How to buy a small business comes down to six moves: decide exactly what you’re looking for, find deals, check the numbers before you fall in love, sign a letter of intent, run real due diligence, then close with financing and a transition plan in writing. The step that protects your money is diligence, because that’s where you find out whether you’re buying a business that pays you or a stressful job you just paid a million dollars for.

People also search this as “buying an existing business,” “how to acquire a small business” or “steps to buy a business.” Same road. This is education, not legal, tax or lending advice. Get an M&A attorney and a CPA on your side before you sign anything that matters.

Why buying a business beats starting from zero (sometimes)

I’ve spent years telling people to build. I still believe in building. But there’s a quiet group of entrepreneurs who skip the hardest part of the startup curve entirely. They buy a company that already has customers, staff, suppliers and cash coming in.

Walker Deibel, the guy in the video above, wrote a whole book on this called Buy Then Build. His point is simple and it stuck with me: a startup has to prove the business model works. An existing business already did. You’re not betting on an idea. You’re betting on your ability to keep something running and make it better.

That’s the upside. The downside is that you can overpay, inherit problems you didn’t see and discover the “business” was really the old owner working 70 hours a week. That’s why the process matters more than the listing.

Step 1: Build a buy box before you look at a single listing

A buy box is your filter. Write it down. If you skip this, every shiny listing on a marketplace will look like the one.

• Size: the range of yearly cash flow you’re targeting, not revenue. Revenue is vanity here.
• Industry: sectors you understand or can learn fast. Boring is fine. Boring is often great.
• Owner dependence: how much you’ll accept. If every client relationship runs through the seller’s cell phone, that risk walks out the door at closing.
• Your role: do you want to run it day to day or hire a manager? Be honest.
• Deal-breakers: customer concentration, licenses you can’t get, a lease about to expire.

Then talk to a lender early. If you plan to use an SBA 7(a) loan, a lender can tell you roughly what you’d qualify for and what documents they’ll want. Sellers take you a lot more seriously when your financing is already moving.

Step 2: Find deals on and off the market

Listed deals come through brokers and online marketplaces. Off-market deals come from you reaching out directly to owners who haven’t put their company up for sale yet. Off-market takes more work and usually means less competition. Plenty of owners near retirement have never been asked.

Before a seller hands you the real numbers, you’ll sign an NDA. Expect to request at least three years of tax returns, profit and loss statements and a current balance sheet.

Step 3: Check the numbers before you get emotional

This is where people get hurt. The listing says the business makes $400,000 a year for the owner. That number almost always includes “add-backs,” expenses the seller says you won’t have, like their car, their family on payroll or a one-time lawsuit.

Some add-backs are real. Some are wishful thinking. Your job is to grade each one: verified, supportable or made up. Price is its own skill, and I’ve already broken down how to value a small business, so I won’t re-teach multiples here. What I will say is this: never pay for earnings you can’t prove.

Step 4: Sign a letter of intent that sets the rules

A letter of intent (LOI) is where you put the deal on paper before the expensive work starts. It’s usually non-binding on price but binding on things like confidentiality and exclusivity. A clear LOI covers:

• Price and how it’s paid (cash at close, a seller note, any earnout)
• Structure, meaning whether you’re buying the assets or the stock
• What’s included, like inventory, equipment and working capital
• An exclusivity window so the seller can’t shop your offer while you spend money on diligence
• A financing contingency if you need a loan
• How long the seller stays to help you transition

Structure deserves a real conversation. Your attorney and CPA will push you toward one side of the asset sale vs stock sale debate, and the tax and liability gap between the two is big.

Step 5: Run small business due diligence like your money depends on it

Because it does. Due diligence is where you confirm the story matches the records. Here’s the framework I’d use.

The core test is a three-way match. Tax returns show what the owner told the IRS. Internal financials show how they run the business month to month. Bank statements show the cash that actually moved. When all three line up, the earnings are probably real. When they don’t, you need an explanation you can document, or you walk.

What is a quality of earnings report?

A quality of earnings report (QoE) is an accountant’s review of how much the business really earns on a sustainable basis. It’s not an audit. It rebuilds the earnings, tests the add-backs and ties revenue to bank activity.

