Can you really “brainwash” yourself to become wealthy?
It is an attention-grabbing question, and entrepreneur Inayah McMillan used almost exactly that idea in her viral YouTube video How I Brainwashed Myself to Be a Millionaire at 20.
McMillan describes growing up in a large family without much money and gradually developing the belief that her financial circumstances had programmed her to expect scarcity. She compares the mind to a computer operating system. If the software has been programmed around struggle, limitation and survival, she argues, simply installing new business tactics may not be enough. The underlying beliefs also have to change.
Her story is dramatic. She says that at 18 she had around $20 to her name, made her first $100,000 through Airbnb at 19, and eventually built businesses that generated more than $13 million by her early twenties. In a 2023 as-told-to article published by Entrepreneur, McMillan also reported generating more than $375,000 in Airbnb revenue during 2022 while operating 11 listings. These numbers should be understood as reported business results rather than a promise of what someone following her methods will achieve.
What interests me most about her story is not the headline number.
It is the process underneath it.
McMillan talks about prayer, identity, visual reminders, affirmations, reading, persistence, reinvestment, calculated risk, learning from unsuccessful businesses and repeatedly making decisions that matched the person she wanted to become.
Some of those ideas are supported by psychology and neuroscience.
Others are better understood as motivational or spiritual beliefs rather than established scientific facts.
And that distinction matters.
There is no scientific evidence that thinking about wealth automatically causes wealth to appear. There is strong evidence, however, that what we repeatedly pay attention to can influence behaviour, that adults remain capable of learning and neuroplastic change, that specific plans make goal-directed behaviour easier, that repeated behaviours can become habitual, and that monitoring progress can improve the chances of achieving a goal.
For somebody like me, working long night shifts as a Security Guard while trying to build websites, digital products and multiple online income streams, that is a far more useful interpretation of the “millionaire mindset”.
The purpose is not to pretend that I am already wealthy.
The purpose is to train myself to consistently think and behave like somebody capable of building wealth.
That is a very different proposition.
The Millionaire Mindset Story That Changes The Question
Growing Up With Scarcity Can Shape Expectations
One of the most interesting parts of McMillan’s story is her description of growing up without exposure to significant wealth.
At one stage, she says 12 members of her family were living in a three-bedroom, one-bathroom house. She wore hand-me-down clothes and did not personally know people building substantial wealth. Her argument is that the biggest limitation was not necessarily the lack of money itself but the range of possibilities that she could imagine.
This is where discussions about a “scarcity mindset” need some care.
Poverty or financial difficulty should never be reduced to negative thinking. Income, education, opportunity, housing, health, discrimination, geography, family circumstances and economic conditions can all affect financial outcomes. Telling somebody struggling financially that they simply need to “think rich” ignores those realities.
At the same time, our experiences can influence what feels normal, achievable or impossible.
If someone spends years hearing statements such as “people like us never get rich”, “business is too risky”, “investing is only for wealthy people” or “there is no point trying”, those messages can potentially influence later decisions.
The practical question therefore becomes:
What assumptions am I carrying that I have never actually tested?
That question is considerably more powerful than simply repeating, “I am a millionaire.”
A Personal Tragedy Changed Her Perspective
McMillan says an important turning point came after the death of her brother Khalil.
They had planned to visit their mother together during winter break, but he died before the trip could happen. His wife was pregnant at the time, meaning his daughter would never meet her father.
McMillan describes the experience as forcing her to confront the uncertainty of time. She began asking what her life would look like in five years if she continued thinking and behaving in exactly the same way.
That question deserves serious thought:
If I continue living exactly as I do now for another five years, where will it take me?
That does not mean becoming dissatisfied with everything in the present.
It means recognising the relationship between repeated behaviour and future outcomes.
Five years of reading about business is different from five years of building businesses.
Five years of thinking about investing is different from five years of regularly investing.
Five years of saying “one day I will start a website” is different from five years of publishing useful content.
Five years of watching YouTube videos about financial freedom is different from five years of creating assets capable of producing income.
Time will pass in either case.
From How Can I Do It To Why Not Me
McMillan describes repeatedly asking herself:
“How am I going to make money when I don’t have any?”
The question sounded logical, but she eventually decided it was directing her attention towards limitations rather than possibilities.
