Oh man I made so many mistakes in my journey to get here and that’s why I just want to have a very candid conversation with you and literally talk to you as if you are the younger me and just give some advice because you know I just see so much misinformation out there.
So I just finished up with all my meetings my mind is racing with thoughts so we’re going to go for a little late night drive I might go get a lemonade or milkshake or whatever I don’t know let’s Let’s see how I’m feeling and I’m just going to run you through all the money mistakes that I made and imagine I was talking to myself 10 years ago what would I tell myself.
So with that being said let’s get into it all right you know what let’s drop the top.
Late Night Clarity: When I Think Best
By the way I know everything you see online is like “Oh you have to wake up at 5:00 a.m in the morning or you can’t be successful.” Like I literally go to bed at like 3:00 4:00 in the morning now bear in mind most of my companies are east coast west coast time zone these days and I spend you know half my year here in Dubai but yeah I’ll be honest this time of the night is just when I have like the most clarity and just the best stream of thoughts.
So yeah with that being said you really are going to have the best version of me here today by the way for anyone who’s considering getting a Ferrari my recommendation is don’t I I don’t know I’m always try to force myself to like this car but yeah I don’t know I’m just I’m not really a Ferrari kind of guy I guess the night cruises with a top down is nice though.
Money Mistake #1: Opportunity Cost – The Biggest Expense You’ll Ever Have
So speaking of expensive things and expenses and things that cost you money the truth is the biggest expense in your life will be opportunity cost that’s the truth of it and don’t worry we’re going to get into some really tactical advice here and some advice that I did not follow and I’m a little ashamed of it and I made a lot of money mistakes with this.
But simply I have to start off by talking about this because I can tell you right now it’s all of the businesses that you didn’t start all the side hustles that you decide to keep procrastinating on these are the biggest expenses in your life.
Like for example for me one of the big things that I did wrong was I was very fortunate I started making a good amount of money at a young age but it was only until the age of 20 now I know that sounds quite young but just to give you context I made my first million dollars at the age of 18 which by the way I also hate saying don’t think that that means you need to have any pressure to achieve the same thing like that is a ridiculous age.
I had some situations growing up where I was forced to be the man of the house at a very early age whatever let’s just ignore my ages the point is I had earned millions of dollars before I ever started investing considerably.
I mean I guess growing up I bought a lot of watches and that was actually a part of my investment portfolio and I’ve done incredibly well with watches maybe spent like 5 to $6 million on watches and you know had my watch portfolio increase well over 50% but anyways that’s a story for another day.
The Cost of Inaction
The thing that I’m really trying to get across here is that inaction that opportunity cost that was the biggest expense imagine if I took all those millions I was making and actually meaningfully invested them at the time when I started making money I would be so far ahead in my investment portfolio.
Anyways back to what I was saying you know that opportunity cost and that inaction cost me so much money sometimes I truly think about it because I only start meaningfully investing when I was 20 but I really had my investing thesis down properly like I felt like okay I am good with my investments and I’m solid and sturdy with my investments maybe when I was 23.
So please I know you’re reading these posts and you’re considering starting your business you’re considering starting that side hustle you’re considering all these things you’re considering taking the jump and I can tell you right now that that inaction is the biggest expense you’re ever going to have in your life.
Money Mistake #2: Focusing on Revenue Instead of Cash Flow
Now if I was speaking to the version of me 10 years ago I would say something which funny enough I actually lived by which is revenue is vanity profit is sanity and cash flow is reality.
You see I see so many people online and you know they’re posting all their big numbers and this and that and you know for example even for me in my eyewear brand like we do millions and millions and millions of dollars a year but I can tell you for a fact the amount that we make in sales that’s not what we keep as a business and it’s the same thing with law businesses out there.
You know you have cost for advertising you have cost of staff now there’s certain businesses like for example for me I started off with a service-based business with an online marketing agency and I’ll be honest my costs were very minimal because as a service-based business and you know especially using incredible talent and using geographical arbitrage.
Which is hey we’re charging European and US clients and our staff is remote in places like you know Brazil Colombia uh South Africa you know these are all places that I hired from when in my marketing agency days so I had a very very profitable business.
And once again um that’s advice I’ll give to all of you guys but truly uh one of the biggest things I’m grateful about is that I kept that in mind and I always focused on cash flow first because for me like you know cash flow is the only thing that matters profit is the only thing that matters.