For bigger SBA deals it’s no longer optional. Under SBA SOP 50 10 8.1, effective October 1, 2026, the lender must get an independent quality of earnings report on qualifying 7(a) acquisitions with a business purchase price of $3 million or more, on top of the business valuation. Below that line, a scaled-down review from a CPA is still worth paying for on any deal with heavy add-backs.

Step 6: Finance the deal and close

Most small acquisitions are funded with some mix of your own cash, a bank or SBA loan and sometimes a note the seller carries. I’m not going to tell you which mix is right for you. That depends on the deal, your credit and what the lender approves.

One rule worth knowing: on SBA change-of-ownership loans, the business valuation has to support the purchase price. If you agree to pay more than the valuation supports, the difference has to come from equity. That’s the lender quietly telling you you’re overpaying.

At closing, your attorney handles the purchase agreement, including representations, indemnification and any non-compete. Get the seller’s transition help in writing. “I’ll be around if you need me” is not a plan.

Am I buying a business or buying a job?

This is the question I’d tape to the wall. If the business only works because one person grinds 70 hours a week, and that person is about to be you, you bought a job. Maybe that’s fine. Just price it like a job and go in with your eyes open.

The buyers who do well tend to look for a business with systems, a team that can run without the owner in the room and customers that aren’t loyal to one personality. Then they spend the first 100 days learning, not changing everything. Knowing all of this is easy. Walking away from a deal you’re excited about when the numbers don’t match is the hard part. That’s the discipline that separates people who build wealth through acquisitions from people who lose their savings on one.

Frequently asked questions about buying a small business

How much money do you need to buy a small business?

It depends on the price, the loan and the seller. Most deals need some buyer cash for the down payment, closing costs and working capital. A lender can tell you what they’d require on a specific deal.

Can you buy a business with no money down?

It’s rare and risky. Lenders usually want the buyer to have real cash in the deal. Seller notes can reduce how much you bring, but you’ll still pay it back out of the business.

How long does it take to buy a small business?

From signed LOI to closing, many deals take two to four months, mostly diligence and financing. The search before that can take far longer.

What documents should I ask for when buying a business?

At least three years of tax returns, profit and loss statements, balance sheets and bank statements, plus the lease, key contracts, licenses, payroll records and a list of liens or lawsuits.

Is it better to buy an existing business or start one?

Buying gets you proven customers and cash flow faster but costs more upfront. Starting is cheaper but riskier and slower. The right call depends on your capital, skills and tolerance for risk.

Do I need a quality of earnings report?

For SBA 7(a) acquisitions of $3 million or more, the lender must get one as of October 1, 2026. On smaller deals it’s optional but smart when the seller’s numbers lean on add-backs.

Key Takeaways

• A useful retirement benefit is easy to join, understand, and manage.
• Plan design should reflect workforce needs, company goals, and available administrative capacity.
• Automatic features, payroll integration, and plain-language education can reduce barriers to participation.
• Employers should review contribution limits, eligibility rules, notices, and plan operations during 2026.
• Retirement education is more effective when it acknowledges employees’ broader financial pressures.

Offering a retirement plan is an important start, but the benefit only delivers value when employees can understand it, enroll without unnecessary friction, and use it consistently. Employers evaluating retirement plan services for growing businesses can look to ADP, a payroll and workforce services provider whose retirement offering includes plan design options, payroll integration, plan administration support, participant tools, and financial wellness resources. That broader payroll and benefits experience can be especially relevant when retirement deductions, eligibility tracking, and employee communications need to work together.

The best plan is not automatically the one with the most features. It is the one that fits the workforce, the business budget, and the organization’s ability to administer it accurately over time.

Why Practical Plan Design Matters

A plan can look strong on paper and still go underused if employees find enrollment confusing or investment choices overwhelming. Employers should review more than headline features. Participation rates, opt-out patterns, average deferral rates, common employee questions, and use of the company match can reveal whether the benefit is working in practice.

Step 1: Start With The Workforce

Before comparing providers or plan types, assess the people the plan is intended to serve. Review age ranges, pay levels, locations, employment classifications, turnover, and expected growth. Include full-time, part-time, seasonal, and long-term part-time workers in the review. Employee surveys or listening sessions can also identify common obstacles, such as debt, emergency expenses, uncertainty about investing, or unfamiliarity with payroll deductions.

