How to Be Like the 1% – The Most Powerful Principle of Wealth Building! | VALUE WEALTH! – 057
They value wealth building more than spending. – AUDIO NSFW
So I’ve been doing some thinking in my garage here. As you guys always know, I do a lot of thinking right over there on my custom bench seat. I’ve been thinking about values. I’ve been thinking about values and I’ve done podcasts on values before and so certainly, you can look back at those and see what I’ve talked about in regards to finding your highest value.
One of the things that I thought about tonight and I had to write down, is one of the most powerful principles to wealth building that I learned in Economics 101 up in university, up north, my first year. Absolutely! It’s one of those things where I was sitting down, I was thinking about values and I was thinking about how I can make sure that I’m always aligned to my highest values, my highest priorities, making sure that I’m not operating from lower values or doing things that are destructive in my life.
I don’t know about you guys, but I obviously have a desire to think deeply about things in my own life and luckily, I’m able to communicate effectively enough what those rumblings are in the back of my mind and in the depths of my soul. I was thinking about this and I cannot believe I haven’t actually talked about this ever before. I’m hoping that you guys are sitting back. You’re in a good place and you’re ready to hear something that I seriously cannot believe that I haven’t talked about this before.
It’s so powerful and my mind went all the way back to my first year in Economics class, which by the way was ridiculously easy. I mean, for me, if I can take a segue here, I remember in this economics class just being bored to tears. Absolutely bored to tears because economics made so much sense to me and it’s because of the way that I was raised. I was raised poor. Let’s just put it that way.
Ain’t nobody driving Lambos here. My dad drove a Buick station wagon. We used to call it the shagun wagon. My brother and I used to sit in the backseat. And if you know anything about these old Buick Roadmaster shagun wagons, the back seat would look outwards towards the back. You could flip it down and you can flip it up and the whole thing was leather guys. Holy crap! The thing was leather or maybe it was pleather. I don’t know, but all I know is that when we took rides and my brother and I had to sit in the back of the shagun wagon, this Buick Roadmaster, we were so bloody stinking hot guys. We were sweaty. It was miserable! It was miserable!
We used to live up in Jersey and we used to do summer vacations over at LBI (Long Beach Island). So some of you guys up north, you guys know what I’m talking about. It’s gotten a little bit more trashy than it was back in the day, but no judgment here because I haven’t been there in a while. So what do I know? But we used to take these long trips up to Long Beach Island, guys and holy cow, I remember just sitting there just oozing sweat out of every single pore humanly possible. It’s one of those things where you’re just resting your arm for just a second, just a second you’re resting your arm and it was two seconds ago and you lift up your arm and the whole seat’s just doused in your sweat. Sweats running down your back. You could feel it going down your back through your biceps, through your underwear, and you could feel it just slowly rolling down your ass crack.
Guys, I’m sorry. I don’t know if you guys have ever sweated that much, but I do, I sweat every almost every day that much. I don’t know why I’m saying that and why I’m sharing it, but guys, that’s my heart and that’s the truth. I’ll tell you guys some of the greatest memories and I got a lot of memories—not all of them good—but I got a lot of memories from that station wagon that Buick Roadmaster or the shagun wagon sitting in the backseat with the leather.
The whole point of this is that I didn’t come from a whole lot. There was a interesting thing that was imbued in me and the value was an interesting value of wealth building. I want to share that with you guys. I know it took me five minutes to get into this, but please, I want to share with you guys and I’m gonna repeat this I want to share with you guys the most powerful, the most powerful principle of wealth building that I have ever learned and it was codified in my brain. It was codified in my brain in my first year, freshman year in university up at RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology) my first year up there in Economics 101 class. Man, that class is boring.
Here it is. Here’s the principle. I remember the professor telling me and telling the class. He said, “Economics isn’t that complex. There are obviously nuances and aesthetics to understanding how money flows and money works, but he said the essential principle, the essential principle is that money in the economy cycles from those who value it the least to those who value it the most.”