As time goes on you can then focus on big companies that you’re looking to exit and this and that like you know I have businesses of mine that I have a very large percentage a large stake in that I’m not joking seriously lose millions of dollars a month but that’s fine because those are VC backed companies that’s just the route that we’ve gone with those businesses and that’s the game that we’re playing.
You know building enterprise value at those businesses but you know for me to try to start that off when I was first getting started in my career that just doesn’t make sense okay you need to focus on being practical first and just getting your first few wins.
Money Mistake #3: Not Investing in Business Tools Early Enough
Now the next thing is that investing in your business tools isn’t a cost it is an investment to have a competitive advantage and what I mean by that is right now like sometimes I really think how easily some of my businesses run and that’s generally because we’re spending wisely and we’re investing wisely on the right tools.
And these tools give us competitive advantages so whether that be different softwares whether that be tools whether that be AI workflows whatever it is it has basically meant that you know in those businesses what it might take another company 10 times as long or maybe even 100 times as long to accomplish we’re doing with 1% the amount of input.
And the more you can stack your competitive advantages and by the way you don’t need to have a massive business in order to do this even if you’re a solopreneur you should focus on stacking these competitive advantages.
So anytime you can invest in business tools or even tools for you personally I recommend it because it’s pretty much always ROI positive.
Money Mistake #4: Being Late to AI
And that actually brings us onto our next point which is about AI and funny enough I actually just got off a meeting with the co-founder of a company this is a company I wrote a check for in November of 2024 and as it currently stands obviously minus the co-founders I’m the largest shareholder in that company.
We got accepted into Y Combinator uh this is a unpriced round we’re actually about to close this round at a $40 million valuation and this business is an AI company and the reason why you know people are throwing around this kind of money for AI businesses because listen being involved early in AI truly is like being involved early in the internet days.
And I don’t think you’re going to have this kind of opportunity again for maybe a decade or two I’ll just take a lemonade and okay medium-sized lemonade amazing uh that’s all please come to the window for your people thank you thank you.
Also growing up it was always a dream to have one of these I don’t know how well that comes across but it’s cool I now have a US a UAE and a UK Centurion card so I think I have six black cards now three for myself for my you know all the different currencies and then my assistant has one my mom has one and then Tristan who I work with has the other one.
So I hope you’re not putting in too much of a dent in the uh the USD MX interior you know let me go park up somewhere and let me talk to you about the other stuff I got on my mind.
AI Is the Opportunity of the Decade
So where was I AI listen it’s just these opportunities come around maybe every decade if you look at the internet then you look at cryptocurrency then you look at AI I really wasn’t old enough to capitalize on the internet in its infancy I wasn’t really old enough even to capitalize on cryptocurrency in its infancy and probably for a lot of you guys reading don’t miss the boat.
And listen am I saying that you need to have multiple AI software companies like I do no that’s not what I’m saying at all all I’m saying is give it some attention you won’t regret it.
Money Mistake #5: Not Investing in Myself Enough Early On
And this focus on your future and improving your skill sets and your abilities takes us to my next point which is investing in yourself will be the best investment you ever make and I know that sounds very cheesy but I will just like let’s apply a bit of logic here okay.
Right now you are a company whether you realize it or not you are a company and in fact you know if you have less than I would say 20 employees you still are the company even if you have a company and you have three four five employees in my opinion at that point you’re still the bottleneck to any business you’re still the bottleneck to any company.
So you know let’s imagine you’re even a solopreneur you are literally the entire output of the company so how do you make more money how do you earn more income well you need to improve the competitive advantages the skill sets and the abilities of the company aka you.
So that’s why truly you know I see a lot of people they make their first 2,000 or $5,000 or $10,000 or even $20,000 and they’re like “Oh what stock should I invest in?” That’s something you focus on later down the line that’s something you focus on when you have so much free cash flow you don’t know what to do with it.
But for me personally when you’re making your first few thousands and your first few tens of thousands that should all be reinvested in yourself because you pretty much are responsible for 100% of your economic output.
It’s like you are the business you are the company you’re the driving force so the stronger and more capable you can make yourself the more you can invest in yourself that is you investing in your company.
As I said even if you’re a solopreneur and you only want to make an extra $2,500 a month online and you know maybe even as a side hustle that’s irrelevant it doesn’t matter even if you just want to make a bit of side hustle money of course the more you invest and you pour into yourself the easier you’ll be able to make it and the quicker you’ll be able to make it.
