Guess what?
Youâre never alone.
Everyone had to start at the same place with nothing knowing nothing.
Even your spoiled friend who inherited all his wealth from his grandfather.
His grandfather had to do all the heavy lifting and now your friend has a lot of pressure to keep up the family legacy and run a bigger and better business!
What a stressful job that is!
If you come from nothing, not doubt there is pain and angst but at least most of itâs internal and you have no one to impress. Coming from an immigrant family, my parents worked hard to get on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley regardless of what it took and couldnât image a life already supplied to them.
They wouldâve been devastated if they couldnât see what they were capable of.
Their parents (my grandparents) didnât force them to do anything besides make a decent living for themselves. With less pressure, they were determined to make the life of their dreams.
Thatâs why everything is relative in finance.
Donât bother comparing yourself to people who âappearâ more well off because you have no idea how they are feeling or what they go through at home.
Having grown up in an all white upper-class neighborhood, as one of the few immigrant families who didnât inherit any wealth or live in the neighborhood for 4 generations, I thought I was missing out but oh boy, was I gaining a lot instead!
Most of the kids I surveyed from my graduating class and frankly any grade in my school (K-12) inherited their wealth. One of my closest friends was even JFKâs grandkids and Koch and the other Coke brothers descendants yet I distinctly remember the âwealthiestâ âcelebrityâ kids always complained more than anyone about their âmiserable livesâ dealing with their parentâs divorce, loneliness, abuse and miserable upbringing while living in 10 bedroom homes, driving Range Rovers, spending nights at country clubs and wearing Chanel.
Too much wealth is truly a horrible problem and you donât know until you are in the midst of it!
Their parents forced them to get into the most lucrative upper class sports at age 10 of lacrosse and golf, network and go to Michelin star restaurants to network awkwardly with business men in middle school, spend 10+ hours at Kumon with their $300 per hour tutor to achieve a perfect score on every test imaginable and if they disobeyed, didnât understand or simply couldnât handle it, they would be humiliated by their family and there would only be more gold digging from there.
Legacy is big for the âfakeâ rich who cannot comprehend what real wealth means which entails living the stealth wealth frugal minimalist lifestyle, not caring about what others thing and living low-key.
Wearing Vineyard Vines and ties to class every day made my classmates look strange and less wealthy because at home, they were really were messed up and had nothing inside.
I think you get the point. Thatâs just my experience and I know how hard it may be to believe that looks are deceiving so I urge you to check out my article on how money messes up with your head here.
Next Door
The grass isnât greener on the other side and hence, having less resources will ironically make you more motivated, inspired and feel freer!
Less = more after all!
Plus to make you feel better, most of todayâs millionaires werenât born into their wealth, research shows. A study by Fidelity Investments found that 88% of millionaires are self-made millionaires. Overall, the research revealed that current millionaires are, on average, 61 years old with $3.05 million in assets.
Dr. Tom Stanley, author of The Millionaire Next Door, found through his research that only 20% of millionaires became that way through inheritance. The other 80% are first-generation rich. That means they started from nothing and piled up money. FYI: Majority of millionaires and the richest people on earth besides Bezos and Gates are immigrants.
No complaining then! Money is just an excuse. Sure it can be a propellant but those who grew up in wealthy households enthralled by wealth, had no idea how to spend it properly because their parents were too busy making more they never spent time with them!
They just threw money at the problem instead of fixing with it.
Such a sad life.
Luckily, if youâre reading this, you presumably are determined and excited to build your wealth from scratch. After all, whatâs holing you back is yourself so letâs get started.
These are the 6 lessons Iâve learned from my closest colleagues that are all self-made millionaires and ironically immigrants coming from nothing whoâve built everything:
#1 Your Time is your most precious asset
If you abuse your time and treat it like garbage by filing it up with binging Netflix or surrounding yourself with people who are dumb or act like âknow-it-allsâ you will become the mean of those things.
The wealthiest people on earth treat time like money. They understand the value from it and how precious it is. Life may seem long day by day but decade by decade, it flies by.
Money is the only resource you cannot buy more of or replace and itâs the only thing that will help you get farther in life.
Sure fresh water, good sleep and education are all vital but guess what?
Without time you canât do anything of them!
So how exactly do you use your time more wisely?
-Start with having close, quality connections that help you think and tell you what you DONâT want to hear in order to grow
-Eat organic food that stimulates brain growth, increases productivity and reduces mental illness + sluggishness + obesity
-Limit distractions
-Get outdoors
-Read RANDOMNESS not just your area of study
-Invest in the market and understand the benefit of compounding returns which all relies on starting early
-Realize for any project, the hardest part is starting and youâll never know everything so test, experiment, fail, learn and improve
-Consistency always wins. 99% of people fail due to a lack of patience.