Later, while applying to work for a billionaire family at 18, she initially focused on everything she lacked. She was young. She did not have all the certifications. She did not have a childcare degree.
Then she changed the question.
Why not me?
She began identifying what she did have: childcare experience, years of growing up around younger family members and the ability to acquire missing certifications.
She got the job.
That episode illustrates an important distinction between unrealistic confidence and useful self-efficacy.
Useful confidence does not say:
“I deserve the opportunity, therefore somebody must give it to me.”
It says:
“What would make me capable of earning this opportunity?”
That question immediately leads towards action.
Failure Became Information Instead Of Identity
McMillan also discusses unsuccessful attempts at dropshipping, stock options and other businesses before Airbnb worked for her.
Instead of interpreting each unsuccessful attempt as evidence that she was incapable of entrepreneurship, she says she began treating them as lessons.
That is one of the most transferable lessons in the entire story.
A failed advertising campaign does not necessarily mean the business is impossible.
A blog post receiving 20 visitors does not mean you cannot become a successful blogger.
A digital product making no sales does not necessarily mean nobody will buy digital products.
A YouTube video receiving 100 views does not prove that you cannot build a YouTube channel.
It tells you something about that particular offer, audience, title, thumbnail, product, message, distribution method or execution.
The difference sounds small, but psychologically it can be enormous.
“I failed” turns an event into an identity.
“That experiment failed” turns it into information.
What Neuroscience And Psychology Really Say About Reprogramming Your Mind
Your Brain Can Continue Changing In Adulthood
The phrase “rewire your brain” is often used loosely online.
There is, however, a genuine scientific concept underneath it: neuroplasticity.
The adult brain is not completely fixed. Learning and repeated experience can be associated with functional and structural changes in neural systems. Recent reviews of adult learning continue to find evidence of measurable neuroplastic adaptation, although the exact changes depend on the activity, intensity, individual and context.
This does not mean you can think about £1 million intensely enough for your brain to manufacture £1 million.
It means repeated learning and behaviour can change how efficiently certain skills and responses are performed.
Consider what happens when someone learns to drive.
At the beginning, almost everything requires conscious attention.
Mirrors.
Clutch.
Gears.
Speed.
Road position.
Indicators.
Other vehicles.
After years of driving, many of those actions require far less conscious effort.
Something similar can happen with productive routines.
Writing every morning may initially require enormous effort.
Publishing consistently may initially feel frightening.
Checking finances may initially feel uncomfortable.
Making sales calls may initially feel unnatural.
Learning SEO may initially feel overwhelming.
Repeated practice can make difficult behaviours increasingly familiar.
That is the version of “reprogramming” that interests me.
Attention Changes What You Notice
McMillan refers to the reticular activating system and argues that when you program your brain for success you begin seeing opportunities that were previously invisible.
Popular self-development explanations sometimes oversimplify this.
Human attention is produced by complex interacting networks rather than a single magical filter that delivers whatever we think about. Neuroscience nevertheless supports the broader principle that attention selectively prioritises some information while other information receives less processing.
You can experience something similar without knowing any neuroscience.
Decide to buy a particular car and suddenly you notice that model everywhere.
Learn about a particular business model and suddenly you recognise examples of it online.
Start studying copywriting and advertisements begin looking different.
Learn SEO and every Google result becomes a potential case study.
Start building digital products and ordinary problems begin looking like possible products.
The opportunities may have existed before.
What changed was your ability to recognise their relevance.
This is why consciously deciding what matters can be useful.
Your attention is limited.
What deserves more of it?
Growth Mindset Is Useful But Not Magic
The idea of a growth mindset broadly involves believing that abilities can develop rather than viewing them as completely fixed.
Research surrounding growth mindset is more nuanced than social media sometimes suggests.
One major meta-analysis found benefits that varied according to population and implementation, while another review of the same broad literature found very small or non-significant academic effects when examining higher-quality evidence. Researchers continue debating where and when mindset interventions are most effective.
That should not make the concept useless.
It should make us more precise.
Believing you can improve does not automatically make you improve.
But if believing improvement is possible makes you practise longer, seek feedback, learn from mistakes and attempt difficult tasks, those behaviours can matter.
A millionaire mindset therefore should not be:
“I believe I am rich, therefore I am rich.”