Money Mistake #6: Buying New Cars (Let Others Take the Depreciation)
Now number six is a pragmatic one and a mistake I see a lot of people make which is please for the love of God just buy used cars like please let someone else take the depreciation.
I have literally made enough to afford 10 of these in 1 hour actually that’s a lie eight of these in a single hour and yet I still refuse to buy new now bear in mind they don’t make this car anymore so you couldn’t even buy brand new even if you wanted to but my point still stands.
I have a few cars that I buy new because they’re one of one specs for me and I just can’t get these cars anywhere else but you know sort of mass production cars and whatnot unless you’re getting an allocation for example me my watch portfolio I bought all my watches new and direct from the brands but that’s because once again I’ve made multiple millions of dollars from my watch collection.
But if that’s not the case please let someone else take the depreciation I just see so many people pissing away so much money on cars and even me I buy all my cars cash I know in some instances actually makes more sense to finance whatever my liabilities are liabilities I don’t want to you know them to accrue interest as well on top.
But even though I pay all my cars cash I still in my mind mentally factor in depreciation I’ll give you an example I talked about one of my other posts I also bought a 765LT and the last owner of that car 2 years prior bought that car for the equivalent of about $700,000 I believe 2 years ago and I bought that car with 6,000 km whatever a year and a half later for equivalent of like $300,000.
No matter how nice a car is and I have an insane car collection for me the idea of losing 200 grand a year on a car that would just ruin any prospect of me enjoying the cars so please unless you get to a point where you are so ridiculously wealthy and I’ll be honest I genuinely feel like I’ve gone to that point in life I still like will just I’m not going to buy new I’ll just let another knucklehead take the depreciation on it.
Money Mistake #7: Not Getting Mentors Early Enough
And by the way that was really drilled into my mind well before I ever started buying cars by a mentor of mine a mentor who’s extremely extremely wealthy could buy one of these cars every single day for an entire year and not even notice it leave his bank account.
And that’s why the next money lesson I want to tell you is that mentors truly will shortcut your path to success and by the way some mentors will fall naturally into your life and some mentors you will have to pay and that’s fine you know I’ve done both in my career and I’ve done both in my life.
Now of course as you start to become more and more successful you know it really becomes a case of you’re so valuable to people or in the market and vice versa you know you can exchange value it’s just in the earlier stages of your career it’s hard for you to go to a mentor and then be like “Yeah cool like let me just pour all my wisdom into you.”
You know usually at the higher stages when you’ve accomplished something in life and you know people have also seen that you’re already successful mentors actually want to pour into you more because they’re like “Okay I know if I teach this person something they will listen and they will actually take it to heart and implement it.”
Money Mistake #8: Being a Consumer Instead of a Creator
Now one of the biggest mental switches you need to make in your mind is stop consuming start creating consumers stay broke and if you think about a global economy and its outputs and what is an economy an economy is basically just a massive value exchange people are exchanging services goods etc etc.
Now do you want to be on the receiving end or do you want to be on the giving end aka do you want to be the person who’s constantly paying for value and then paying to extract value from people or do you want to be the person that’s getting paid for their value.
Listen no matter how big or small that value is in your mind I’m not saying that you need to reinvent the wheel here but someone made the straw and Shake Shack well actually I don’t know if Shake Shack made the straw but more than likely Shake Shack paid the company that made the straw okay there we go that’s a value exchange.
Let’s say you create a digital product about something the market wants and even better you’re smart so you use AI to help you with that process but that’s a discussion for another day well then you have created rather than consumed and then the market can pay you for your creation.
So there are truly so many ways for you to make money in this economy but the only way that you make money is by starting to create rather than being a consumer and by the way that even applies to social media content you want to start creating content rather than only consistently consuming it.
Money Mistake #9: Not Understanding Credit Cards
Now on the topic of consumption I love how all these are like naturally flowing well I’ll be honest I literally just wrote down a list of like a bunch of things I want to talk about but these are actually flowing quite well on the topic of consumption credit cards that’s one thing I want to talk about.
You see credit cards if you do them right and you slowly increase your credit limit and you pay it off at the right times credit cards can become one of your best friends.
I can tell you right now my best friends my mom my loved ones they’re always flying business class they’re going on holidays in fact even after tomorrow my mom’s going to Maldives 5 days and all that is paid off by points I send my mom to Maldives multiple times a year I’d say 70% of the time it’s with points and even her flights first class and business class flights with points.