A growing company with many early-career employees may place more value on automatic enrollment and short, basic education. A workforce with many employees nearing retirement may need clearer information about catch-up contributions, beneficiary designations, and retirement income planning.

Step 2: Compare Plan Designs By Fit

There is no universal best choice. A traditional 401(k) can provide broad design flexibility. A safe harbor 401(k) may help address certain nondiscrimination testing concerns when the employer follows applicable contribution requirements. SIMPLE IRAs may suit some smaller employers seeking a less complex arrangement, while SEP IRAs can fit certain owner-focused or variable-profit businesses. Profit-sharing features can allow employer contributions to vary under the plan’s terms.

Compare eligibility, employer contribution requirements, vesting, administrative responsibilities, investment options, and employee communications before selecting a design. Legal, tax, and investment professionals can help employers understand the responsibilities attached to each option.

Step 3: Make Enrollment And The Match Easy To Understand

Employees are more likely to take action when the process is clear. A strong enrollment experience explains when deductions begin, the default contribution rate, how to choose or change investments, how to opt out, and where to get help. Automatic enrollment and automatic escalation may reduce the need for employees to make every savings decision from scratch, but notices must remain easy to read and find.

The employer match deserves the same clarity. Instead of relying only on a formula, show an example. If a worker earning $50,000 contributes enough to receive a 4% company match, the example should show the potential employer contribution in dollars while noting that plan terms and employee elections control the actual result.

Step 4: Keep Investments And Education Manageable

An investment menu should offer diversified choices without forcing employees to sort through unnecessary complexity. When appropriate, provide a clearly explained default investment option and tools that help employees estimate future retirement needs. Review fees, performance information, and participant communications on a regular schedule.

Retirement saving also competes with immediate financial demands. Budgeting guidance, emergency-savings education, student loan resources, short videos, and individual education sessions can help employees see how retirement fits into their broader financial picture. The goal is not to prescribe one answer for everyone, but to make the next step feel achievable.

Step 5: Treat Administration As A Core Plan Feature

Administration affects both employee experience and compliance. Evaluate how a plan handles payroll deductions, census data, eligibility tracking, contribution deposits, required notices, testing, reporting, and participant questions. Assign clear ownership among HR, payroll, finance, internal leadership, and external providers so that important tasks do not rely on informal handoffs.

Step 6: Review Important 2026 Changes

For 2026, the basic elective-deferral limit for many 401(k), 403(b), and governmental 457 plans is $24,500. The regular catch-up limit for eligible participants is $8,000, and a higher $11,250 catch-up limit applies to those who turn 60 through 63 during the year. Plans that offer catch-up contributions should also review applicable Roth catch-up procedures, including the wage-based rules that begin in 2026. Employers can monitor IRS employee plans updates for current guidance, amendment information, and operational developments.

Also review long-term part-time employee eligibility, Roth contribution availability, SECURE 2.0 amendments, plan documents, and participant notices. Rules and implementation deadlines can differ by plan type and circumstance, so an old checklist should not replace current professional advice.

Step 7: Use A Compliance Calendar And Measure Results

A written calendar can assign deadlines for payroll and census reviews, eligibility audits, required notices, contribution testing, plan amendments, investment reviews, education campaigns, and annual filings. The Department of Labor’s retirement plan administration guidance is a useful starting point for understanding plan sponsor duties, ERISA-related responsibilities, disclosures, and filing resources.

Review results at least annually while protecting employee privacy. Track participation, average contribution rates, match use, opt-outs, education attendance, and recurring questions. If participation is low, determine whether the issue is affordability, unclear communication, enrollment friction, or a workforce need the current program does not address.

Common Employer Questions

Do small businesses have to offer a retirement plan?

Federal law does not require every private employer to sponsor a retirement plan, although some states have requirements for retirement programs. Employers should confirm the rules that apply to their location and workforce.

How often should a plan be reviewed?

Conduct a formal review each year and revisit the plan after significant changes in workforce, payroll, ownership, legal, or business.