Let me repeat that. “Money in the economy cycles from those who value it least to those who value it the most.” You see I didn’t grow up with a lot, but the principles that my parents instilled in me when it came to money, is that we needed to value money. We had to value money. I have four brothers and sisters. Let’s put it that way. There’s seven of us. We were all growing up in the 70s and 80s. We had to value we had to value money. We had to value it because there wasn’t a whole lot to go around.
I could tell you stories because I know what private school looks like. My kids go to private school now. I’m talking about Range Rovers, BMWs, Benzes, and all sorts of stuff. I mean like, trust me, that’s not how I grew up. I didn’t grow up around any of that. So money in the economy, money in the economy cycles from those who value it least and there’s a lot that we can dig in here. Those who value money the least, those who spend money, obviously. Those who don’t have control over their spending, control over their emotions, control over their appetites.
These are characteristics of people who don’t value money. They value it the least because they allow their appetites to get away. They’re not disciplined mentally. So money bleeds from them to those value it the most.
Now, why does this make me want to tell you guys about this powerful principle? To me, how I translate it and don’t miss this guys this is so crucial here, how I translated this very clinical, but very smooth statement “money in the economy cycles from those who value it the least to those who value it the most”. It’s very clinical, but it’s a smooth sounding sentence. It makes a lot of sense. It cycles from those who spend it to those who don’t spend it, hold it, invest it, these types of things.
But how I translated it, and this was so crucial into my earlier formulative years, that I was able to take my professor, I wish I fucking remembered his name, but to remember what he said and to take that and to translate it in to a value of wealth building, by understanding how money cycles through the economy, I established an internal value or at least I was able to codify the values I already had given to me by my family, I was able to codify and say yes, the value of wealth building is to not be part of those who cycle it constantly.
I remember and I don’t want to get political here, but I remember the 1% issues and I’m sure that will come up until the day that you and I die that there will be the blame the 1%, blame the rich. This is ludicrous! My professor during my first semester in freshman year in Economics 101 completely debunked this whole blame game nonsense of blaming the 1%. You cannot blame the 1% of the rich out there who own 99% of everything.
Guys, let me broaden the spectrum here. Bet me broaden the opportunity here. Sure, the top 1% of the world who would have all the money, some of them can come from being an heiress or being a prince or being a princess or being a king or from ludicrous amounts of money. Yes, those people exist. Yes those people exist. But listen, they’re not becoming bigger cyclers of money in the economy frivolously. They’re not wasting their inheritance. They’re not wasting their trust fund. So give them at least a little bit of credit is what I would simply ask.
Yeah sure, there’s some that are in the 1% top upper echelons of making money that have made it illegitimately. For sure 100 %. But if you look at what the 1% really is at a global scale, you and I, if you’re listening to this and you’re in a nice little home and you got a car paid off, you’re the 1%, brother. You’re the 1% sister. We, and I say we, including me, have no opportunity, we have no cause to ever blame the 1%. We cannot. We cannot.
Do you know why? Because we just have to realize that those with all the money, they operate from a higher principle, a higher value of money than the 99% in the world. Yes, there are statistical anomalies. I just covered them. The illegitimate and the trust fund babies. So take those out. If the rest of us guys, zero excuse.
Here is the value. Please let this sink in. The value is that people who are successful, people who have money, they value wealth building more than spending. That’s it. That’s how I translate it. I think it’s so cool that my particular brain enjoys re-contextualizing clinical ideas and making them into principles that I can hold. I’m so for that this is just how my brain works. Yes, I’m in my head a lot and some people would wish that I wasn’t in my fucking head all the time, but I’m a thinker and I’m a communicator. That’s what I value.
The value is people who are successful, people who have money, the 1%–what do they do? They value wealth building more than spending. They value wealth building more than spending because money in the economy cycles from those who value money the least to those who value it the most.
What else does the 1% do differently? What do they do differently than others? I wrote down a couple things. I hope you’re ready. Do you know what the 1% has, the rich have? They have wealth building strategies in place. They have fantastic wealth building strategies in place. This is so important. Let’s go through them.
- Auto-saving.
