How To Get Rich In The 2020s (Without Being Smart)
This time right now is the greatest opportunity in history.
To get rich is stupid.
Wait, what?
Hear me out. Most people want to get rich so they can buy luxury, cars, clothes and houses. Yuck. This is dumb.
When I say to “get rich” what I mean is to have time to do whatever the heck you want. You choose the work. The work is no longer chosen for you.
The 2020s are the best time to get rich (enough to own your time).
Here’s what you need to know to get rich (none of this is financial advice).
Make energy management your focus
Money stores your life’s energy.
You expend your energy, get paid money, and store that money for a future purchase made in a currency.
You can’t get rich without energy.
Energy attracts the right people to you. Energy is what people who will pay you money feed off. Energy is what makes a founder successful. Energy is what turns online writers from copycats into artists.
People buy your energy.
If you constantly have energy leaks it’s hard to be high energy.
Energy leaks come from:
The news
Negative a-holes
Your boss at work
People with revenge agendas
Too much mindless social media
Toxic employees you work with who play ladder hopping games
Uncommon source: a toxic wife/husband (the cause of many divorces)
Plug the energy leaks with decisions. Decisions cut off things in your life. They create separation. They shift your focus.
Make choices based on energy rewards.
Be early on the metaverse
The metaverse has become a buzzword, the same as cryptocurrency used to be.
Haters are saying it’s all a scam.
Mark Zuckerberg has pointed his entire empire at the metaverse. Don’t be fooled.
The metaverse will be huge. The word is just a label. Since March 2020 we all got comfortable with Zoom and video calls. You could argue we’re already in the metaverse every day.
The simplest way to think about the metaverse is a change in how we experience the internet. Right now we have to interact with a screen on either a phone, tablet, laptop, desktop, or tv.
The metaverse is about immersion rather than screens.
We will wear a device that blends the real world with the digital world. We will be fully immersed and able to move through the digital world effortlessly. There will be no country borders in our way.
I’ve already made a ton of money out of the metaverse with investments such as:
Decentraland
Sandbox
Axie Infinity
Yield Guild Games
Enjin
Red Fox Labs
The winner in the metaverse won’t be companies like Facebook that seek to own and build moats around the technology. The winner will be decentralized.
Many people don’t know that the internet started out as decentralized. During the early 2000s it became centralized.
But decentralization is nothing new. Ever heard of Napster or torrents? They’re peer to peer. In other words, decentralized.
Bitcoin’s technology turned our focus back to decentralization.
The metaverse will cement decentralization in our lives again, because it makes the most sense that no one person or corporation should own Earth 2.0.
Consider investments in the metaverse.
Start to build after hours
Creators are the richest members of society.
While the masses passively slurp junk food content through tv screens and phones, builders focus on creation.
Builders consume too. But the ratio between creation and consumption is massively in favor of the latter.
Build an online project after hours. Test it with social media.
See bubbles. Understand why they don’t pop.
Prices of all assets are out of control.
Stocks are high.
Home prices are high.
Crypto prices are high.
New car prices are high. Used cars too.
Many experts call it the everything bubble. It should pop. Bubbles always pop, right? Yes and no. This bubble is unique.
I call it the illusion bubble.
The price of everything looks like it’s sky-high. When our investments go up in price we feel smart and it makes us happy.
The government loves this. It’s good motivation for society.
The bad news is asset prices for the most part aren’t going up. It depends on what you measure prices in though.
If you measure prices in a currency like US dollars then life’s great. If you start to use a different measurement tool like crypto, gold, the Federal Reserve balance sheet, etc then everything looks different.
This bubble may not pop because it’s measured in US dollars. 40% of all US dollars in history were created out of thin air since March 2020.
Bubbles can last a long time. However, eventually, nature takes over and creates a reset.
The challenge is the reset comes from the strangest place and you can never predict it.
Understand the ramifications of Web 3.0
Let’s not waste too much time on this point.
Web 3.0 simply means a future built on top of blockchain technology. It’s where we trust code rather than humans. It’s the removal of middlemen.
Web 3.0 will change the world in these ways:
Ownership of data. Internet users will own their data again.
Decentralization. Giant tech monopolies will be replaced with lots of smaller, bespoke companies targeting niche communities.
Users will own the internet. Large technology solutions needed to run the web, like Ethereum, will have 100% of their stock for sale to users. Anyone can invest without Wall Street.
Smart contracts. They’ll automate decisions and reduce the need to validate every little thing with middlemen.