Final 2026 Checklist

• Confirm the plan fits the workforce and business budget.
• Review limits, catch-up procedures, and eligibility rules.
• Test payroll data and contribution processes.
• Explain matches, investments, and enrollment choices in plain language.
• Refresh education materials and required notices.
• Assign owners and deadlines for every compliance task.

Conclusion

A retirement benefit should be more than a line on a benefits sheet. When plan design, payroll operations, employee education, and compliance reviews work together, employers can create a program that is easier to manage and more useful to the people it is meant to support.

Open any global crypto site and you’ll see one number. Open your exchange and you’ll see a different one. That gap is the most misunderstood thing about holding Bitcoin in Australia, and it trips up experienced traders just as often as first-timers.

Here’s what nobody explains properly: your gain or loss in Australian dollars depends on two moving parts, and only one of them has anything to do with Bitcoin’s fundamentals. The other is the Aussie dollar itself, quietly doing its thing in the background. Once you can separate the two, half the noise in your feed stops mattering.

If you want a straight reference point for the Australian market, a live bitcoin price aud chart is the honest starting line, because it shows what you’d actually pay right now rather than what a US site quotes at midnight. Read that number, then read the rest of this. The two together will change how you look at every headline.

Why Your Bitcoin Chart Doesn’t Match the One on TV

Bitcoin is priced in US dollars almost everywhere. Charts, news alerts, YouTube thumbnails, all of it runs on USD. But unless you’re paid in greenbacks, your wealth lives in Australian dollars, and that conversion does real work.

When the Australian dollar weakens against the US dollar, Bitcoin’s AUD price rises even if the USD price sits perfectly still. Reverse it and you get the opposite: Bitcoin flat in USD, slipping in AUD. I’ve watched people panic-sell a dip that only existed in the currency layer. Their Bitcoin was fine. The dollar wasn’t.

Think of it as two engines on one plane. The crypto engine and the currency engine. You’re watching altitude, and both of them push. Ignoring the second one is how you end up making confident decisions about a number you’re misreading.

How Do You Tell Which Engine Is Moving?

Check both charts, side by side, before you react to anything. It’s a thirty second habit and it kills most bad decisions at the source.

Bitcoin up in USD and flat in AUD: the Aussie dollar strengthened. Your coin didn’t really do much.

Bitcoin flat in USD and up in AUD: the Aussie dollar weakened. You gained from currency, not from crypto.

Both up: this is the clean one. Bitcoin is doing the work in its own terms.

Both down: same story in reverse, and usually where panic starts.

There’s also a timing trap. The AUD price you see on Australian platforms reflects local trading, spreads and fees, so it can drift a little from a pure conversion. That drift is normal and usually small. It only becomes a problem when you’re comparing three sites and treating one of them as gospel.

The Bit That Actually Costs You Money

Fees and the tax office are where casual holders quietly lose. A trade that looks like a rounded result gets shaved by spreads, deposit costs, and the exchange rate on top.

And in Australia, Bitcoin is treated as an asset for tax purposes. The Australian Taxation Office treats a disposal triggered by selling or swapping as a capital gains event, and swapping one coin for another counts as a disposal too. Lots of people treat a swap as a free move. It isn’t. Keep your records in AUD from day one, because reconstructing them months later is genuinely miserable.

My take: if you’re holding for the long haul, stop watching the minute chart entirely. Check the AUD price before you buy or sell, log the transaction, and close the tab. The people who lose the least in this market aren’t the cleverest. They’re the ones who made peace with the boring parts.

Reading the Price in Context, Not in Isolation

A number on a screen means nothing without the conditions around it. The Reserve Bank of Australia sets monetary policy that influences the Aussie dollar, which moves your Bitcoin value in ways crypto Twitter never mentions. Higher or lower local interest rates ripple into currency strength, and currency strength lands directly on your portfolio.

So when someone says Bitcoin crashed overnight, ask which chart they’re looking at. That’s not pedantry. It’s the difference between acting on information and acting on a headline written for a different country.

Volatility deserves its own paragraph here. Crypto swings hard in both directions and short-term moves are basically unpredictable, no matter who claims otherwise. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has been blunt about the risks in crypto assets, and that bluntness is worth taking seriously if you’re new. Anyone promising you a floor is selling something, and news flash, it isn’t protection.

