Introduction: How to Get Rich

Seek Wealth, Not Money or Status

On my first job after graduating from college, I was a financial consultant giving asset management advice to individual clients for the purpose of business development. The topic I brought up most often in the client meeting was the "finance planning pyramid". It's a framework that can be applied to everyone in terms of building wealth. BUT, very few people are interested.

In contrast, if I were to change the topic to money and status, people's eyes light up, and that's how I got 80% of the deal made. That's good news in terms of achieving sales target, but a tragedy from the point of view of socio-economic.

Average people are pumped up with money and status, instead of building wealth.

Including me, I was chasing money and status at the time. Where does all the money bullshit come from? How do our brains get ingrained into the equation "dollar sign equals happiness"? What is the true meaning of wealth? The answer came after a few years I had quitted from the league of financial planners. In a bookstore, sitting on the floor, flipping through the New York Times Bestseller - I Will Teach You To Be Rich - I was asking myself the burning question, which is the name of the introduction chapter of the book.

"Would you rather be sexy or rich?"

We're taught to gain validation from peers, from parents, and from schools, for our entire life. The education system is set up to teach us to play the absurdest game - comparing oneself with others in a made-up hierarchy - we're programmed to feel happy if we are the champion standing in the highest place on the podium, with the first and second runner up standing on the left and right. We're taught to feel good becoming the center of the world; We're taught to fight for the meaningless trophies. We're not taught to become rich; We're taught to become sexy. Thereby, we can seek the attention we think we need. It's all about status.

From the onset of entering the educational system, starting from the first year of kindergarten, the society programs us to embrace validation from the meaningless source. The twenty years of neurolinguistic programming produce batch after batch of soulless minds to seek status. It's a very old game. We’ve been playing it since monkey tribes. It’s hierarchical. Who’s number one? Who’s number two? Who’s number three? And for number three to move to number two, number two has to move out of that slot.

Status is a zero-sum game.

The essence of the status game in the school days and the workforce society is no different, even though the game designs are somewhat different. Both of which are basically platforms for people to push others off the ring, or fight until bloodshed everywhere to prove, "I'm superior to you are", "I'm better than you are as a person." In school, we've seen the champion holding up high the gold medal on the podium, or the bully shoveling a kid into the locker in the hallway. You can hold the gold medal higher than the runner-ups because of the height; You can beat up the small kids because of the size. The world is not fair; You'd rather be the champion or the bully.

After we grow up, our medium to prove supremacy changes. We seek status through the "Fuck you money". When you have the amount of money you are able to do anything you want to do, why the fuck do you have to label the innocent money on your hands as "Fuck you money"? Is it because you can talk down to people throwing people in the face with wads of money? "Fuck you," feeling supremacy, "I'm better than you're as a person"?

Fuck you, moron. You stupid monkey playing stupid games and winning stupid prizes. Do you feel better off after you fuck people in the face with status? The advent of money doesn't come from monkeys; it comes from civilization, the human beings who made it happen to construct a modern society.

Wealth is assets that earn while you sleep and money is how we transfer wealth. Money solves your money problems. Money buys you freedom in the material world. And money lets you not do the things you don’t want to do. To get rich, first and foremost, we need to understand the fundamental of money.

Let's dive deep into the "Jobs to be Done" with Money.