So if you actually play things right number one obviously incredible benefits that you can get from credit cards now please if you’re financially irresponsible and you don’t know how to manage your money credit cards can be one of the most soul destroying crushing worst things for you to ever do.
So please understand everything I discuss here it’s not financial advice this is just me speaking to the younger version of myself there’s certain bits of this you can take and you can agree with there’s certain bits that you don’t have to agree with and you don’t have to actually implement.
But if you are financially responsible with your money I said credit cards not only do you receive so many benefits but number two you also build up your credit history and there will come a time in your life that you do want to have incredible credit history you want to have great lending terms you want to have great relationships with your banks.
Whether that’s pulling equity out of your properties whether that’s getting a lombard loan against your stock portfolio all these things you know like you baby step your way there you know start off with credit cards to eventually getting good relationships with your bankers getting great lending terms etc etc.
Money Mistake #10: Letting Comfort Kill My Ambition
Now I feel like everything we’ve talked about here is mainly about like building and also you know what do you do to not waste your money but like this next thing I’m going to talk about is genuinely I think the number one biggest wealth killer and that’s comfort.
And I see it all the time where people hit their first $3,000 month $10,000 month $100,000 a month million dollar whatever it is at the end of the day you need to understand when you’re reading me or you’re reading some other person when I hang out with my friends that are even you know many multiples more wealthy than me I don’t look at them like we’re different people.
I’m just like we’re both playing the same game or loving the game you know the game of life you’re just more steps ahead of me and at some point in your life you were at the stage I’m at right now and the same way you might be reading me and going “Oh well you know it’s so crazy I don’t know how to do that.”
It’s like listen we’re both playing the same game we’re both experiencing the same experience of life it’s just yeah maybe I’ve been doing it a little longer so I’m a little further ahead.
And by the way that is why I always keep my content up from 10 years ago I have documented my entire life the highs the lows the wins the losses I’ll be entirely honest with you there’s a bunch of people who come online and say a bunch of stuff that they’ve never actually lived or you just kind of have to take their word for it.
Every single thing I have ever said is proven backed up validated just as long as you have an open mind and an open heart and you know also the energy to go back through a bunch of my old content I leave them there on purpose which is to show people the entire 10-year journey I took to get here.
Why Some People Stop Growing
But anyways getting back to my main point generally I think about like people I know where we were in you know neck and neck 5 years ago and then you know maybe now at least in the domain of business and you know not even business just in my life in general you know I guess they kind of stayed like this and I were like this.
And listen there’s a big case to say that you know maybe they live a better life than me because you know they’re more balanced I guess for me balance I don’t really care I like seasons of intensity in all areas of my life whether that’s work fun whatever it may be.
But the point is if I think about people that I know 10 years ago or 5 years ago and we got to very different destinations in life why is that well we were running the same race and we ran at the same pace and in fact maybe they were even ahead of me and at some point they were like you know what I’m I’m good I’m comfortable.
And they decided to sit by the side of the road and they were like you know what I hit a fast 5 km but they never wanted to finish the marathon they decided that they appreciated the side of the road more and the comfort of the side of the road more than finishing the marathon.
That’s a choice everyone has to make but I can tell you right now that will be the biggest wealth killer you have in your life comfort by far the biggest wealth killer if you want to get wealthy or rich or whatever term you want to use and especially if you want to stay there comfort will be your biggest enemy.
And I’ve seen it time and time again I can tell you being successful in life I’m not discounting it I’m not discrediting it of course it’s difficult but every single one of you if you focus your mind on it will be successful.
Now do I think that all of you guys will stay successful to be honest I don’t know because in my opinion not letting comfort creep in and staying successful is substantially harder than getting success in the first place.
Money Mistake #11: Following Outdated Parental Advice
And it’s funny talking about this concept of comfort that brings me on to my next point which is your parents’ financial advice is probably 30 years outdated and the reason that ties into comfort is because of course your parents want to advise what’s comfortable to them what they know.
So for example you know for them they might say “Oh keep money in the bank uh you know you have to focus on being a homeowner because that’s how probably they made majority of their wealth.” But that may not be how we made our wealth.
Now you know let’s say for example for us we tell our kids I don’t know some people have a good time in crypto some people have a bad time but let’s say you have a great time in crypto you might tell your kids in 30 years oh well you just have to invest in crypto and it’s like maybe or maybe is there something else then that’s a far more responsible investment.