A more useful version is:
“I believe I can become substantially more capable than I am today, so I will continue developing skills and testing opportunities.”
Affirmations Work Best When Connected To Behaviour
McMillan printed statements and placed them on her wall.
She separated them into “I am” statements describing present identity and “I will” statements describing future goals. Her examples included being healthy, wealthy, kind, intelligent and capable, alongside ambitions to become a millionaire, retire her mother and make a positive impact.
Affirmation research does show psychological effects in certain settings, but again the scientific concept is more modest than many manifestation videos suggest. Meta-analytic research has found small effects of self-affirmation interventions in areas such as receptiveness to information and behaviour change. That is very different from evidence that repeating a financial statement causes money to materialise.
For wealth creation, an affirmation becomes more useful when it contains an implied behavioural standard.
Instead of:
“I am wealthy.”
Try thinking:
“I am someone who manages money deliberately.”
Then ask what that person would do today.
Would they know where their money is going?
Would they spend impulsively?
Would they learn high-value skills?
Would they keep financial records?
Would they build assets?
Would they reinvest some profits?
Would they evaluate risks before investing?
Identity becomes useful when it changes behaviour.
Visualisation Needs Reality Attached To It
Vision boards also feature heavily in McMillan’s routine.
I understand their attraction.
Seeing an image of the life you want can make a distant goal emotionally meaningful. But there is an important warning from motivation research.
Simply fantasising about an ideal future is not necessarily productive. Experimental research has found that positive fantasies can sometimes reduce energisation, while “mental contrasting” — imagining the desired future and then confronting the obstacles separating you from it — has stronger evidence as a self-regulation technique.
So if my vision board contains financial freedom, I should also ask:
What stands between me and financial freedom?
Lack of traffic?
Insufficient valuable content?
Weak offers?
Too little capital?
Poor consistency?
Lack of technical skills?
Not enough email subscribers?
No reliable customer acquisition system?
Too many projects competing for attention?
Now the vision becomes useful.
The dream gives direction.
The obstacle gives me something to work on.
The Daily Wealth Mindset System You Can Actually Use
Start With A Daily Reset
One of the strongest elements of McMillan’s story is her daily routine.
She explains that she began waking around 5 a.m. for Fajr prayer. For her, prayer became much more than a productivity technique. It was part of her religious life and a repeated opportunity to reconnect with gratitude, priorities, values and the person she wanted to become.
Later in the transcript, she describes the five daily prayers in Islam as opportunities to repeatedly step away from worldly pressures, remember what matters and distinguish between what she can control and what she has to entrust to God. She also emphasises that prayer should be accompanied by action rather than used as an alternative to it.
That resonates deeply with me.
Financial freedom is important, but it cannot become the only measure of a meaningful life.
Money is a tool.
Faith, family, health, character and contribution matter too.
A daily reset helps prevent ambition from becoming directionless obsession.
Build Identity Statements Around Standards
I particularly like the distinction between “I am” and “I will”.
“I will” establishes direction.
“I am” establishes standards.
For example, my future statement might be:
“I will build online income streams capable of generating £10,000 per month.”
But my identity statements should describe behaviours within my control.
I am a consistent creator.
I am someone who finishes what he starts.
I am a student of business.
I am careful with money.
I learn from numbers rather than emotion.
I create value before expecting income.
I keep going when results are initially small.
Those statements do not guarantee anything.
They remind me how I intend to behave.
Control What You Feed Your Mind
McMillan says she deliberately changed her information diet.
She reduced unproductive social media consumption, read books, listened to audiobooks and motivational material and surrounded herself with visual reminders of her goals.
This idea becomes particularly important today because our information environment is effectively unlimited.
A smartphone can provide world-class education.
It can also consume five hours without producing anything meaningful.
The same device can teach SEO, video editing, copywriting, web development, investing, sales, artificial intelligence and digital marketing.
Or it can provide an endless stream of short videos selected to keep you scrolling.
The difference is intention.
The millionaire mindset is not about refusing entertainment.
It is about recognising that attention is an economic asset.
What I repeatedly consume can influence what I think about.
What I repeatedly think about can influence what I learn.
What I repeatedly learn can influence what I become capable of doing.
Turn Goals Into If Then Plans
One of the strongest areas of research relevant to the transcript is something called an implementation intention.
