Invaluable Life Lessons from the REAL (quiet) Rich

You know the real rich. The real rich like to keep their names out of the media. We've got no idea who they are, but they're not in Forbes. Okay? In 2024, the five richest people in the world, according to Forbes, are Bernard Arno with a net worth of $235 billion, then Jeff Bezos, followed by Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Ellison. Now, you might know Bernard Arno; he's the head of LVMH, the luxury goods company that owns brands like Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior. Four out of the five on this list live in the United States, while Bernard Arno stays in France. They're all from the Western world; surely that's a great feat for the West.

But in a society that's so media-focused, for many of these men, their wealth is tied to the world's idea of just how wealthy they are. They want their names plastered all over the headlines because they believe it increases their value. And you know, we'll probably never know who the true richest in the world are. Their wealth isn't tied to other people's perception of them. No, it's tied to their control, and it's hard to be in charge when everyone knows who you are and what you're doing.

We've heard a lot about the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, and based on how difficult it is to get information on them, their influence and wealth may well extend far beyond what we could ever imagine. And then there's the money in the Middle East and Asia. In the Middle East and parts of Asia, the emphasis on family and tradition is still very strong. It's far stronger and more connected than the way it is in the West, and these strong familial ties date back hundreds of years, sometimes thousands.

In Asia, wealth traditions have been around for many generations, and in some cases with really old wealthy families, the treasures are hidden and family members have been taught to keep it that way. Never display your wealth because then people will be watching you, and if they're watching you, it'll be a lot harder for you to control and manipulate them in a way that still endears you to them. Show just enough to let them know you're above them.

Now, this isn't the case for everyone, of course. There are many opulent rich people in Asia, but they would still prefer to not have their names on the Forbes billionaire list. In Asia and the Middle East, the way they choose to display their wealth is influenced by cultural norms, generational shifts, and broader social and economic factors.

So what can we learn from the quietly affluent people of the world? We might not know their names, but we hear the whispers of their wealth, and it's in these whispers that we can learn some lessons. Welcome to Alux, not just lessons on making money, but lessons on how to carry yourself like you have nothing to prove and no threat of losing anything. You don't need money and power to move through life this way. Sure, they can hand you that confidence and assurance on a silver platter, but you could also learn it yourself.

When you move like you've got nothing to prove, people start to pay attention. Humans are drawn to that confidence. So here’s how you can get it. First of all, the most obvious one is the value of privacy. External validations are a distraction. When you consider what other people will think of you, you start steering yourself in a different direction. The only way to truly know what direction you want to go in is for you to do it without announcing it to the world. When you value your privacy, you can focus on your growth and goals without worrying about how they fit in with what the world expects.

Staying private gives you control over your story. When you share yourself with the rest of the world, everyone chimes in and creates a narrative for you. You've got no control over this narrative, and the stories they make up about you will influence their opinion of you. This could lead to them not wanting to work with you in the future or judging you harshly, and you don't have to do anything wrong for them to do this. Sharing yourself means opening yourself up to that scrutiny, and the real rich, they don't want that scrutiny.

So, to implement this lesson into your life, limit what you share on social media. The constant need for external validation is too distracting. If you've got big goals, you need laser focus. This seems counterintuitive in a world where a company's success depends on its online presence, but you are not a company; you are an individual. Even if you own a company, you don't have to be at the forefront of it. You can put somebody else there in your place. You're a stronger leader when everyone else doesn't know that you're the one leading.

Secondly, for the rich, family is the foundation, and legacy is the goal. For many people, the idea of working so hard to make more money than you can spend in this lifetime seems pointless. We want to be wealthy, but we don't necessarily need billions. We just want enough to comfortably live for the rest of our lives. The loud rich love money, but they're also driven by validation. They want people to know how successful they are, how hard they work, how their ideas have changed the world.

The quiet rich are driven by legacy. They have more money than they need in this lifetime and the next. They don't want anyone to know about it, though, so they're not driven by fame and validation. They want their wealth, name, and value to be passed down in the family; that's the most important thing to them. There's seldom just one person behind the anonymity; it's big families, and they're held together by their beliefs and traditions. They keep the power and wealth in the family, and they don't risk it by making themselves targets.

The rest of society is running away from this family dynamic. People are more nuclear and isolated, and many people don't even see their extended family unless it's a special occasion. For the quiet rich, their family is their life. If this is something you want to emulate, then keeping your family close is important. You need to have regular family events, not just meet once or twice a year. In your immediate family, this can look like no more dinners in front of the TV but rather eating together every night at the dinner table. In your extended family, it could look like hosting more fun family-oriented events and meetups.

You also need to establish core values that you want to instill in your family. These could range from integrity, hard work, and generosity to innovation, networking, and resilience. Your family should move as a unit, and they should trust and respect you. You have to be wise, understanding, and firm. You have to know how to share lessons in interesting, non-judgmental, and non-patronizing ways. Your family isn't going to be as motivated to listen to you at first; you don't have endless amounts of money to hold over them. So you just have to make sure that they genuinely like you, respect you, and want to make you proud. Your actions build your legacy.

Next, the quiet rich focus on simplicity and frugality. Well, simplicity and frugality for them, not for us. The most expensive jewels are hidden in a safe and not worn. The paintings are displayed in hallways with secret codes shown only at the most exclusive dinner parties. The custom luxury cars are tucked away in the underground parking, only taken out on special occasions. They speak softly, wear demure colors, and spend most of their time with other people who run in the same echelon as they do.

And most importantly, simple living is how many of them become wealthy in the first place. If the wealth was accumulated before the current generation, well, those stories would be passed down. It takes a lifetime to build that kind of wealth—or sometimes many lifetimes. It takes one moment and one person to destroy it all, so everyone has to fall in line. And to do that, to get everybody on the same page, you have to keep things simple. They may not have budgets, but they're also not consistently spending beyond their means. You don't get rich by buying material things for yourself, and you don't stay rich by doing it either.

You develop that wealth when you're able to live far below your means and invest as much as possible, which is going to bring us to our next point. And you can find that next point in this lesson on the Alux app. It's the only app of its kind ready to tailor-make your very own unique learning path to systematically level up your life across five of the most important areas. We call them the five pillars of a good life: financial health, physical health, emotional wellness, relationship wellness, and intellect.

Every day, you're delivered a fresh coaching session from one of these five themes, and little by little, all of the insights you gain compound into some pretty serious and measurable growth. If you haven't already, go to alux.com/slapp and start your free trial today, and just watch your life transform.