Now listen in general investing in property is safe investing in the S&P 500 is safe you know these are more timeless things but let’s not even say you know where to invest your money even just how to earn your money of course if you listen to most of your parents they’ll tell you go to college get a degree all this stuff.
Listen I don’t want to be that person that just like is like college is a scam it’s like let me not bite your ear off about it I just think like at this point it’s like a open secret everyone just kind of knows it like unless you’re in an industry that you have to go to college there’s no benefits.
I have hired hundreds and hundreds of employees and I guess even between my companies that number goes to probably a thousand plus now of course I’m not involved in every single hiring decision and whatnot but I have personally hired let’s say in my 10 years in the hundreds of candidates I have never asked for a CV I genuinely I don’t care.
Now bear in mind by the time it gets to me we know that a person’s competent they can you know do their job so for me I’m looking a little bit more about if they’re a culture fit but if you listen to your parents they’re still in the mindset of 30 years ago and 30 years ago honestly the best way to make more money genuinely was having a better college education.
Money Mistake #12: Not Leveraging Geographical Arbitrage
Now that brings us on to our next point talking about uh basically this ever-changing world that we live in and one of the big things that the internet and making money online has afforded us and even just remote work you know you’ve got like multi-billion dollar companies now that are all remote it’s insane.
And one of the things that this has afforded is geographical arbitrage so what I mean by that is my general bases you know where I spend the most amount of time is Dubai and London these are two of the most expensive cities in the world.
Now I’m fortunate that I’ve done relatively well in my career where I guess I can kind of live anywhere and it just it doesn’t really matter it doesn’t affect me but if I wanted to get the most bang for buck and in fact I even did this in 2021.
In 2021 I wasn’t or at least the businesses weren’t where they were now I was still doing incredibly well and I had my base in Dubai but Cape Town was a place I had a house in Cape Town for a few years and my house in Cape Town at least back in 2021 I know prices have gone up now like I had a seven-bedroom like I don’t even know how many square feet like that place was massive huge in one of the best areas and I think it was paying like 10 grand a month or something.
Which considering my income back then was very responsible I mean to get a house like that here you’re looking at like $20 million house minimum the amount of square foot I had and doing that in one of the top areas probably even more like 30 or $40 million so like that’s a perfect example of geographic arbitrage.
There’s a lot of places in the world where you can get more bang for buck and the thing is if you’re earning in US dollars or British pounds or you know euro or whatever it may be and you’re earning and you’re making your money from the west but then you’re actually living and you’re basing yourself in different places.
Whether that be you know whatever it is South Africa Medellín Bali Thailand I’m not the biggest fan of just because it’s very hard I find to do business with the west in terms of time zones but whatever maybe you’re never jumping on calls or team meetings or whatever.
Maybe like I spent a lot of time in Bali in 2019 2018 2019 I found it incredibly hard managing my agency clients managing my team yeah that’s just me personally but the point is these are one of the biggest cheat codes to life which is earn money in the west or through the west.
Now listen let’s say for example like our eyewear company most of our customers are US-based so even though the company isn’t in the US I’m still making my money technically from America so let’s say for example I have my eyewear company and I’m making my money from the west and you know for example American customers.
Well then I’m making great money and then I can have the arbitrage of living in a place where I’m getting incredible bang for buck in terms of living cost and living quality and this is really important especially in the earlier stages.
As I said later on you know you’ll get to a point in your career where these things really don’t matter like it just you’re so comfortable in life you don’t need to really worry about these things but you know geographic arbitrage is so important.
Money Mistake #13: Lifestyle Creep
Because it ties perfectly into my next point which is that lifestyle creep truly bankrupts more entrepreneurs than failed businesses and especially younger entrepreneurs I’m not talking about older entrepreneurs but I see it a lot with people in my generation.
And I know you might be thinking “Okay bro but you’re sitting in a Ferrari.” It’s like yes I understand I understand you know that might come across a little ironic but I’ll just call it how it is I had made and this is no exaggeration up until 2023 when I bought my first car I had made tens of millions of dollars.
Most people make their first $100,000 and go buy a car for $70,000 I had made tens of millions of dollars before I bought my first car my first car was a Range Rover now granted 2 weeks later I bought a Rolls-Royce Phantom whatever I guess you could say I’ve been on quite the car shopping spree since.