Instead of merely saying:
“I will work on my business more often,”
you define when the behaviour will happen.
For example:
“If I finish dinner on my day off, then I will spend one hour writing my next blog article.”
Or:
“If I arrive early for my night shift and have spare time before starting work, I will spend 20 minutes researching my next article.”
Or:
“If I receive my salary, I will automatically transfer my planned amount towards savings or investments before discretionary spending.”
Implementation intentions create a connection between a predictable cue and a desired response. Research has repeatedly found that these if-then plans can help translate intentions into behaviour, although their effectiveness varies according to the goal and situation.
This is significantly more powerful than depending entirely on motivation.
Motivation changes.
A system can still operate when motivation is low.
Let Repetition Create Automaticity
People often say it takes 21 days or 66 days to form a habit.
The reality is less tidy.
In a well-known real-world habit study from University College London researchers followed participants repeating behaviours in consistent contexts. Time to reach a high level of automaticity varied enormously, from 18 to 254 days among participants whose behaviour fit the study’s modelling. Missing one opportunity did not destroy the process.
That is encouraging.
Missing one day does not mean the plan has failed.
The objective is not perfection.
It is return.
One bad day should not become one bad week.
One unproductive week should not become one abandoned project.
One unsuccessful business idea should not become the end of entrepreneurship.
The ability to return may be one of the most valuable financial freedom habits of all.
How To Turn A Wealth Mindset Into Real Financial Progress
Mindset Must Eventually Produce Skills
This is where many wealth mindset discussions go wrong.
They stop before the difficult part.
You can visualise financial freedom every morning for ten years and still have no financial freedom if your behaviour never changes.
At some stage mindset has to become capability.
Capability may mean learning SEO.
Writing.
Sales.
Copywriting.
Video editing.
Advertising.
Product development.
Negotiation.
Investing.
Data analysis.
Email marketing.
Coding.
Leadership.
Artificial intelligence.
Or whatever combination of skills your chosen income model requires.
McMillan herself did not simply visualise success. Her story includes employment, certifications, unsuccessful business experiments, Airbnb research, property expansion and reinvesting money back into growth.
Her mindset mattered partly because it influenced action.
Reinvestment Can Change The Growth Curve
One of the most interesting financial ideas in the transcript appears after her Airbnb operation began working.
McMillan says she realised she could spend the money she earned on temporary consumption or put some of it back into expanding the business. She gives the simplified example of using earnings from one property generating $5,000 a month to help build towards multiple properties capable of producing considerably more revenue.
The exact numbers will obviously differ between businesses, and revenue is not the same as profit.
But the underlying concept matters.
Many successful businesses compound because they reinvest.
A blogger can reinvest into better hosting, tools, content or promotion.
A YouTuber can reinvest into microphones, editing, research, thumbnails or production.
A digital product business can reinvest into advertising, email software, design or new products.
An investor can reinvest dividends and returns.
Reinvestment converts income into productive capacity.
That does not mean reinvesting everything recklessly. Cash reserves, taxes, household needs, debt obligations and risk all matter.
The principle is simply that some money can be directed towards building future earning power rather than only funding current consumption.
Take Calculated Risks Rather Than Blind Risks
McMillan encourages taking risks that an old scarcity mindset might reject.
The word calculated is crucial.
Building wealth does not require saying yes to every opportunity.
It requires becoming better at evaluating opportunities.
What is the potential upside?
What can I realistically lose?
How much capital is exposed?
Can I survive if the idea fails?
What assumptions does the opportunity depend on?
What evidence supports those assumptions?
How quickly can I test the idea at a smaller scale?
What would cause me to stop?
This is particularly important in entrepreneurship and investing, where confidence without risk management can become expensive.
A strong money mindset should make somebody more rational, not less.
Measure The Behaviour That Produces The Goal
McMillan repeatedly emphasises consistency.
Psychological research gives us another useful tool: monitoring.
A major meta-analysis covering 138 studies and 19,951 participants found that interventions designed to increase progress monitoring also improved goal attainment. Effects were stronger in some circumstances when progress was physically recorded or reported.
That has enormous implications for financial freedom.
Instead of staring at one giant target — £10,000 per month — I can measure the inputs that might eventually produce it.
Articles published.
Google impressions.
Organic clicks.
Pinterest outbound clicks.
