The Dark Secrets of Creating Wealth From Zero

Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, had a net worth of $320 billion dollars at his peak in 2021.

And then there’s you.

You are probably working a job right now, one that you got from the degree that you studied for in university.

You probably don't have much in savings, your living expenses seem ridiculously high and you feel as though you're not paid enough. You also have credit card debt that needs taking care of.

Maybe you’re a student, studying for a degree that you hope can land a job that brings some good money. You probably don't have any savings, only a pesky student debt hanging above your head.

Wealth, getting rich, that all seems like a distant dream.

How did they do it?

You ask yourself seeing all those millionaires and billionaires, especially the ones who got there at such a young age.

It baffles you, they probably got lucky or maybe they cheated their way to that money.

You’re just unlucky.

Those dreams you had of buying your favorite sports car and traveling around the world. They'll forever remain that way, just dreams.

Nothing more, nothing less.

You come to the harsh realization. It's a rigged game and you're on the losing side.

But what if I told you that you were wrong?

What if there was a way of getting there, an actual equation to wealth, a science behind the way money works?

The Meaning Of Money

Still with me?

So what do you really think about money?

Are you desperate to have more of it?

Have you been chasing it most of your life?

Truth is, most of what you think about money has been influenced by your upbringing and environment.

If you were born into a family that didn't have much money growing up, then you're more inclined to believe that you will not grow up to have much money as well.

Or perhaps you went on the complete opposite end and decided to make as much money as you could, so that you would never ever be in that position again.

The fact that your school didn't teach you much about this subject doesn't help things either, and because of this, most of you are going to have false beliefs about money that aren't going to help you on this journey.

Now stick with me here, because we're gonna have to change the way you've been seeing money your whole life.

Hollywood has always had a habit of depicting the wealthy and rich as evil, backstabbing, entitled or corrupt individuals.

Question is, have you bought into that stereotype?

Many of the well-known ultra-rich are all self made and rarely inherited anything.

Some of the most notable self-made billionaires include Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Sara Blakely.

While others like Howard Schultz and Oprah Winfrey were born into poverty and rose up to where they are today.

Your Money-Making Equation

What is it that these people know that you don’t?

The truth is that the money-making equation you have been taught at school is wrong, money equals salary earned from a job.

Past a certain point, the prospect of getting a job becomes the sole purpose of your education.

But what’s wrong with that, you ask?

Now I am gonna assume that you want to make money, a lot of money, and very quickly.

Then if so, this equation will never get you there.

We all have an important resource, everyone has it but once it’s gone, there is no way of getting more, and that resource is time.

In a standard job, the amount of money you can earn is directly proportional to the time you spent doing that work.

So if you earn $15 an hour and you work 40 hours a week, then it would take you nearly 32 years to earn a total of one million dollars.

But this is before any expenses or taxes.

And let’s also not forget inflation which will reduce the value of your million dollars.

The reality is that on a salary of $15 an hour, you can only be a millionaire at an old age by living very frugally and most of your time has slipped away.

You are essentially trading your time for the money, and it isn’t even a significant amount of money.

So again, you ask yourself, how is it that these millionaires and billionaires made so much money and at such a young age too?

The truth is they had a better equation, a better grasp of the concept of money that you have not figured out yet.

The Rules Of The Game

Stop chasing money!

In a capitalist society, the rules of the game are as follows:

you are paid according to the perceived value that you have.

The people that perceive your value are the market. Consumers of the economy, it can be your friends, family, neighbors.

And as an example, some complain that basketball players are paid too much, but there must be a reason for players to be paid millions.

In the first place, there must be a market for the basketball industry and people have to see the value in basketball for them to want to spend money on matches and merchandise.

If the demand for basketball is high, then guess what?

The players that are at the top of their game will be compensated generously for it.

It isn’t about how hard you work, the cleaner that was sweating and working round the clock everyday is paid far less than the accountant sitting behind a desk.

Why?

Because the market perceives the value of what the cleaner does to be far less than the accountant.

I know it’s harsh, but the truth is the cleaner can be replaced by anybody.

It isn’t difficult to learn how to do the job, and hence the market will not pay the cleaner more than the accountant, the guy who spent years studying numbers and helped to save his clients thousands on taxes.

Although we just discussed how getting a wage won’t be making you rich in a short amount of time, then how can we increase our perceived value?

What is it about people like Bezos or Musk that makes their perceived value so high?