But still I only spend 10% I know a lot of people see my lifestyle and they’re like “Wow you’re so you know you live so crazy especially this year cuz the businesses keep growing year on year.” I only spend 10% of what I pay myself distributions through my company.
So that’s not even factoring my net worth as in the value of my shares in different businesses I’m invested in or that I’m co-owners in or co-founder in or whatever it is so I’m not even talking about the value of my company you know my net worth I’m literally talking about what my businesses make that I decide to pay out in profits at this point I literally spent 10% of that.
So please don’t look at me now look at me in 2018 2019 2020 2021 I can tell you I was honestly spending such a small amount of my income and I was just stockpiling that cash there going back to our earlier point I wish I had invested a lot sooner you know I definitely would be doing even better in life now but you know the point still stands which is I wasn’t letting lifestyle creep affect me.
You know if I doubled my income I didn’t all of a sudden double my expenses I was like “Okay cool if I double my income well then you know I can increase my expenses by you know a small percentage you know these days I’m spending about like 10% of everything I pay myself between salaries in the businesses or distributions whatever it is.
Back then my goal was about uh 70% so I would save and invest about 70% and then 30% I would live off of uh you know you get to a point in life where you’re just like there’s honestly no point spending frivolously.
So please I just see it all the time you know I see even here in Dubai it’s a shame like I’m going to go a bit of a rant one of the annoying things is I feel like living in Dubai gives you a bad image like I made the decision to move here 5 years ago almost half a decade ago so it’s almost been 5 years that I’ve been here.
You know and you can look back on my channel in 2020 when I talk about my decisions as to why I decided to move here when I made the decision stuff like that funny enough I was actually in Cape Town in 2020 when I made the decision.
So yeah it’s kind of annoying I genuinely believe for me personally Dubai is the best place on earth to live to focus and work for me I know there’s a lot of blitz and glam and distraction here for me I’m super locked in when I’m here so I love it it’s still my favorite place on earth as said to have my base and to really focus in and lock in on health work all that stuff.
But yeah like even in Dubai I would say Dubai has a bad reputation for you know people who are in their 20s or 30s uh you know it’s kind of similar to Miami it’s very like flashy ostentatious and I guess at least in our industry and in this online space it has a bit of a reputation for people who are living beyond their means.
So yeah I know it’s kind of ironic me sitting in a Ferrari in Dubai I’m definitely not helping myself here by putting myself into a stereotype in a bucket but hopefully listen I’m still getting the point across here.
Money Mistake #14: Leaving Money in Zero-Interest Accounts
Now moving on to my next discussion point I know I talked about a little earlier how I didn’t invest for years and the reason that was dumb was because I was just letting my money sit in zero interest bank accounts like my money was doing nothing it wasn’t even earning fixed deposit income.
Now of course we live in a very different economic climate than you know 2018 2019 you know of course now you’re looking at fixed deposit income as in high interest savings accounts of you know four 4.2 4 and a half percent I mean at some point I was almost even getting 5% on my fixed deposit income.
Of you know of course the Federal Reserve has lowered their interest rate over the last 18 months or so not by a lot but by a few basis points but whatever beside the point what I’m trying to say here is like that is theft like me parking my money in the bank and my money doing nothing.
I’m all for staying cash heavy by the way I’m not saying that you need to just go invest all your money you know even if you are investing in the S&P 500 I’m not saying don’t keep any cash what I’m saying is make sure that you’re earning at least something for your cash.
So even if that’s uh you know you know that you don’t need your money for a week or a month and you can lock that money up and at least earn some interest in fixed deposit income all I can say is I just look back at like the times where I had that money sitting in my personal bank account I’m like this is so stupid like why was I not earning at least some income from this.
Money Lesson: Ask “How Much Will I Lose?” Not “How Much Does It Cost?”
Now let me tell you about my next point and my next point is really important and it also will teach you a lot about the way that truly wealthy people think truly wealthy people do not ask how much does it cost they ask how much will I lose.
And here’s what I mean by that some people might look at for example this a Ferrari some people might look at that and go “Oh you know you’re being financially irresponsible.” Okay well what if I told you the price I bought this at and the time of the year that I bought this at.
You know for example here in Dubai I’m about to leave for the summer so fair enough I don’t get to drive this thing for like 3 or 4 months but in summer you start to get some crazy crazy deals on cars and once again if you have motivated sellers all you know whole host of things.