A Simple Routine You Can Run This Week

Here’s the exact loop I’d give a friend who just bought their first Bitcoin.

Check the AUD chart once a day at the same time. Once. Not seven times.

Glance at AUD versus USD on the same visit, so you learn the pattern in your own hands.

Write down every buy, sell and swap with the AUD value and the date, in one place.

Set a rule for what would make you sell before you’re emotional, and put it somewhere you’ll actually see it.

Compare prices across two Australian platforms before a large trade, since spreads vary.

Do that for a month and you’ll notice something strange. You’ll start recognizing currency noise for what it is, and your reaction time to real signals will sharpen on its own.

The Long Game Is the Whole Game

Bitcoin in Australian dollars is a two-variable problem, and most people only ever watch one variable. That gap is your edge if you’re patient and your trap if you’re not. The currency layer explains more of the day-to-day mood swings than the coin itself, and it costs nothing to understand.

You don’t need a terminal, a paid subscription, or a guy in a Telegram group. You need one accurate AUD chart, a spreadsheet you actually update, and the discipline to check the second engine before you touch the throttle. Nearly everything else is entertainment dressed as analysis.

So here’s the question worth sitting with: the last time you felt that spike of fear about Bitcoin dropping, were you looking at Bitcoin, or were you looking at the Australian dollar? Figure that out and you’ll trade with a clearer head than most of the people shouting at you online.

What to do after your first million? Enjoy it and take pride in it, but don’t spend much of it. Invest carefully, stay humble because the market will humble you, keep cash ready for real opportunities, and never let your net worth become your self-worth. That’s how Timothy Sykes put it when I sat down with him in Bali.

Tim is the one and only. He’s a penny stock trader, a multi-millionaire, a world traveler who’s been to over 117 countries, and the founder of a charity community called Karmagawa. He’s also one of the most generous people I know.

He’s been on the Addicted2Success podcast before. That first time, we talked about how he turned $12,415 into more than $4 million trading penny stocks. This time I wanted to know what you do once the money is real.

He also teaches. When we spoke, he said he had about 9,000 paying students and a handful of millionaire students, and he was quick to add that not everyone is going to be a millionaire. “Don’t make crazy promises,” he said. He uses those students as examples of what’s possible, not as a guarantee. I respect that.

Tim and I first met over Skype. He was a big fan of Addicted2Success. The next time we met, we were hanging out in Laos in Southeast Asia. We’d both built schools with Pencils of Promise, and we had nothing but laughs on that trip. There was a whole lot of giving back there. Our community wrote up what we learned from raising $50k and building a school for children in Laos, and Tim went big. I think he donated about a million dollars for twenty schools.

So when we sat down again, I wanted to talk about money. It’s a big conversation for so many people. Most of us think about how to make the first million. Very few think about what to do with it once it shows up.

What to do after your first million: enjoy it, but don’t blow it

I asked Tim straight out: if someone made their first million, what would he tell them to do?

“I mean, enjoy it. That’s the dream, right?” he said. “I would not spend a lot of it, but definitely take pride in it and treat yourself.”

I love that answer because it’s balanced. He’s not telling you to live like a monk. You earned it. Celebrate it. But a celebration is a moment, not a new monthly lifestyle.

That lines up with what regulators tell people who come into big money. FINRA’s guide to managing a financial windfall suggests holding off on big moves for the first six to 12 months, getting organized, and remembering that a “$1 million” headline number can shrink a lot after taxes and fees. Your first million in business works the same way. Know what you’ll actually keep before you decide what to do with it.

Stay humble, because the market will humble you

Tim’s next point was about ego. “It doesn’t matter how much you make. If you get too cocky, the market will humble you,” he told me.

He said he tells people the same thing whether they’ve made a million, a hundred thousand or even a thousand dollars: only put a small portion of it into any investment, because any investment can turn bad. Anything can happen in life.

He said he’s seen enough in the stock market and in teaching to know not to get cocky. The danger is the beginning. “You make money, it’s like, oh, it’s so easy,” he said. “All it takes is that one time where you’re so cocky, then you lose everything.”

