15 Ways To Think About Money

What if we told you that most of you were thinking about money in the wrong way? The average person has no idea what money really is and how to leverage it for a life filled with freedom. They use it to pay bills, buy food, and acquire things that they use for limited amounts of time before they're eventually unusable.

Well, by the end of this video, the way your mind comprehends the concept of money will dramatically change. Welcome to Alux, the place where future billionaires come to get inspired.

Number one: money is a tool that allows you to move value across space and time. For most people, money is emotional; it's personal. Your reality changes once you realize money is no different than a car or a vacuum cleaner. It serves a specific purpose. If the car takes you from A to B, money takes value from A to B. You extract value at your job and then transport that value to a different place at a different time. The more you think about it, the more you realize how true and simple this actually is. You see, money is very similar to a traditional car. It'll take you wherever you wish to go as long as you are a good enough driver.

Number two: use money to buy yourself peace and you'll end up with happiness. You can't get to happiness without getting to peace first. So when they say that money can't buy you happiness, they fail to mention that money can buy you peace. Here's how that breaks down: peace comes from the lack of stress and worry. When we feel safe and that our future is predictably positive, we worry less because we're no longer worried about what we're going to eat tomorrow, about where we're going to sleep, or if a tiger is hiding in the bushes. Money buys that because these are money problems.

Once you've bought your safety, though, you're left with the non-money problems: how do I feel about myself, about my relationships, and what do I need to do in life to feel fulfilled? Once you buy yourself peace, you will eventually arrive at happiness.

Number three: broke is temporary; poor is forever. Broke means you have no money; poor means you have no way of getting out of that no-money situation. So are you broke or are you poor? Poor people accept that their reality is permanent and unchangeable. They teach their children young that they're poor and destined to be poor forever as well. It's the man, the system, the universe that keeps it that way.

The only people who escape poverty are those who acknowledge they're currently broke but there are options to change that. They don't believe broke is permanent; they believe change is up to them. Even if this means pushing harder than others who maybe got dealt a better hand to begin with. You see, the broke seek to better themselves. They want tomorrow to be slightly better than today and are willing to work for that outcome. They look at the process from a gradual perspective. The poor only think of the world in black and white terms. Their wish is to be rich, not to not be poor anymore. Re-list to this point as many times as you need until you're confident you're actually broke, not poor. Only then can you begin to move up.

Number four: there's no such thing as a money cap. You want to know a secret that we found out only after we became rich? Here it is: there's no limit to money or success in this world. Growing up, for some reason, we were taught that there's always a limit to money, to how much a company could pay an employee. This stems from the idea of being paid by the hour and the fact that there is a limit to the number of hours you can work in a day. This is factory-based remuneration and brainwashing.

The moment that we transitioned on the other side of the curtain, the truth was revealed to us: money is unlimited. They've got a printer that goes whenever the market asks for more money. Innovation is unlimited; everything done today will be done faster, cheaper, and better tomorrow. Money is an infinite resource because, as you'll find out on the last point on this list, money isn't actually real—it's something that the rich totally made up.

Number five: first you learn, then you remove the L. You are paid in proportion to the value you can add to the marketplace. The truth is you can always increase your value output through education. Learn how to use new tools and your productivity will increase, and so will how much you're paid. Learn to build systems, learn to communicate and build teams, learn specific techniques by watching the master-ers.

You want to stop being broke? Start learning things that are valuable. The problem most people encounter is that they've got no idea how to learn. When we say education, their mind immediately goes to being back in school. Horrible. Learning how to learn is the ultimate skill one can possess because once you get it, everything out there is up for grabs. Our life changed once continuous learning became a part of our daily life. Anything you want to achieve in life can be learned, but those who understand how to learn have definitely got a major leg up in life.

We designed the Alux app with this in mind—to prime your brain to learn faster and more efficiently about the stuff that truly matters on your journey to building wealth and a life worth living—a life you're proud of. When you download the Alux app, you're prompted to fill in a survey that calculates a score based on five pillars of a good life: money, relationships, intellectual education, physical fitness, and emotional wellness. We use this score to create a unique-to-you learning path curated to help you accelerate and evolve faster than you would all on your own because now you've got Alux as a mentor and guide.

So download the app and sign up for the free trial. It's totally cost-free for the first 7 days. You get to play around with it and test out all of its value before ever being charged. To sweeten this deal, if you go to alux.com/slapp and download the app, and then come back here to scan this QR code, you'll get 25% off the yearly subscription. And if an annual subscription feels like too much commitment right now, no worries. You can always test out a monthly subscription for the same cost as going out to lunch.