Email subscribers.
YouTube videos published.
Watch time.
Affiliate clicks.
Digital product sales.
Conversion rates.
Revenue.
Expenses.
Profit.
Investment contributions.
Hours spent creating rather than consuming.
Now financial freedom stops being an abstract dream.
It becomes a measurable project.
Use A 90 Day Wealth Building Cycle
A practical system is to work in 90-day cycles.
Choose one primary financial objective.
Identify the small number of behaviours most likely to influence it.
Track those behaviours every week.
Review what the numbers are telling you.
Continue what works.
Improve what shows potential.
Stop wasting time on activities producing neither learning nor progress.
Then repeat.
This prevents the common problem of switching business models every two weeks.
One week it is dropshipping.
The next it is Amazon FBA.
Then cryptocurrency.
Then YouTube automation.
Then print-on-demand.
Then blogging.
Then affiliate marketing.
Then AI agents.
Constantly switching can create the feeling of activity without allowing enough time for skill, data or compounding to develop.
The objective is not to find a perfect opportunity.
It is to choose a sensible opportunity and become increasingly good at executing it.
What This Means For My Journey From Security Guard To Financial Freedom
My Current Situation Is Not My Final Identity
This is the part of McMillan’s message that matters most to me personally.
I currently work long hours as a Security Guard.
That is a fact.
But it does not have to become the permanent definition of what I am capable of becoming.
On Tuesday 21st April 2026, I made a conscious decision to take my personal development and financial freedom journey seriously.
The goal is not to become ashamed of employment.
My job provides income and security while I build.
The goal is to use my available time, money and knowledge to gradually create assets beyond my job.
Websites.
Content.
Digital products.
Affiliate income.
Investments.
YouTube content.
Intellectual property.
Skills.
Audience.
These may begin small.
Every large online asset once had zero visitors.
Every YouTube channel once had zero subscribers.
Every email list once contained zero subscribers.
Every business once had zero customers.
The initial number does not determine the final number.
Consistency, usefulness, distribution, learning, market demand and execution determine what happens next.
I Need To Replace Motivation With A System
Working night shifts changes the reality of productivity.
There will be days when I am tired.
There will be times when family responsibilities take priority.
There will be articles that fail to rank.
There will be products that barely sell.
There may be YouTube videos that receive almost no views.
If financial freedom depends on feeling motivated every day, the plan will eventually collapse.
I need something stronger than motivation.
A system.
My prayer can remind me what matters.
My goals can remind me where I am going.
My schedule can tell me what to do next.
My tracking can tell me whether it is working.
My weekly review can tell me what needs changing.
My habits can reduce the amount of willpower required.
And my faith can help me remain grounded when results do not arrive on my preferred timetable.
That is how I interpret mental reprogramming.
Not magic.
Not pretending.
Training.
My 30 Day Mental Reprogramming Experiment
If I were starting this process today, I would keep the first month extremely simple. Every day I would spend around 15 minutes reviewing the identity I am trying to build, reading my present-tense standards and future goals, remembering why financial freedom matters to me, visualising the desired future, identifying the real obstacle currently standing in the way, choosing at least one concrete action that addresses that obstacle, and recording whether I completed it.
I would also deliberately reduce information that leaves me distracted, fearful or constantly chasing new opportunities.
At the end of each week I would review my numbers.
Not my feelings.
Did I publish?
Did I build?
Did traffic increase?
Did I improve the product?
Did I gain subscribers?
Did I create videos?
Did revenue move?
Did I learn something that improves my next attempt?
Then I would repeat the process.
Thirty days will not magically make somebody rich.
But 30 days can begin changing the way a person shows up.
And that can change what happens over the following 300 days.
Belief Must Come Before Persistence But Action Must Come Before Results
The most powerful idea I took from McMillan’s story is her order of operations.
She says she learned to make decisions from the identity of the person she wanted to become rather than waiting for success to prove that she deserved confidence. She describes investing rather than spending everything, entering opportunities confidently, treating failed ventures as lessons and approaching her Airbnb business as something she intended to scale rather than something she was simply lucky to have started.
I would modify that principle slightly.
Belief creates possibility.
Action creates evidence.
Evidence creates stronger belief.
That creates a cycle.
Imagine someone who believes they can build a successful blog.