I’m gonna sound judgmental here. Please know that it comes with love because I love communicating to my heart. If you don’t have auto saving, you’re doing life wrong. Even at the meagre, I was there too once, guys. My first job at Publix. I worked at Publix as a bag boy. $5.25 an hour, 15 years old. That’s where I started. I started at the bottom. Now, we’re here, guys. Even then at $5.25, I had a savings plan. You better believe it! I saved like $20 a month and for a 15-year-old, that was damn awesome. Because I knew that every two months, I could get a new video game from the computer store.
Do you guys remember CompUSA? That’s where I used to go. I used to spend every couple of months. I would make just enough money. You’ll say, Peter, wait, you only saved $20 a month? Where was the rest of that money going? Guys, I was 15 years old, okay? It’s going to really stupid things, okay?
But every month, I could make enough money where I could save up for a super video game that I really wanted because my parents always put us on lock. They wouldn’t let us spend all our money frivolously on video games because I’ll tell you, there was a ton of them out then and even more now, obviously. We were constrained. As I burned my money on frivolous things, I interestingly enough had a savings plan even at a $5.25 an hour salary. Get on it.
Auto investing. If you have an opportunity to auto-invest, do it. It’s free money. These people argued nothing’s free. Understand my point, if they’re just matching just a little bit, it’s more than what you earn. Take it! Take the money. You don’t need it anyway. So auto-saving, auto-investing.
- Buying in cash.
I’m gonna say something strong here, guys. But this is just because and I’m saying this honestly, it’s just because I earned the right to be able to say this. I never buy anything on credit. I buy everything in cash. Now, this is just me and remember, you don’t have to listen to me and you don’t have to judge your life by me because I’m not a fair ruler or measuring stick by any means, but the way that I have trained myself, the way that I have discipline in this family, is that we don’t buy anything if we can’t buy it in cash. It has to be that way.
I’ll tell you. Well actually probably one of the biggest reasons why this is so important to me that we buy everything in cash is because I have neurosis. I have psychological disorders. I fucking hate debt. I hate it with a passion. You want to know why because debt is slavery. You owe somebody. They own you. They could take you to court. They could put you in jail depending on the type of debt. I want to be unfettered in life. I have spent so much of my mental life in the early years of getting out of college debt.
Oh my Lord Jesus, if I could do it over again, guys, maybe that should be another podcast, but if I could do it over, guys, I would not. Holy shit, a million dollars worth of debt, guys. A million. We’re talking about bachelors. We’re talking about master’s degree one, master’s degree two, master’s degree three, plus all the other loans for books and food and living in and having to take on so much debt that you get secondary lines and secondary loans at a 17%.
Guys, that was me. That was me, okay? Maybe it’s because I valued education more than the debt. This is obviously true because I ended finishing them. But I tell you, there were better ways of doing it. I know now. There are better ways in doing it. Don’t listen to me, but I’ll tell you, if you can get to a point in your life when you buy with cash only, like no uncontrolled the credit card debt. We use credit cards but we make sure it’s paid off in cash every month, every bill cycle, guys.
I’ve earned the right. I said that before, I want to be abundantly clear, I earned the right in my life through my disciplines to be able to do that and not everyone is there yet. But auto-saving, auto investing, buying in cash, what a liberating freedom. I’ll leave you guys with this on this idea. The day that you wake up and you have zero debt and you don’t owe nobody nothing, your life is – trust me, I remember that day – your life has changed. There is no weight on your chest. There is no weight on your shoulders. There is no rumbling in your stomach. You owe nobody nothing.
When you do an accounting of your finances—I got cell phone bill, I got Internet bill, I got water utilities, food… I got to pay the fees at the end of the year for the house and all that stuff – land taxes and all that shite. I’m telling you, what a free life to live.
- They don’t live outside their means.
They don’t live outside their means. They have an “I don’t need it” attitude. That’s an attitude that I have too. I don’t need anything. Let’s be intellectually honest. Are you watching me? Do you see me? Have you seen me? I don’t need anything. I love life. I love giving. I love being able to talk to you and be able to say these things because it comes from the inside. It comes from heart. I have earned the right to be able to sit here in my garage and say, I hope encouraging wonderful things in your ears. Don’t live outside your means. You can you can buy stuff later. Ain’t nobody cares.
- They have no peer pressure.
