Six Rules To Become Stupidly Rich

And four things not to be broke in. You'll wish you knew these things 5 years ago.

Dec 14, 2021

Most people’s understanding of “rich” makes them poor.

Rich equals time to be alone. Time to do the things you love. Time to spend with the family. Time to go down rabbit holes if you wish.

Money is a gateway drug to time. Here’s how to get a lot more time.

Self-education instead of formal education

More college education, like an MBA, doesn’t teach you how to be rich. It teaches you to follow the rules.

Self-education is better because there’s a discipline requirement.

No teacher is going to hold your hand. There are no classmates to keep you motivated. There are no grades to determine how much you’ve grown.

It’s all on you. You have to:

Read books.
Read tweets every day.
Choose short online courses.
Find your teachers. Choose them wisely.
Discover the lessons that are hidden.

The habit of learning makes you rich. It teaches you to grow your mind independently of all the noise.

Learners become high-earners.

Lose everything

You’re going to hate this one. Here goes.

I don’t know a stupidly rich person who hasn’t lost everything at least once. Financial loss teaches you what to be grateful for.

The hard lessons about money aren’t learned when you have everything.

See, the skills you acquire make the real money. When you go bankrupt those skills aren’t taken away, but your mindset is smashed with a hammer into a thousand pieces.

Stupidly Rich = Empowering Mindset

While I don’t advocate you gamble so you can go broke. I recommend you take a few risks. When you do you’ll experience a loss that teaches you a lot.

Losses aren’t just financial either. You can lose a loved one, or your job, or a friend you enjoy spending time with, or your LinkedIn/Twitter account.

The question is, how will you react when loss happens?

I had a big loss recently. After two days of immense emotion and tears, I woke up with a giant smile. Loss is powerful financial motivation.

What if losing $50K is the gateway to $5m and never working a day ever again?

That’s the type of question that will make you stupidly rich.

Don’t be a dick

Attitude is a magnet for riches.

A guy I once met made loads of money. He’d walk around the office being rude. He’d show off at lunchtime. He’d keep a copy of his revenue numbers in his pocket. He’d say things like “have fun staying poor.” He’d call people either successful or losers – black and white.

That guy was me. I don’t know him anymore.

His net worth got destroyed so many times by bad behavior that he finally understood: others make us rich. Being a dick repels humans.

Celebrate in silence
Remember you can go from high to low
See the good in people
Reframe from harsh labels

Learn about money to make more money

Making money is hard. Not because bank deposits into your account are hard to obtain. But because the value of money is hard to see.

$100 today isn’t $100 in a year.

Very few understand this. So they spend a lot of time on money accumulation and little time on ensuring their money holds its value.

A currency issued by a government is a trap. Measuring everything in life with a government-issued currency is also a trap.

Stupidly rich people understand:

Inflation
Central banks
Stores of value
The real rate of return after currency debasement

Study these subjects. Learn how money works.

Watch Mike Maloney’s “The Hidden Secrets of Money.” (Disclaimer: ignore the fear-mongering, collapse of civilization talk, and the buy gold advice. The rest is good.)

Money is the result of compounding effort

The problem with work effort is it doesn’t show results. Yet it produces compounding returns if left alone for long enough.

I wrote every day for years. After 5 years my results started to explode. It’s the years of zero followers and zero likes that lead to 500m views online.

If I had tried to write a strategy to achieve that goal it would never have happened. Choose effort instead of the right strategy.

You’re not dumb. You’ll figure it out as you go.

Trust quiet effort that nobody else can see. Iterate as you learn.

Let Einstein’s law of compounding take over after a few years and do the work for you - that leads to becoming stupidly rich.

Focus on one damn thing

Too many people spray and pray.

They have way too many priorities, so all of them get a tiny amount of focus. This is dumb. The power of doing one thing will change your financial future.

Think about olympians. They study one sport and every tiny detail for years. Eventually, they enter the olympics and demonstrate their learnings for a few minutes to win a medal. If olympians studied a wide variety of sports they’d never qualify for the olympics. They’re a celebration of focus.

I’m obsessed with focus.

I read one book at a time.
I listen to only one podcast.
I only drink one type of tea.
I only have one hobby: writing.
I have one wife and no mistresses.

Energy flows to where your focus goes.

Energy is another word for money that stores it. What can you focus on to become stupidly rich?

Make sure you’re not broke in these

Being rich is pointless if you’re broke in these areas:

Morally broke

Getting rich has a bad name. Why? On the path to becoming financially rich many people become morally broke.

They steal, lie, cheat, hurt others, troll, or do things that are bad for society or the environment.

Keep your morals intact on the way to getting more money. Morals are an amplifier of wealth, not a destroyer.

Spiritually broke

You don’t have to become Justin Bieber and turn to Jesus to be spiritual.

Spirituality is a connection with something bigger than yourself. You are 1 of 7 billion people. We’re all connected to each other.

The earth has a heartbeat too. Watch a video of earth from space. You’ll see that the tides of the ocean, the wind, the movement of rivers, the clouds moving through the sky – are all signs of a higher power.

Nobody knows what controls it – except we believe it’s the laws of physics.

Maybe it’s something more.

As I’ve become spiritual on my path to wealth accumulation, I’ve stopped seeing race. Race is an illusion. We’re all humans. Our bodies aren’t that different to the animals we kill to eat, which is why I don’t consume meat.

Become more spiritual through meditation, journaling, reflection, and time in nature.

Otherwise, if you think getting rich is all about you, you’ll miss the point of life and obtaining the time to live it properly.

Emotionally broke

Emotion creates motion. You need emotions to create financial energy.

Many of us are broke in this department. We’re lifeless. We’re numb. We’re going through the motions. We don’t feel much anymore.

It’s easy to reach this version of rock bottom. Life punches us in the face. Modern-day rejection that happens from business hiring processes, and phenomenons such as dating apps, screw with our emotions. We start to think the world is against us.

Emotions are driven by love.

As Elon Musk said: “Love is the answer.”

He meant it’s the answer to all your problems. That comment came after a conversation about electric cars and taking humans to Mars on space ships. If the weirdo Elon Musk even gets it, then you must too.

Health broke

One thing I never got told: to become stupidly rich you need energy.

Energy doesn’t come from skulling coffees like Rocky Balboa.

Food and exercise produce energy. These have to be a focus. There’s no way around it.

The good news is they don’t take a lot of time to do. 30 minutes of vigorous exercise per day will take you far. Then eat less meat and more vegetables. Not having to cook meat so often actually saves you a lot of time.

Think of everything to do with your body as related to wealth.

If you’re piloting a meat suit full of poisons like sugar/alcohol, got diabetes, and find it hard to get through the day because of low energy, wealth is going to be a lot harder.

The easiest option will likely play out: give up. Tiredness teaches your brain to stop. It’s a survival skill.

Eat for wealth. Exercise for wealth.

Final Thought

Getting rich is counter-intuitive. On the surface it looks like “buy stocks, invest in real estate, get some Bitcoin.”

Only once you dive into the sea and look beneath the iceberg that is wealth does a paradigm shift occur. Forget stacking piles of cash.

Stack life lessons and habits that will make you rich.

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