When I sell this car I’m telling you right now I will lose nothing in fact I’ll probably even make a bit of money for the price I bought it that’s more financially responsible than the person that is being humble and buys a brand new Tesla and loses 30% of its value whatever even buys like a I don’t know certain a Cadillac or Jeep or whatever like these cars brand new off the lot where as a percentage they lose so much money.
By the way I don’t even look at it in terms of a dollar amount I look as a percentage how much am I losing off this so just in general in life please when you’re buying something don’t ask yourself how much does it cost you know and this applies to like for example even watches don’t ask how much does it cost how much does it lose.
And then turn that into percentage point and then also amortize it and what that means is like let’s say you know you want to keep the watch over 5 years or you want to keep the car over 5 years how much by the end of it are you going to lose because a lot of times you know the heaviest hit can come in the first year.
So you basically just want to amortize it and you also want to think uh in these terms and by the way this can apply to anything whether that be property whether that be literally anything in your life now you know hopefully with property you should be making money you should not be losing money but yeah I guess my point still stands.
Which is like truly wealthy people would rather invest a million into something if they knew that they could get a million back rather than investing $200,000 into something knowing that they could only get $130,000 back to them.
Even though you’re spending more money it’s still far more financially responsible to buy the thing that’s a million if you know that it’s still worth a million when you go to sell it rather than the thing that you spend 200 grand on but you lose 70 of that.
So yeah you might be spending five times more money but you’re not losing any money.
Money Lesson: Passive Income Isn’t Really Passive
Now the next discussion point is something that I want to debunk because I see just so much misinformation about something that I had to learn the hard way which is that passive income isn’t passive it takes active setup and a lot of times it still takes management.
So I believe that there’s more passive means in life and by the way I also think that you can frontload work and something can be passive for 6 months 12 months maybe even 18 months but things in life always face entropy they start to decay the conditions change in which case if the conditions change then you’ll need to change something about the system in of itself.
So yeah please just don’t think that there’s anything as like true passive income you know even investing in the stock market a lot of times it still takes mental bandwidth so is that truly passive I don’t know I mean I guess the closest thing to passive income in my opinion is bonds.
But then again even in Q4 of 2023 I bought a lot of bonds cuz the rates were insane and then sometimes I even get like a little stressed I’m like uh is the US going to default on on its debt so even that the most passive kind of investment there is like sometimes it’ll still you know mentally plague your mind.
Money Lesson: You Get Rich by Raising Your Ceiling, Not Saving
And the last thing that I wrote down and I will leave you with is that you don’t get rich by saving money you get rich by raising your ceiling and here’s what I mean by that.
We will all go through this in life at some point you start earning an online income and $100 a month is your ceiling that’s where you’re like that’s the space that I feel comfortable and also that’s mentally where I’ve cap myself and then eventually it goes to $1,000 a month and it goes to 5,000 a month and 10,000 a month and you know however far you want to take it from there.
But truly I can tell you the only thing stopping you from making money is your mental limitation is your ceiling and number two time that’s really it as long as you can make sure you don’t have a mental ceiling for yourself as long as you let time do its thing and also as long as you invest in your company’s output.
And remember at the early stages you are your company’s output in the same way big companies need to invest in research and development you need to invest in making the company better the company stronger.
Whether that be talent as I said research and development bringing in external consultants whatever it is investing in better software better tech better equipment whatever the case may be that is how a company keeps going forward if a company doesn’t do that it’s going to retreat backwards remember you are a company so you have to treat yourself in the same way.
So as long as you can invest in yourself in the same way a top company would as long as you can have no ceiling to what’s possible and as long as you let time do its thing because you can have the first two things be true that doesn’t mean that you’re going to become a millionaire overnight it’s a process.
And once again if any you guys ever doubt the process or you know think that things are moving slowly for you go look at content now I uploaded my first content you know I think about a week before I turned 16 I wish I could show you all of me when I was 14 and 15 like I wish I could show you even that process.
Cuz I even had 2 years of struggle before I even started posting and when I started posting I was still posting while I was in the struggle.
Final Thoughts
So anyways at this stage of my career and this stage of my life this is truly my favorite time of the day like where my headspace and my mental is at this time of the day is just truly my favorite so I hope my word vomit gave you a perspective of maybe some things are relatable and maybe some things that weren’t relatable to you but it gives you the right worldview and mindset going into it.
