Are you going to choose to play wealth games or status games?

Seeing who can die with the most money is a status game. Driving the nicest car is a status game. Living in the nicest neighborhood and sending your kids to the most expensive private school is a status game. Being a member of the most expensive country club is a status game.

Traveling to Europe and posting pictures of your food and the view from your $1,000 a night hotel room on Instagram so everybody will see it is a status game.

Posting a picture of yourself in your exotic car or private jet on social media is a status game.

Status games are played by people with the goal of buying things they can’t afford to impress people they do not like.

Most people play status games and end up tied to the rat race—constantly struggling and working long hours to afford their lifestyle.

If they succeed, the goal posts move and they get richer friends, so they begin to upgrade again and keep the cycle going. And they never win true control of their time or life.

Sounds like misery, doesn’t it? That’s most people.

Successful people play wealth games.

They put off buying the nice car to buy another cash flowing asset, like real estate. They let the first $100,000 they’ve earned sit in the bank and smile as they drive by you in their 10-year-old Chevy 1500 truck while searching for an investment opportunity.

They sacrificed the big house on a big property to minimize their lifestyle creep. They kept their overhead low in the early days.

And most importantly:

They completely control their time.

They have enough money coming in each month to do what they want, when they want to do it. No bosses, no pressure, no jobs other than the work they decide to do.

If this doesn’t sound good to you, you playing the status game.

Go pick up the next billionaire's autobiography and work on your big app idea.

Go from sexy thing to sexy thing and come back in a few years when you’ve learned there is no easy way to get rich. That chasing the next big idea or newest thing is a fool's errand.


Now for some homework. I want you to answer these three questions and reply to this email with your answers.

    What is your version of wealth?

Get up an hour early tomorrow morning or go in a quite place with a glass of wine later tonight.

And write.

Make some bullet points that outline what you want your life to look like. What are you spending your time doing? Who is with you? What are you working on? What do you do for fun? Are you happy?

Now the tactical question:

2. How much money do you need to make it happen?

$5K, $20k, $250K per month.


And the big one:

3. What is the path forward for you with the lowest risk and highest odds of success?

What business endevour has the highest odds of you hitting your number and your ideal life? What will make you wealthy?

If you aren't sure, that is okay. Write that down.

But you should look at the rest of your life through that lens.

Send me a Private message with what you write.

I'll read it but I likely won't respond. But it'll be there. A new carrot for you to chase and a goal for you to build your life around that goal.

An important note:

This is a 10 year game. Maybe even 20 year game. Your plan can and should have some boring, not sexy steps.

Sometimes you have to delay gratification and do things you don't want to do because you know they will lead to a bigger and better opportunity.

Get after it and I look forward to reading your replies.