the right moves to make for yourself.