Give it a shot; you've got nothing to lose and a lifetime of greatness to gain. Alux.com/slapp.

Number six: money grows on trees if you know what seeds to plant. So here's what most people do: they go to work, they put in effort, they get paid money, and then they go on to spend that money. How dumb is that? They do this because the average person has no idea that there are money trees out there. Instead of spending the money, if you planted it and nurtured it, it would grow into more money.

Do that enough times and you don't have to work anymore; you can just eat off of the money trees. This is the simplest way to explain the inequality of wealth around the world: the poor spend money, while the rich have money trees.

Now we know what you're thinking, "Okay, are you ready for us to call you out on your thinking?" But Alux, all right, I've got bills to pay; I've got debt. I have to spend that money to feed my kids or keep the lights on. Well, here's the brutal truth: almost everyone around the world has more money than what they need to survive. If you're able to work, you have excess capital.

The reason why there's never enough money to plant the tree is because you also want comfort. You crave it. You tell yourself that you need the TV, the Apple Watch, the new phone, the poster you have in your room. In reality, you don't need any of those things; they're just for comfort. You're like a bird in a cage that's getting fed twice a day. You're comfortable but not free.

The truth is some of you have no desire to be free; you love comfort. So stop complaining about the cage. The moment you sacrifice comfort, though, you realize just how much excess capital there is in your life and that the key to your freedom. Now ask yourself: do you want freedom badly enough to sacrifice comfort?

Number seven: money is never yours; it's just your turn to hold it. The entire world economy relies on spending, on money changing hands from one person to the next. Your entire financial life changes once you realize money is constantly flowing. You want money? Move proportionally in life with the flow of money in the marketplace. It's really that easy. All you have to do is take part in the marketplace of exchanges.

Once you have money, it's just a matter of time until you give it to someone else in exchange for something you yourself value more than that money. Look around you and teach yourself to see the flow of money. Ask yourself: who's got money willing to pass it down and what are they looking for? And that, dear Aluxer, is exactly how every single one of you will become rich.

Number eight: you're not actually spending money; you're spending your time encapsulated. Look, we hate spending money because we understand this incredibly valuable lesson. You know how they say time is money? Well, this will blow your mind, but it's actually the other way around. Okay, money is time. What is the cost for you to get that money? What are you trading for it?

Yes, it is your know-how, talent, and skills, but at the end of it all, it's your time that you're selling. What you know how to do in that time is just a multiplier on the value of your time. So let's say you earn $100 an hour. If that sounds like a lot to you, you need to re-evaluate some things because that's barely above $200,000 per year, assuming you work 40 hours a week non-stop.

So you go out and you buy a $440,000 car. You're not paying with money; you're paying with time—400 hours of your life to be precise. The groceries you just purchased cost you 2 hours of work plus the 40 minutes you spent in the store browsing aisles—time that you were unable to monetize. If you want to take control of your financial life, you need to start thinking about spending in terms of time, not money. How much time do I have to work in order to afford this? That is where the true value of your spending is revealed to you.

Number nine: with debt, you're not borrowing money; no, you're buying it at a higher price than what it's worth. Stop thinking about debt the way you currently think about it. You're not borrowing money; you are renting money. Borrowing implies you return the item back to me after you've used it.

I lend you my iPad; you read the story and you give it back. It's the same iPad; you just used it for a little while. But with money, it's not like that. You're paying me to use my iPad before returning it back. And if you don't give it back, I can take the iPad and make you sell your house for the difference. You need to stop buying overpriced money.

Look, here's how we want you to think about this: every time you borrow money, you're robbing time and effort from your future self. Future you is getting screwed by present you, and it won't be very long until you become future you. Okay? So stop screwing yourself over with debt.

Number ten: money is a fungible token. Yep, okay, we're going there. For those unfamiliar with crypto, it means that money is replaceable with similar money of the same value. A $100 bill is worth the same as every other $100 bill. This property is called fungibility. Fun word, I know. Now, many things are fungible, and most of them are valuable, but there's an entirely different world once you get rich, where you enter into the non-fungible token world.

Take the Mona Lisa for example. The original Mona Lisa is worth substantially more than every other Mona Lisa in existence. All that value lies within the original. So if you want to become super wealthy in life, you need to become non-fungible or own things that are non-fungible and have value. If this point had your mind twisted a bit, maybe it's easier to start with the basics of blockchain and Bitcoin. Go to alux.com/bitcoin and check out our blockchain essentials course; it's the first stepping stone in your digital journey.

