FBC – 203 – This Dude Made $119 Million In 2 Minutes? Here’s How…

This Dude Made $119 Million In 2 Minutes? Here's How…

Today we are going to discuss how some dude was able to make 119 million dollars in less than 2 minutes. What was the guy's secret?
Can you do the same thing?
All the answers and more are in this episode.
PS. The battery ran out at the very end, so sorry if I didn't get to say goodbye properly.

I decided to talk to you about a stat that I saw today that I found very, very interesting. And it actually got me thinking a lot, because these are some discussions that I've had with a lot of people.

So I saw a stat that says that Usain Bolt, you know the track and field champion. Right. He won nine gold medals in three Olympics. Right. And he ran less than two minutes on the track because I mean, these are like ten seconds, you know, per race and stuff. Or maybe 20 seconds when he's running in like 200 meters. But in those two minutes, he made a hundred and nineteen million dollars.

So that's basically one million dollars per second that he ran. Because he ran something like a hundred and fifteen seconds. Right. And this is crazy stuff man.

The discussion I have with people usually is that people find it unfair. Why does he make a hundred like a million dollars a second? You know, why does he get all this money? So there are two things we can touch base on here.

So there is a concept of how hard you work for something. So the hardship. The hardship of your job is not proportional with the wage. Like convicts were like building roads and stuff or people building houses and everything, you know, like the carpenters and stuff.

I mean, all these people will be the richest people on the planet. Right. Because their job is hard. So it's not correlated. The physical hardship or even the length of your job. It is not proportional with the income. And a lot of people are not happy about this.

Yes. It can be very unfair that someone will work for less than you and why should you make more? But maybe you're not looking at this from the right angle. So maybe you're looking at how much and how long that person is working today.

You're not looking at how long that person that's worked to get to where they are today, for example. Usain Bolt practiced for 20 years to be able to run those two minutes.

That person was actually putting the hours in before the sprint. And then afterwards, that person is now enjoying the benefits of all the work that they put in.

Same way is if you manage to automate a task. So let's say I have to do the same task as you, but I can do it in two minutes where it takes you three hours because you have to do it manually and I will automate it. Do you think it's unfair? A lot of people think it's unfair.

But I'm like, do you know how much time it took me to automate that stuff? I had to think about the whole project, the thing as a whole and find the tools. I did the research. I tried different tools and stuff. It took me a lot of time while you were sitting on your couch. And then today, when it starts working for me, because I took the time to go and automate that stuff, then you're not happy about it.

What bothers me is the lack of appreciation for the job or indeed the work that these people have put in to be able to end up in this situation. Because the only thing you see is when the person gets there, you don't see all the sacrifices.

This Dude Made $119 Million In 2 Minutes? Here's How…

Same for actors. One thing I know is that these actors who make a lot of money, who's actually thought about all of the crappy auditions they had to go through when they were nobody. Do you know how many auditions these people go to? They have to do like weird commercials and all that stuff.

They get booted from auditions and they kept going at it until one day you see them in the blockbusters and you're now you're complaining about, oh, man, this guy makes money. I would like to see the Wikipedia or something, how many auditions and how many crappy movies and jobs some people have done where they weren't even paid.

I think some people actually worked for free just to have their name on the movie or something. You know, and eventually when they make it, then you'll see people start being mad about them. So I don't want you to be one of those people.

Please take the time to analyse and reflect on how much ground work, how much effort and how long these people have worked to be able to make like one hundred and twenty million dollars in two minutes or to be able to, you know, create some automation tool and stuff and then afterwards it just runs.

These people are devoted to building this stuff. You only see them, you become aware of them only when they've reached that, you know, that place that they wanted to get to. You know that goal, right?

The world rewards visible results, not invisible work. The invisible work is exactly what makes those visible results possible. Every dollar earned in a flash is backed by years of preparation that nobody saw.

What a 119 million dollar moment actually teaches you

A headline like making 119 million in two minutes is built to make you feel behind. It should do the opposite. Behind almost every overnight number is a decade of unglamorous work nobody filmed. I have built 4 companies, and none of them looked like a rocket from the inside. They looked like 1,500+ workflows, most of them boring, stacked one on top of the next until the compounding did something that looked sudden from the outside. The lesson is not to chase the two-minute moment. It is to build the machine that makes such a moment possible and then be standing there when it comes. I break down these stories on my Substack and across my growth hacking videos. If you want the sober version of how fortunes actually form, the Harvard Business Review writes well on the myth of overnight success, and the Stripe Atlas guides show the unsexy groundwork founders skip. Envy the preparation, not the payday.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did Usain Bolt earn $119 million from less than 2 minutes of racing?

Because those two minutes on the track were just the visible part. Behind every sprint were 20 years of preparation, discipline, and sacrifice. The income reflects the full body of work, not the time you actually see on screen. The race is just the payoff for all the preparation before it.

Is there a connection between automation and Usain Bolt's story?

When I automate a task that takes someone else three hours and I finish it in two minutes, people see only the two minutes and call it unfair. They don't see the research, the failed tools, or the time I spent building the system. The preparation is the whole point. You pay for the outcome, not the visible execution time.

How should solopreneurs think about income and effort?

Stop comparing output time to payment. Start comparing total investment in preparation to results. The person who spends years building systems, skills, or audiences earns more per hour because the leverage already exists. That is the payoff for showing up and doing the work when nobody was watching.

What is the best way to build income that pays disproportionately?

Invest time upfront to create systems, skills, or content that generate returns without requiring your constant presence. That is the same principle behind Bolt's career and behind every automation workflow I have built. The leverage comes from the work you do long before the money shows up.

About the Author

Martin Ebongue is the founder of martinebongue.com, an online business and lifestyle design blog focused on helping aspiring entrepreneurs build location-independent businesses. Since 2014, he has been creating and scaling online ventures across multiple niches, from digital products and affiliate marketing to SaaS and content platforms, while traveling the world. He shares the real-world strategies, tools, and systems that work, with a particular focus on AI-powered automation for solopreneurs. Follow him on YouTube, X (Twitter), and Instagram.

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