Every day, my inbox is filled with requests from my readers and audience members about what I did to become a millionaire.

My answer often surprises them.

Let me put it this way: Earning $1 million in a year takes the same effort that earning $10,000 per year takes. However, the difference is not in the effort which you put forth, but in what you think about your efforts.

I’ve had dozens of jobs before I learned the secret formula of obtaining wealth. In fact, I remember one job at a car-manufacturing factory where I had the displeasure of waking up 3 am to walk a dozens miles per day as I traversed stray items to it’s proper location. It was menial, but even worse, degrading.

After that particular job, which ended promptly at 9 am, I would wearily go to school, barely able to heed the lessons from my professors. It was an endless endeavor that I despised. Deep down inside me, I knew that there had to be a better way to earn my money. But how?

I felt like another gumball in a machine that hadn’t been used for years: useless.

However, I could not continue to see myself becoming stale and rotten. I knew that I could never accumulate a fortune in such misery, and I was tired of feeling worthless and unchallenged. After years of bouncing back and forth from job to job, I finally learned this question that changed my life:

“How can I deliver more value to more people in less time?”

When you ask the question, “How can I deliver more value to more people in less time?” what you’re basically asking is how I can become better to more people in the fastest way possible?

Let’s break it down in three parts:

1. How Can I Deliver More Value?

This question is basically asking, how can I give people more service? It makes you want to give the people you are serving everything you’ve got. The goal here is to focus on the quality of service that you render to others.

In the beginning of my career, I wasn’t fond of going the extra mile or giving people what they wanted. In fact, I scoffed at overachievers and volunteers until I became one myself. Eventually, by asking this question, I realized that I can only win by giving people the kind of service that I would want if I were them.

Soon enough, I stopped taking shortcuts in my work and started giving people the best quality of work that I could produce, which significantly increased my value in the marketplace. Every month, my work gets deeper and people are impacted. You can only get rich by enriching others.

2. How Do I Reach More People?

Studies have shown that the average person connects with an estimated 27 people per day, either directly or indirectly. Whether you reach 27 people per day, more or less, you can always increase your numbers by expanding your reach and frequency.

Reach refers to the number of people who will be exposed to your work. Frequency refers to the number of times each person will be exposed. For me, I wanted to distribute my value more broadly by increasing my reach and frequency simultaneously, which is the secret to my wealth.

With technology, you can extend your arm to nations afar. It’s easier than ever before, but you can’t compromise your value in the process. The key here is to plant more seeds. You cannot grow those seeds yourself, but if you’re planting 1,000 seeds per day, you’ll be better off than the person who’s planting 10 per day.

You can count the seeds in an apple, but you can never count the apples in a seed.

3. How Do I Do It in Less Time?

Time is the most valuable asset, and we all want more of it. This question increases your efficiency and will help you increase your productivity. Not only are you giving a better-quality service to a higher quantity of people, but you are doing it in the fastest way possible.

If there’s one thing you should know for certain it is that you’re running out of time. Even at 21 years of age, I knew this. Unfortunately, there are many people who continue to think small and they are withholding their blessings from the Earth. It’s time to speed up your work and produce more results in record times.

If you can double your reach, you’ll double your income. Think of ways to give your value to more people in the fastest time possible and you’ll become richer than you could have ever possibly imagined. The secret of living is giving. Give abundantly to many people as fast as possible.

Thus, the question breaks down to: How do I increase the quality and quantity of what I do in the fastest way possible? Write this question on a note card and repeat it to yourself every day for the next 30 days. You will start to see dramatic results in your life.

This article originally appeared on Entrepreneur.com

More from Entrepreneur.com:

The Leadership Brief. Conversations with the most influential leaders in business and tech. Please enter a valid email address. Sign Up Now Check the box if you do not wish to receive promotional offers via email from TIME. You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder.

Contact us at letters@time.com.