Two words, solving problems.

If you take your time to really digest this, you will see that if one thing solves a problem, then money is thrown at it.

A million dollar problem solved would make you millions.

If it’s a billion dollar problem, then the solution will make you billions.

For example, Amazon solves the hassle of physically stepping into a store, the hassle of waiting weeks for a delivery, and provides cheaper prices while doing so.

Not to mention the other subsidiaries under Amazon and the problems they solve, Jeff Bezos helped solve a billion-dollar problem and was awarded favorably for doing so.

It sounds almost paradoxical but if you want money, it isn't money that you should be looking for, you should be looking for problems and more importantly, solutions to these problems.

Once you find that solution, make a business around it.

The Last Step

Now I know what you are thinking, this is absurd, if just solving problems and money will appear, then I am gonna have to be the Facebook, or the next Google, right?

You might think you lack the skills or the time or maybe the startup capital?

But, hold on and just listen to the market around you.

What is it that people find frustrating?
Could you solve it?
And is it worth solving?

The last step of this equation to wealth is finding a scalable solution to the problem. Your solution needs to affect a magnitude of people.

Let’s say you start your own coffee shop, that’s not scalable, you would be constricted to the local area and the footfall of the area your shop is in.

But what if it’s a franchise, now that’s relatively more scalable.

Or maybe your solution is a piece of software, then once you finished building your product, it would be infinitely scalable online without production or shipping costs as it’s all done virtually.

Now the same cannot be said for a conventional job, and you better watch out for a job disguised as a business.

Now what do I mean by this?

Let’s say now you want to start your own piano class, and this requires your time to generate money.

There is only a certain amount of lessons that you can feasibly do in one day and therefore your income is time-bound.

But if you make a small tweak and create online piano courses that can run 24/7.

Once you create it, then that is scalable. You can see how scaling is important for long-term success in a business, automation also plays a key role.

Systems and processes will keep your business running like a smooth machine if implemented properly.

If there is something in your business that you can outsource to somebody else, or hire an employee to do it for you, assuming it makes sense financially, do it.

Tasking yourself with everything is a bad thing. As much as you may think you're the best, there's someone out there that can do a better job than you.

Once you've found a solution, it's your job to make sure that solution can be accessed by everyone in your market.

It's not about your ego and it's not about what you're passionate about. The market doesn't care about your passions.

Harvesting Your Efforts

So now that you have your profitable business running with the right systems and processes in place.

It's time to move on and harvest your efforts.

There are likely 2 paths you're going to face at this point.

You either continue your business or cash in and sell it.

This is the acquisition, the moment someone buys the solution that you spent years building a business around.

This is Instagram being acquired by Facebook for 1 billion dollars.

Or PayPal being sold to eBay for 1.5 billion.

Or you could choose to continue running your business, well, there's a multitude of reasons for you wanting to do so.

Maybe you love the company that you built and you want to stick with your baby.

Or maybe you think you can add more value to the company and sell it down the line for more than it's currently worth.

Or maybe it's a combination of these.

Either way, you did it!

You solved a problem that the market wanted solving and it awarded you favorably for doing so.

So now what?

What was it all for anyway?

What Was It All For?

For most of us, it was never about the money.

Money is just a piece of paper, a number on a screen.

Buying your dream car, traveling around the world.

It's the freedom that you were looking for.

Your destination wasn't anything related to money.

It was the ability to do what you want, whenever you wanted without ever having to think:

Can I afford this?
Have I used up all my holidays for the year?
How am I going to pay my bills?
Will I be able to live off my pension?

The most important lesson from this article was never about the nature of money.

It was about the one valuable resource that we all have, the one resource we will never be able to reclaim:

Time.

It's also important to come back to the original point that I made at the start of this, which is that most people will not succeed for various reasons.

But the most important part is failing.

Failing fast and moving on to the next thing and if you're out there doing something that isn't strictly related to a business, but you want it to make money.

Then ask yourself this:

What problem am I solving?

This could lead you to find ways of better monetizing whatever it is that you're doing and that also includes a job or maybe side hustles you are pursuing.

If you read this till the end, kudos.

And if you want to check out the book that inspired this article, it’s called The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco, or you could check out my summary of his book here.

I go into more detail in my summary above, with concepts like:

The 5 Fastlane Commandments, and
The Law Of Effection

so do check it out!

- Ivan