Number eleven: your money is your army. Send it out there to bring back prisoners. Your money is made up of $1 soldiers. You want them out there aggressive conquering land as market share and bringing back prisoners so your army grows larger. You want your money to be smart and not allow itself to be captured by the enemy. The more money you can deploy, the higher your chance of winning the war.

If you don't have enough money to begin with, consider guerrilla tactics to get the upper hand. We feel like this point only makes sense for some of you and those are the ones that are going to make it.

Number twelve: you chose this life; you might as well make money out of it. You chose to do this; there wasn't anything else to do. So you might as well cash in; otherwise, what's the point, right? This has been at the core of this discipline when thinking about money. We think in terms of choices. We chose this life; we choose to keep doing this. We want to get good at this in order to compete with the all-time greats.

We need to make money not only to sustain ourselves but to reinvest and grow—to buy new tools, to hire more people, to train the staff, to do the things that nobody else has done before. If this is your purpose, if this is what you want to do for the rest of your life, make sure you give it your all. How are you supposed to quit after such a short period of time? How are you supposed to quit when you haven't made the money you really wanted to make? You need to refocus, not quit.

Number thirteen: the problem with money is it doesn't hold its value in time unless it's invested. Now this video is meant to change the way you think about money and none of these points are as true as the fact that money has been losing its power every day for the past 50 years. With the same amount of effort and time, you can buy 25 times less stuff than you could 100 years ago.

The US dollar has depreciated 25 times, and most countries still use the US dollar as their reserve currency. If you live outside the US, your national currency probably has depreciated even more. That's why the rich don't keep money in the bank or under their mattress, because every day the money you hold loses value. Rich people look at cash the way the rest of us look at ice cubes in a warm room. Don't hold on to that cash in your hand for too long, because you might just watch it melt away.

And you know what? Click in the top right corner and you'll find one of our best videos to date focusing on why money is becoming worthless. It's extremely valuable to watch that one today.

Number fourteen: not all money is the same. Most people have a maximalist approach when it comes to money. So here's what that means: people in Europe think in Euros, people in the US think in dollars, and people in Russia think in rubles. They're accustomed to unidirectional thinking. The moment you zoom out, though, the world changes and the difference in value of money is revealed to you. Life becomes amazing when you earn in US dollars but spend in Indonesian rupia or the Costa Rican colón.

There's an entire world out there of financial arbitrage that could dramatically change the quality of your life. $1 million in Los Angeles barely buys you an apartment, while $1 million in Vietnam can buy a hotel and provide for you for the rest of your life. So go out there and explore the world, Aluxer; you'll find riches well beyond money.

And number fifteen: money exists only in our minds. Yeah, okay, money is not real today; it is just numbers on a screen. It's unlimited and used as fuel for the world. Money, at least the version that we've known since 1971, has been the biggest delusion of history we've ever seen. Money, the same as religion, only exists in our minds and souls. The same with religion. The moment you get emotional about it, it will control your life.

The moment you take a step back and see it for what it is, what it really is, you can reap all the benefits with none of the downsides. It's only when you believe money doesn't really matter that you escape the control of money, and that's also when you get rich.

Now we know this video has been a bit of a mind twister from many perspectives, and we could make individual videos for each one of these subtopics on this list. Which is why we're asking you: which one of these do you want us to expand on the most? This way, the community is involved and we can make sure the content that you think is the most valuable is the stuff that gets made.

So let us know in the comments and since you stuck with us until the very end, you're getting a bonus. And today's bonus is: don't make money; no, make things that make money. Many people have a moment in their life when they realize there's so much more to life than just working, paying the bills, and taking a short vacation to wherever they find discounted tickets.

And they're right: there's more to life than that. The problem is, though, most people get stuck in this rat race because ironically, they focus too much on making money. They get a job that seems good enough, they work hard to get a promotion or just to keep that job, and they try to be good employees. But unless you have a super well-paying job at a great company, things might not turn out the way you hope.

The only way to break free from this cycle is to stop chasing money and start building things. What you're missing is the satisfaction of creating something with your own hands and the empowerment of being in control of your own future. You see, it doesn't matter how expensive your watch is if it still tells you what time your lunch break is over.

So as long as you're working for money, you'll have very little control over it. There's a big difference between getting paid and getting rewarded. The world will reward you with an infinite amount of money to solve its problems, okay? But your paycheck can only exist within a given budget. Just think about that, Aluxer. Until next time, take care, my friend.