How to Get Rich

Since everyone seems to think being rich is the end-all be-all goal for happiness, I'm here to help you out. Let's figure out what it is about being rich that is so attractive and see if we can create a roadmap to getting you there. You're not gonna wake up Ilan, you're not gonna wake up Warren Buffett. The next richest person in the world won't get there by making a social media platform; you aren't Mark Zuckerberg.

The reason these men got to where they are today is because they took a path that no one else ventured down. They made really stupid decisions that led to better decisions that led to them being at the pinnacle of society, like creating a "hot or not" for girls at their college or just dropping out of college. I wish everyone in the world for financial, physical, and mental health, but just know that only one of these can you be rich in while still feeling completely miserable.

I hope that everyone reaches their goals of being rich just so you can finally see that you missed all the important things along the way. Anyway, here's how to get rich. If you're so smart, why aren't you happy? Why can't you make yourself happy? Is it the money? Like, really, how much would it take for you to be truly happy? Enough to pay rent? Enough to go on your vacations and live life on your own terms? Money won't make you completely happy, but it'll take away many, many things that can make you unhappy.

Alright, yeah, this is probably gonna help you out, but for the rest, it won't and you'll be even more confused than you were before. You'll fall deeper into a hole that is getting deeper faster than you can climb. What happens when you solve all the problems that money costs and are still left over with unsolved issues? Then what? Then you hyper-focus on these problems, trying to find the roots of them and you still don't know where it stemmed from.

All the money you earned and all the riches you feel so entitled to aren't helping, and your loss. What do you do then? Your therapist doesn't help you, the pills don't help, the money doesn't help. For so many people, people that I'm surrounded by, some very talented people who are some of the smartest I've ever met, they struggle with a very thing that embodies through. They are that knows of its own existence — their own brain. You're absolutely nothing without two things: physical well-being and mental well-being. These will beat you down to your hands and knees until you have nothing left.

There's a lot that people want and it seems like these two are always the last on the list. These two go hand in hand; money is just a supplement to both. I think that that struggle stems from a lack of purpose. I'm not talking about everyone that's like, "find your purpose." Okay, obviously if it was that easy, this wouldn't be an issue. It's not a long-term thing; it's a day-to-day issue. What's the purpose of getting out of bed? What's my purpose today? Day in and day out, it's the same thing over and over and over again.

A mundane, static life will slowly drive you into insanity. Becoming rich has its downsides, many of which you won't find until you venture down that path. Having to put the entire business, company, even the world on your back can take a toll on you physically, mentally, and fiscally. I don't know what you like, I don't know what you're good at, I don't know what you think the world needs or how you're going to improve it.

But the one thing that I can tell you for certain that you're going to need to make it big is mental clarity. Slipping into mediocrity and sort of blending in with the rest of the world is terrifying. Failure is scary, and I've never wanted to avoid something so much in my entire life. That's where money comes in; it's a status symbol. You have money, you have everything else, right? It shows you're doing something and you're not a complete failure. So you have to be doing good, right? At least that's what it looks like from the outside, and maybe that's what everyone's chasing.

You know, maybe it really is the glamour— the 61 jet skis I just bought, these few bottles I just opened. Alright, I get it. It's fun; it's cool. But after that, you still feel unsatisfied. It'll change from day to day. Maybe you're unsatisfied with your relationships, or friendships, or business partners, or maybe you're unsatisfied with the fact that the interior decorator painted the walls cream instead of white.

Okay, it could be anything. You're still gonna be unsatisfied. You're gonna be unsatisfied with something. The people who can make it far, who will make the amount of money that will elevate them to the rich status, will almost always be unsatisfied with where they're at. It's a very lonely feeling because no one else will truly get your exact situation except for you. It's the most alone you'll ever feel. It's also very comforting knowing that no one else will understand how to get you out of this spot.

So it's all on you; at least I find comfort in that. There are certain character traits of successful people that are a double-edged sword: not knowing when to quit, persistence, sociopathy, manipulation. You tread a very thin line between an amazing person and an absolute freak. And that's the risk you take. Your entire life is a risk. Everything you do, someone is watching. Everything you say, someone is listening. You mess up, you're the first person to be blamed.

The biggest gamble of all is attaching your name to something or someone. Whether or not you come out on top depends on how far you're willing to go. Becoming rich and successful isn't just a mental battle; it's a mental war. How much can you stomach? How far are you willing to go? How much can you take before it's all too much? Can you put yourself in the right spot at the right time with the right people in the right scenario?

It's just a lot to handle. You dive in not knowing whether or not you're gonna come out on top. And it's that fear that drives you into insanity, trying to make everything work. This is why you need to be mentally strong, and that comes with so many underlying and linked conditions that are impossible to generalize for the public. Staying mentally tough is a single-player game.

There are cheat codes and buffs and potions that will help alleviate some of your issues, but not all of them. You have to hope that you can figure out if it's a game that you can actually win. I think that's one of the bad things about me; I turn everything into a game. My life is a game of chess. I'm setting things up for weeks, months, years in advance, taking gambles on everything and kind of just hoping it works out.