That belief gets them to publish article number one.
Article number one receives a few Google impressions.
Those impressions provide evidence that Google can discover the site.
So they publish article number two.
Then ten.
Then fifty.
Traffic begins arriving.
Eventually somebody clicks an advertisement or affiliate link.
Now an abstract possibility has become evidence.
The evidence strengthens commitment.
More work follows.
That is how confidence becomes grounded rather than imaginary.
Financial Freedom Is Ultimately About Becoming More Capable
I used to think primarily about the destination.
How much money do I need?
How much passive income?
How long until I can leave employment?
Those questions still matter.
But another question may be even more important:
Who do I need to become to create that result sustainably?
Perhaps I need to become more disciplined.
More patient.
More focused.
Better at writing.
Better at marketing.
Better at understanding people.
Better at managing money.
Better at finishing projects.
Better at distinguishing opportunity from distraction.
Better at accepting that meaningful results take time.
That is why personal development and financial development are so closely connected for me.
The financial goal forces personal growth.
There Is No Guaranteed Millionaire Formula
This point deserves to be completely clear.
There is no scientifically proven mental programme that guarantees someone will become a millionaire.
Neuroplasticity is real.
Attention matters.
Planning helps.
Habits matter.
Progress monitoring works.
Mindset can influence behaviour.
None of those facts mean thoughts directly control financial reality.
Even growth-mindset interventions show variable and sometimes very small effects depending on the study and context. Positive fantasy alone can actually be counterproductive when it replaces effort. Research is more supportive of strategies that connect desired futures with realistic obstacles and concrete plans.
That distinction does not weaken the millionaire mindset.
It makes it more powerful.
Because now I do not have to wait for the universe to deliver something.
I have work to do.
My Definition Of A Millionaire Mindset
After studying McMillan’s story and the research behind some of its ideas, I would define the millionaire mindset differently from many motivational speakers.
A millionaire mindset is not believing that you are guaranteed to become a millionaire.
It is developing the beliefs, habits and behaviours that make meaningful financial progress more likely.
It means expecting yourself to learn.
Taking responsibility for what you can control.
Remaining willing to try again.
Protecting your attention.
Developing valuable skills.
Thinking long term.
Managing risk.
Building assets.
Reinvesting intelligently.
Tracking results.
Changing strategy when evidence demands it.
And continuing even when progress initially appears insignificant.
McMillan ends her system by encouraging people to start small: create their identity statements, put them somewhere visible and consistently reinforce them while doing the work. She says her own external results took months and years rather than appearing after a few days of mindset exercises.
That may be the most important detail in the entire story.
The internet loves transformations.
It rarely shows enough repetition.
I am learning that financial freedom is built in that repetition.
One article.
One video.
One product.
One customer.
One investment.
One lesson.
One improvement.
Then another.
My destination is financial freedom.
My starting point is working as a Security Guard.
And somewhere between those two points is the person I will have to become.
That is the real mental reprogramming.
That is the journey I started on 21st April 2026.
And I intend to keep documenting every step of it here on mujiburrahman.com.
From Security Guard To Financial Freedom.
Disclaimer
This article is for educational, informational and motivational purposes only. It is based on personal reflections, publicly available research, and ideas discussed in the source material referenced in the article.
Nothing in this post should be considered financial, investment, business, legal, tax or professional advice. Any examples of income, business growth, wealth creation or financial success are provided for illustration only and should not be interpreted as guarantees of future results. Individual outcomes will vary depending on factors such as skills, experience, effort, market conditions, capital, timing and risk tolerance.
References to mindset, affirmations, visualisation, neuroplasticity, habits or mental “reprogramming” should not be interpreted as claims that thoughts alone can create wealth or guarantee financial success. Sustainable financial progress generally requires practical action, skill development, sound decision-making, careful risk management and consistent effort over time.
Any financial figures or business results mentioned in connection with third parties are based on their own reported statements or publicly available sources unless otherwise stated. I have not independently verified every earnings or revenue claim.
Always carry out your own research and, where appropriate, consult a qualified financial adviser, accountant, solicitor or other relevant professional before making significant financial, investment or business decisions.
This website may contain advertising, affiliate links or other forms of monetisation. I may earn income when visitors view advertisements, click certain links or make qualifying purchases, at no additional cost to the reader.