Good things come to those who wait and starting early is a super power advantage.
#2 Time in the market is more important than timing the market
Even if you invested in a couple mediocre low growth holdings such as Proctor & Gamble, Coke, Ford and Clorox for the past 20 years, if you waited long enough through the 2 1/2 recessions weâve witnessed from the dot-com crash to Housing Crisis of â08 and now Covid pandemic, youâd still seen record gains because no one can predict the future and stocks constantly rise and fall but eventually have their moment!
No one thought Coke would rise in price this much with post-pandemic excitement or Clorox would have itâs best year in all of itâs century old history!
Time in the market meaning having the patience and diligence to invest passively over the long term not day trading and stock picking through active trading a.k.a timing the market is much more beneficial.
No one knows what the next BitCoin will be and you donât have to. As long as you pick blue-chip defensible stocks that have a good track record, no iffy history, show consistent returns over multiple quarters, are services/products you possibly use and are ideally staple defensible stocks you are all set for whatever blue swan event comes next.
#3 Everything Takes Longer Than It Seems
This doesnât just apply to investing, it applies to life, work, school, grocery shopping, laundry, you name it, it will take longer.
If you want to get rich quick overnight, expect it to take longer.
We always have high expectations things will go as planned and as best as we want them to yet that leads us to be very disappointed then because there are always inevitable hurdles that can stop us in our path and require us to reposition but that doesnât mean you should hide under a rock all your life!
Expect uncertainty because whatâs certain is uncertainty and give yourself a little extra wiggle room to make your life easier, especially when trying to make it on time to the office during rush hour.
#4 People are great at faking it till they make it
The Joneses across the street seem like theyâre living a pretty sweet life right?
Luxury cars parked out in front, beautifully trimmed garden, happy smiling kids and beach house waiting for their company on the weekend.
The only problem is that image lies.
90% of luxury car owners paid their car down with debt.
The average millionaire doesnât wear a $600 suit or $500 dress, he wears a $100 suit and she wears a $200 dress.
Looks are deceiving and thatâs why people buy into them.
Just like in my case with my affluent friends, they looked picture perfect from the outside but were a total mess contemplating on committing suicide due to all the familial pressure of attending the best Ivy League, grades and having their parents decide upon who they can hang out with.
Thatâs pure torture so save yourself your life and donât be jealous of people in that Rolls Royce.
You have no idea what they are going through and how much debt they went in to impress you.
Itâs funny but sad at the same time.
#5 Being an underdog is great
Similarly to the above point, the less you try to impress the better. If youâre always a winner, there are higher expectations of you. Iâm not saying be less than you are because you always need to be your loudest cheerleader and bring yourself up, but when it comes to outings, or the clothes you wear, you have complete freedom on what to do.
If you want a juicy deal on furniture, donât ride up to the store and park your fancy $200k car and expect a discount on your next coach.
Or first time on the job, donât boast about everything you didnât or did learn the last 4 years at school to your colleagues and boss, they are less willing to help you.
Lastly, if you look rich, people are less likely to like you. Not only youâll be seen as a friendlier, sincere person, people will want to hang out with you, help you and root for you.
If you want that promotion, deal, friend, donât act like you donât need it.
#6 Understand sometimes hard work leads to nothing
The beauty about experimenting and tinkering with projects is that you really have nothing to loose.
Time isnât waisted because I guarantee you, the more you try, the more you learn.
Youâll never know everything and nothing will work out perfectly as planned the first round, but why should that mean you should quit already?
With our short attention spans and instant gratification mindsets these days with social media and the media, we feel obligated to find something that sticks ASAP and if something goes wrong, quit and move on to the next thing. But life doesnât work out that way. You wonât be 100% great at everything and have to be flexible.
Put in the hard work because you want to learn. Learning doesnât come from binging MasterClass classes with Serena Williams expecting to become the greatest female tennis player in the world watching online tutorials with good lighting and nice sound effects.
Put in the work to see the results and expect uncertainty.
Building wealth starts from setting boundaries and establishing pillars in your life.
Life isnât linear and nor is your wealth. You most likely wonât know when you hit that 6 figure mark because itâs hidden in between all your investment accounts. Itâs good to set goals but once you hit it, always strive for more because that leads to true fulfillment inside.
The easiest way to build wealth with nothing is to get started with nothing and know nothing. You have no one to impress, nothing to loose and things to give up.