I've always loved the idea that you could figure things out, succeed, and come out on top in the end. Smart people are good at figuring out the truth, but this can hurt you and will get you into problems. Curious people won't quit until they get an answer that satisfies them. You have a point to prove and you'll do anything to prove it to yourself, but you don't recognize how harmful it can be until you get there; until you look back and see how much it took for you to get to where you're at now.

Anyone who is rich or successful has at least once questioned their entire existence: why they're doing what they're doing, what's the point of it all. And then they wake up the next day and keep doing what they're doing until something changes. If it sounds like insanity, it is.

You know, many people in the 1% have been publicly ridiculed and shamed for just doing what they think is right. It’ll be fair; most of the hate comes from ignorant and overall just ill-informed people who are just attacking others ad hominem. But regardless, it's still there. It's always talking about getting rich, rich, rich— what's the quickest way up? How can I get there?

It takes a lot more than what it looks like on the outside. It takes an entire lifetime to blow up overnight. Make sure you read that again. Sure, there are some one-off instances where people just got dumb luck; it happens. But don't get jealous of that. You don't want that to begin with.

You kind of have to think backwards if you want to grow beyond measure. Start big; by that I mean start working for a large company and work your way downwards. You will have the experience of working with giants, but now have the authority and potential to create something new, something different, something that you felt was missing.

Try to find things that are mainly available to the rich and distributed downwards; it works pretty well. Cars were seen as things for rich people until everyone had one. Wealth is what you want— the money you make while you sleep—it gives you freedom. Money is just how we transfer wealth. Money isn't gonna solve all of your problems; money is gonna solve your money problems.

Chasing money means you're chasing status, and that's why there's a negative connotation to being rich. Prioritizing status means you're trying to climb a ladder, climb the ranks to the top. And yeah, it seems appealing, but the only way your status goes up is to someone else's down. And making enemies is ultimately going to make everything harder.

The only status you should care about is your own as an individual. You want to be seen in a good light, but you shouldn't have to beg for it. If people want to respect you, they will. If they don't, their opinions are irrelevant to you. True status should be a positive-sum game, nothing else.

If you constantly have to brag about your status, you're a low-status person. I need to break it to you; everyone has a moral code. You didn't read it in a book, you didn't learn it in school; you live it. You experienced it. Having true status or reputation makes everything else you do so much simpler. You don't have to worry about getting backstabbed. You don't have to worry about looking for work.

People will come to you to work with you because you're you. You see, if you get good enough at one thing or a handful of things, you're going to be one of the top people, if not the only person, that others will come to when they need help. They won't have another choice; you are the choice.

Your genuine curiosity will form a better career than following whatever is gonna make you six figures this year. At the end of the day though, what even is a career? Is it for money? Is it for your happiness? Is it to give you purpose? What you'll find is that the longer you spend alone, the more time you have with your own thoughts and emotions will lead you to finding the things you really want to do: less external influences, more internal thinking.

But I'm not saying you need to completely isolate yourself; I'd actually recommend against it. Observing others, spending time with them, finding out what they want, cross-referencing it with the things you want is one of the best decisions you'll ever make. The world is shifting; it follows trends. Use that to your advantage. Staying local to your environment, to your industry, but seeing the things that everyone else dismisses is a mindset.

For some reason, it's burned into almost everyone's mind that you need to figure out what you're doing by a certain age, and this is just idiotic. There's millions of jobs in the world, yet we're apparently supposed to pick a career based on studying 10 to 15 subjects by the age of 21. Trying to figure out specifically what you want right away is setting you up for failure. Instead, this might help: find something you enjoy.

You don't have to be amazing at it, but just find something that the thought of doesn't make you want to bash your head into a wall. No matter what it is, if you can put it in front of them, someone else will have an interest in it. You'll find that the nature, the idea of the skill, how much easier things will become if you can sell it, you're golden.

Now, I'm not talking about Billy Mays; I'm not talking about ShamWow. But sell it by making it your own thing. Everyone else will follow. It's a lot easier to hop on a trend than it is to create that trend. This is why you'll win. You see, they don't have this steel framework that you built from nothing. Sure, they might make a building quicker than you, but in the end, you're the one with the skyscraper.

I'm not trying to be that guy that's like money isn't everything; I get it. Everyone likes to seem woke and pretend they don't care about money at all. But really, you know you do. You might not care about the money itself, but you care about the things that it brings you. Wealthy people attract more wealth; it's a compounding effect.

If there's one thing you take away from this video, remember compound interest. I'm not going to sit here and preach it to you like your high school economics teacher did, but hear me out— not just money, but relationships, trust, wealth, your skills; they all benefit from compound interest. Start early. Start now, and long term, you will do well. I promise. I swear success isn't as daunting as it seems; it's an internal battle.

The only problem is no one wants to start the water to begin with. So please, do something today, and don’t thank me until you're done. I hope you get your start right now. If you're a naturally curious person, you want to build your problem-solving skills, or need to develop confidence in your analytical abilities, I highly suggest you check out Brilliant.

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