That’s the trap after a first big win. You start to believe it was all skill. Some of it was. Some of it was timing. The first million can make you feel bulletproof right when you have the most to lose.

Why fast money tends to disappear

When I asked Tim for his mindsets for up-and-coming entrepreneurs, number two was patience. “Nothing happens in a day, in a week, in a month, in a year,” he said. “And if it does, you don’t appreciate it.”

He compared people who get successful too fast to a Hollywood star or a lotto winner. They usually screw it up, he said, because they didn’t go through the ups and the downs. They didn’t really earn it. “Most likely, even maybe subconsciously, you’re gonna lose it.”

“Like sabotage, right?” I asked him.

“100%,” he said.

That’s worth sitting with if your first million came quickly. It doesn’t mean you didn’t deserve it. It means the skills that keep money are different from the skills that made it, and you have to learn them on purpose.

Sometimes the best investment is no investment

This was the part that surprised me most. I asked Tim what he invests in, and he named a few things. There was a quirky food startup he’d backed, and some real estate, starting with a house he bought for his parents. Then he said he stays in cash a lot.

“Sometimes the best investment is no investment.”

His reasoning: when you have money, you feel pressure to put it somewhere. So you put it somewhere just because you feel forced. Then it tanks, the best opportunity shows up, and you’re stuck in a bad position you can’t get out of. He likes keeping a lot liquid. When we spoke, Tim said he didn’t own a single stock and had more than $10 million in cash.

To be clear, that’s Tim’s choice for Tim’s situation, and it’s not a recommendation for yours. Cash has its own costs, like inflation, and everyone’s goals and taxes are different. What I take from it is the mindset. You don’t have to deploy every dollar the moment it lands. Talk to a fee-only fiduciary advisor and a CPA before you make big moves with a big number.

Your net worth isn’t your self-worth

Here’s the thing. A lot of people tie their sense of worth to their money, which is actually really dangerous.

I shared a story with Tim that has always stuck with me. As I remember it, there was a Russian billionaire, one of the wealthiest people in the country. A financial crisis hit and he lost billions, and his whole worth was so tied to that number that he took his own life. Then, a couple of years later, his money would have recovered past where it was before. He never got to see it.

So I asked Tim, how do you dance between having your worth in what you’ve created and stepping outside of it, having your identity in something greater than yourself?

He brought up Jesse Livermore, who’s often called one of the greatest traders who ever lived. Livermore made and lost huge fortunes, went bankrupt more than once, and eventually took his own life. Tim said if he lost everything, he wouldn’t go that way. “I would get, like, motivated,” he said. He joked he’d eat ramen noodles and livestream the whole comeback.

Then he said the line I’d underline. “It’s a game. It’s a challenge. That’s how money should be viewed. It’s nice to have freedom, it’s nice to have these luxuries, but it’s not your net worth. You’re alive as long as you’re alive, and you have ideas and you can think and you can execute and you can try new stuff.”

If money stress ever has you in a dark place, please talk to someone. In the US, you can call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. No number on a screen is worth your life.

Money buys you freedom from what people think

Tim gets a lot of hate online, and he doesn’t hide from it. Some people, he said, will watch him and think he’s just a millionaire saying whatever he wants. His answer: “I don’t care. That’s the beauty of money. It’s freedom.”

He told me his biggest growth spikes came from negative stories, not positive ones. When a rapper used one of Tim’s cash photos and Tim called him out, the fight trended, and Tim said he picked up about 300,000 followers in 48 hours. Meanwhile, when he donated a million dollars, he said there wasn’t one article about it.

His lesson was about honesty. “If you’re real, the negative turns into a positive bigger than you could possibly imagine,” he said. If you’re a scam, you should be afraid of exposure. If you’re real, “try to expose me. What do you got?” After a first million, people will judge you either way. Being transparent is what keeps that judgment from hurting you.

Why the Lamborghini stopped doing anything for him

Tim is famous for posting cars and stacks of cash. He owns that. “I’ve been known to post stacks of a million dollars on social media,” he said. “I get it. I’ve been on the other side.”

But listen to how he describes it now. “I have a few Lamborghinis. I’m very blessed. They mean [nothing] to me. I drive fast, I feel nothing anymore. It’s sad. When I open a new school, I feel a whole bunch of stuff.”