They’re not faking the funk. They won’t give in to peer-pressure when it comes to financial nonsense. They don’t give a about what other people say or think about them. Go back to my podcast about why not giving a fuck is the best way to live. Go back to that podcast. Re-listen to that please if you want to be reminded as to why not giving a fuck is the best way to live.
These people, the 1%, they don’t care. They’re debt-free. They’re unshackled. They’re unfettered. They’re unchained. They can do whatever they want. They could be whoever they want. They can take opportunities when they want to take them. They can go when they want to go. They can go wherever they want to go. They can they can do. They can create.
I find it a wonder that people wonder about why successful entrepreneurs, why they continue to be successful over and over and over you know and over again. There’s lots of reasons. There’s lots of reasons why a successful entrepreneur can continue to roll and re-roll a new success after new success after new success. I get it. I’m 100% get it.
#1, they learned a lot. I’m breaking this down into really small parts here. They’re obviously learning a ton, but #2, they’re learning how to deal with their finances better. #3, I bet they have no debt or at least if they’re depending on how they make their money, they might be leveraging debt in one of the most—real estate guys, for everyone out there in real estate, I salute you. I don’t do real estate. You know why? Because I hate debt.
Even though I know how to, from an economic standpoint, I know how to move money and I know how to leverage debt, buying you know a 12-unit condo and then fixing it up and renting it out in shaving costs here and there and getting low bank $1.5 million in a bank loan at 3% 4% because it’s really low. I know all this! I know all this, but I hate that so you won’t see me in the real estate game. But people in 1% don’t give in to peer pressure. They don’t give a fuck about what other people say. They do what they want to do because they value wealth building more than spending.
- They are goat-setters.
They achieve their goals. They have a discipline to executing and experimentation and a “never give up” attitude. Obviously, not every one of them has that, but this can be easily assumed if you’re in the 1% and you’re doing fine and you have control of your life, you’re disciplined you will be wealthy. You will be successful. I promise you. It’s the daily disciplines.
Investments
So how do these people make their money if they’re not trust fund babies or they don’t make their money illegitimately? How do they make their money? You want to know a secret? I’ll give you the secret. I’m gonna give you all the secrets today, guys. The secret is they value wealth building over spending. Here’s the kicker guys. They value serving people over taking. The 1% value serving people more than taking from people.
Think about it. Think about the most wealthy 1% in the world. What are they own? Hotels, large manufacturing plants, large companies that serve millions, billions of people around the world. I mean you make the most money, please don’t miss this guy’s, in serving the most people you can, okay?
The first thing that I thought about when I wrote this down as I thought of Jeff Bezos. I love Jeff Bezos. I believe he still was driving like a Honda Accord or Honda Civic when he made his first billions. What is he doing? Jeff Bezos in Amazon? They are serving the world. Alibaba? Jack Ma? They are serving the world, the consumerist world.
How do you make money? How does the 1% make money? How does the 1% keep their money? Two values. Please I’m gonna close this out. I’m gonna close this out right here. How does the 1% survive? How do they stay on top?
Two very powerful principles:
- The 1% values wealth building overspending.
Wealth building over spending. How do they make their money and make even more money as the 1%? They value serving people over taking. They value serving people over taking. They build business is that can help and allow them to serve as many people as they possibly can. That’s what they do.
If I’ll go and dig into my own ego a little bit, here that’s what I’m trying to do. I want to serve as many people as I possibly can. Now, I don’t have a powerful voice. I don’t have a voice that really matters in the whole world and that’s okay, but I would love to touch more people. I know that not everyone will resonate with me, but that’s part of the goal of this podcast and not quitting on it and continuing to grind and continuing to iterate and continuing to try different things. I’m going to be trying new things with this podcast soon.
I value serving more than taking. I certainly value wealth building over spending. For today, guys, consider this. Money in the economy cycles from those who value it the least to those who value it the most. The value of wealth building over spending and the value of serving people over taking is how you go into the 1% and you stay in the 1%. The question for you and today is what’s your values on wealth building?
This is Peter, The Bitcoin Lambo. If you appreciated this episode, please share it was someone who’s into wealth learning or needs to hear this to get into wealth building. I hope it was helpful. Share, subscribe. Peace out, guys.