Borderless nation-states will be born. There will be the physical community you belong to and pay taxes to, and an online country you’re a citizen of in the metaverse.
Code will rapidly automate everything. Audit the code publicly. Trust the code.
Investing in Web 3.0 now is like investing in the original internet companies in the early 2000s – like Facebook, Netflix, Uber, Amazon, Google.
Research Web 3.0 every day. Invest based on your research.
Build a basic online audience
A following has nothing to do with being an influencer.
Vanity metrics inflate egos and destroy dreams.
An audience gives you data. You start to understand humans better. When you understand humans you get to know their problems intimately. Once you know the problems you can create solutions.
No need for millions of followers. Aim for a hyper-focused email list of 2000 people that understand your view of the world and want to be part of it.
Money in the 2020s will be made from communities.
Start building yours. Treat them like friends, not customers.
Hang around long-term people
Too many people only focus on the short term.
How can they get rich? What dog coin is all the rage? What stocks does Elon Musk own? How does one grow on TikTok in 30 days?
Screw all that.
Audit your inner circle.
Are they looking for hacks? Or are they looking to build a skill over time?
My network contains a lot of writers. They want to write for the rest of their lives. They have dreams to publish a book. They love the art of writing.
These are my kind of people. The writers that care about algorithms or what other writers may or may not have said are dead to me. I can’t hear anything they say.
Skills create wealth.
Patience is how you grow skills to a high level, so that they’ll make you rich.
Practice an abundance mindset
“Rich” is another word for abundance. Think abundantly and your life will eventually be abundant. Here are some practical ways to be abundant.
Give freebies away to friends, family, followers, customers, colleagues, etc.
Give the other side slightly higher upside. When I do a 50/50 business deal I quietly ensure the other side gets 52%-55% without them knowing. They eventually figure it out. The surprise cements the relationship.
Give a break to people in 3rd world countries. They don’t have the same privileges the western world has. Help them level up. Go out of your way. Give them free mentorship. Offer scholarship-style opportunities.
Invest in a charity. If all you do is take from this world then you will leave this world empty.
When you act abundantly it tells your mind you already have enough. That mindset creates millionaires. Wealth accumulates in silence.
Pay for templates, then personalize them with experience
I’ve already said you need skills.
The seed of a new skill is learning. All learning is basically just someone else’s template. Many people want the templates for free.
They waste their time accessing free templates on Youtube and going nowhere.
Templates save time. But a template is useless if you don’t customize it.
Why?
Your journey will be different.
The way you customize a learning template is with experience. You take action on the learning and then mold the strategy to what works for you.
I started with a Wordpress success template. I followed it. Then I realized the internet had heavily shifted towards social media and away from Wordpress. So I took the lessons and applied them to LinkedIn and Medium. Here we are, 500m views later.
You can do the same.
Prioritize execution over strategy. What works comes from action.
Stop being a pussy
The whole get-rich-game to own-your-time is stupid if you don’t act with courage.
We’re all scared sh*tless to start with. We’re all afraid one decision could blow up everything we’ve worked for.
Guess what? Suffering is guaranteed. Welcome to human life.
Take a few risks.
No risk equals no reward. Do that for long enough and you’ll have a bucketload of regrets, a feeling something is missing, and zero growth.
One of the biggest reasons we don’t take risks is because of money. We’re afraid we’ll lose a little money.
Good.
Losing money teaches you the best lessons.
Most people will buy an iPhone, or sign up for Netflix, or buy some overpriced hunk of metal called a car, yet they won’t risk a few hundred dollars on coaching, an event, or a course. Even worse, they won’t even buy a book. “$20 is to expensive,” they say.
Makes zero sense. Stop being a pussy.
Invest in yourself.
Take more risks. Build your resilience in the process.
A life with no risk is a life full of regrets.
Final Thought
The 2020s will be amazing for so many people.
Technology is on the rise. The internet has produced limitless opportunities to make money. Web 3.0 has amplified the online rewards available to all of us.
Nothing else matters though if you’re walking around with a broke mindset.
Work on your psychology. Choose abundance over bullsh*t.
Most of all, remember that average people are going to get rich in the 2020s, not because they’re smart, but because they take action.
They get in the game. They take risks. They throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.
No reason you can’t get rich in the 2020s and own all of your time.
Or am I crazy? Leave comments below.
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Loved the segment- "Stop being a pussy". And yes, losing money teaches many big lessons of life, that no university can teach. I'd put it in a way- Be generous while losing money
Yes! I love the fizzing of the future and delighted to have you peering over the edge and sending back your observations