He said he grew up middle class and just wanted to be rich: the cars, the lifestyle. “But once I got it, it’s like, okay, that’s cool, but what else is there?” He said a lot of rich people aren’t happy because they thought the money and the stuff would make them happy, and it didn’t.

What he appreciates most now is freedom. He moved his parents to Miami and bought them a nice place. He can take care of loved ones, friends and whole communities.

I asked him why giving back seems to hurt engagement online. For some reason, whenever you share something about giving back, it doesn’t travel like a flashy post does. Tim said it’s simple. Post a Lamborghini and people go crazy. Post a new school and it’s “good job,” golf clap. He’s trying to change that by bringing filmmakers and influencers along to the school openings so their audiences see what giving looks like.

That’s also why Karmagawa isn’t named after him. It used to be the Timothy Sykes Foundation, he said, “but it shouldn’t just be about me. I have enough [stuff] named after myself. My ego needs less these days.”

Learn what actually makes you happy

Tim said you learn what makes you happy over time, and too many people don’t adapt. If you’d asked him a decade earlier whether he’d be building schools, he joked, he’d have told you to come for a ride in his Lambo so he could show you what really matters.

That honesty is why I trust him on this. He’s not saying money doesn’t matter. He chased it hard and got it. He’s saying the stuff stopped delivering, and the freedom and the giving didn’t.

Near the end, Tim talked about the families he’s met in Indonesia. “They have nothing, and they’re just so happy to be alive,” he said. Then there are millionaires and billionaires with everything at their fingertips who don’t appreciate it. “Perspective matters.”

So once you hit the number, try things. Fund something you care about. Take care of your people. Notice what actually makes you feel something, and do more of that.

Before the first million: an extra hour on what you love

For anyone still working toward it, Tim’s last 30 seconds were gold. He said this time we’re living in is an opportunity, and too many people waste their potential because they’re afraid to focus on what they love.

If you have money issues and a normal job, he said, study at night and on weekends. Set your alarm an hour earlier. Give what you love an extra hour or a few hours a week, and “you’ll be shocked at what you can do” over one, two, three or five years.

I shared a quote with him that I’d come across: you’re not tired because you’re actually tired. You’re tired because you’re not focusing on the thing that lights you up from within.

A simple checklist for your first million

1. Celebrate once. Treat yourself and take pride in it. Then go back to normal spending.
2. Know your real number. Work out what’s left after taxes and fees before you plan anything.
3. Slow down. FINRA suggests waiting six to 12 months before big moves with a windfall.
4. Get a team. A fee-only fiduciary advisor and a CPA, not a hot tip from a friend.
5. Stay humble. Don’t let one win convince you you can’t lose. Any investment can turn bad.
6. Don’t invest just to feel busy. As Tim put it, sometimes the best investment is no investment.
7. Separate your worth from your net worth. Your ideas and your ability to execute are the real asset.
8. Find what makes you feel something. For Tim, it’s opening schools, not driving Lamborghinis.

FAQ

What should you do after your first million?

Celebrate it, but don’t spend most of it. Work out what you keep after taxes, slow down before big moves, get a fiduciary advisor and a CPA, and invest carefully. Timothy Sykes warns that if you get too cocky, the market will humble you.

Should you invest your first million right away?

Not necessarily. FINRA suggests holding off on big moves for six to 12 months after a windfall. Timothy Sykes says sometimes the best investment is no investment, because forcing money into something can leave you stuck when a better opportunity appears.

Does making a million dollars make you happy?

Not on its own. Timothy Sykes says his Lamborghinis make him feel nothing now, while opening a new school makes him feel a whole bunch of stuff. He says what he values most is the freedom money gives him.

Why shouldn’t you tie your self-worth to your net worth?

Because money goes up and down, and you’re more than a number. Timothy Sykes calls money a game and a challenge. As long as you can think, execute and try new things, you can build it again.

How much of your money should you risk on one investment?

Timothy Sykes says he only puts a small portion into any investment, because any investment can turn bad. The right amount depends on your goals, taxes and situation, so get advice from a fee-only fiduciary advisor.