Email inbox overflowing with unread messages, symbolizing high demand for financial advice on making alot of money.
I spend a significant portion of my time engaging with individuals driven by a common aspiration: to make Alot Of Money. It’s a goal that resonates deeply with many. Just recently, I launched a quiz designed to help people evaluate their standing across five crucial pillars of a wealthy life. The results, gathered from over 10,000 participants, highlighted Financial Wealth as the area where most individuals felt the most lacking and sought guidance. (You can still assess your own baseline by taking the quiz here).
These individuals come from diverse backgrounds and generations, yet they are united by a shared ambition to achieve financial success, to “make it” in monetary terms. However, in my observation, a considerable amount of the advice available on how to make alot of money is misguided, often promoting get-rich-quick schemes or overly simplistic solutions. In response to this landscape of inadequate guidance, I aim to offer some genuinely valuable insights.
Here’s my straightforward advice for anyone aiming to make alot of money. Be forewarned: some of this might sound harsh, demanding, or even uncomfortable, and that’s because the path to substantial wealth often is.
The Foundation of Wealth: Creating Significant Value
Let’s start with a fundamental, albeit sometimes unwelcome, truth: money isn’t simply given away. No one will compensate you handsomely merely for your personality or charm. The financial world operates on a principle of exchange of value. Money earned is a direct reflection of the value you provide.
Value creation is the engine of wealth accumulation. If making alot of money is your objective, then your primary focus must be on generating value for others. This isn’t an abstract concept. The pathway to significant wealth involves creating immense value for a large number of people and capturing a fraction of that value in return.
Action, not just contemplation, is key. It’s not about endlessly discussing, brainstorming, questioning, or pondering the idea. Creating value is achieved by actively doing the work. If you’re uncertain where to begin, look around. Everywhere you look, there are people – customers, colleagues, supervisors, shareholders, employees – each with their own set of challenges. What problems can you identify and solve for those around you?
Identify these problems, develop effective solutions, and then scale those solutions to reach a wider audience. This is the fundamental mechanism for making money, and especially for making alot of money.
Time and Energy: Your Evolving Financial Assets
In your early career stages, time is often your most abundant resource. Lacking established skills, extensive knowledge, broad networks, or substantial capital, time becomes your primary asset. You invest this time in your professional endeavors, dedicating long hours to acquire the skills, knowledge, connections, and financial resources you initially lack. You essentially trade time for expertise and opportunities.
However, as you progress in your career and life, a crucial shift in mindset is required. Time ceases to be the most valuable asset; energy takes precedence. The relentless busyness that characterizes modern work culture often stems from continuing to trade time for diminishing returns, long after the value of that trade has peaked.
To avoid this plateau, strategically leverage the skills, knowledge, networks, and capital you’ve accumulated. Concentrate your finite energy on pivotal moments and high-impact opportunities. This strategic allocation of energy is where you unlock substantial financial gains.
To put it simply: initially, work hard; then, transition to working smart.
The Myth of “Making It”: A Continuous Journey
Many people harbor the misconception that “making it” is a definitive endpoint, a destination where one arrives and then enters a period of effortless ease. This is a fallacy. Every day demands renewed effort to maintain your position and continue to thrive.
This principle holds universally true. Consider a company like Apple. If they were to halt innovation and stop producing new iPhones, their reign as a successful company would inevitably be short-lived. Success is not a static achievement but a dynamic process.
In reality, as you attain greater success, the challenges often intensify. You have more at stake, more responsibilities, and more people depending on you. Expectations rise. As an old adage wisely states:
“Every morning in the savannah, the gazelle wakes up knowing it must outrun the lion or it will be killed. Every morning, the lion wakes up knowing it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle—when the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”
The pursuit of success, especially financial success, is a daily endeavor. You have to “make it” anew each day.
Entrepreneurship vs. Employment: Choosing the Right Path
In today’s social media-driven world, a peculiar stigma sometimes attaches to being an employee. There’s a pervasive narrative suggesting that to truly prosper, one must “bet on yourself” and “build your own thing,” implying that traditional employment is a path to financial mediocrity. This is not only misleading but often outright false.
Entrepreneurship is not universally suited for everyone, and there’s absolutely no shame in advancing your career within an established company. In fact, for the majority of individuals, climbing the corporate ladder may well be the most effective route to building significant Financial Wealth.
Furthermore, the romanticized notion of “doing your own thing” as synonymous with working minimal hours from an exotic beach is largely a myth. While such lifestyles may exist for a select few, for most entrepreneurs, “doing your own thing” entails working just as intensely, if not more so, than in traditional employment. There is no “easy mode” in entrepreneurship.
Don’t be pressured into pursuing a path that doesn’t align with your strengths, preferences, and realistic assessment of your capabilities.
The Power of Excellence: Demonstrating Top-Tier Performance
Your income potential is directly correlated to the level of excellence you consistently demonstrate. This is particularly true if you are pursuing career advancement within an organization.
The principle is straightforward: if you aspire to promotions, substantial raises, and prestigious titles, you must consistently exhibit excellence in all your endeavors.
Every detail matters. You don’t have the luxury of selectively performing well only when it suits you, because the world tends to overlook your average performance and judge you based on your lapses. Top performers bring energy and dedication to even the smallest tasks, not just the high-profile ones.
If you consistently operate within the top 10% of performers in your field, the opportunities are limitless. However, the self-awareness to accurately assess your current performance level and to genuinely accept and act upon honest feedback is a rare and invaluable trait.
Genuine top performers are typically aware of their standing. If you are not in that top tier, it’s crucial to understand why and proactively address the gap.
Salesmanship: A Meta-Skill More Valuable Than Pure Intelligence
Sales proficiency is arguably the most universally valuable meta-skill you can cultivate. Regardless of your chosen path, the ability to sell is indispensable:
- Sell yourself effectively in interviews and networking.
- Sell your personal story to build connections.
- Sell products or services if you are in business.
- Sell your vision to inspire teams and stakeholders.
- Sell your ideas to gain buy-in and influence.
My wealthiest acquaintances are not necessarily those with the highest IQs. Their common trait is exceptional salesmanship. They are resilient in the face of rejection and persistent in refining their message until they achieve a positive outcome.
Energy Over Passion: Fueling Sustained Effort
I’ve always been skeptical of the common advice to “follow your passion.” While passion can be a motivator, it’s not always a reliable compass for career decisions.
You don’t necessarily need to be passionately in love with your professional pursuits; you simply need to find sustained energy in them. You need to feel a genuine pull of interest, a spark of curiosity that propels you forward.
Passion can be fickle and misleading, but energy is a more consistent and truthful indicator. When you have genuine energy for something, you are naturally inclined to dedicate focused attention, learn deeply, ask insightful questions, and persevere to achieve success.
Extraordinary Input for Extraordinary Output: The Law of Tradeoffs
I recently spoke with a young man who expressed a strong desire to transform his life trajectory. He was in a 9-to-5 job he found unfulfilling and wanted to launch his own company to create something significant.
He claimed he lacked the time to begin, but when we broke down his daily schedule, it included approximately two hours of leisure time spent watching television before bed.
When I suggested reducing this evening routine to create time for his entrepreneurial ambitions, he argued that he “needed it” to de-stress after work.
This prompted a direct question: Is the time spent watching television more valuable to you than changing your life’s direction?
Life is inherently about making challenging choices and accepting necessary sacrifices. If you aspire to achieve extraordinary output, you must be willing to commit extraordinary input.
This often requires enduring a period of imbalance in your life to ultimately achieve a more balanced and fulfilling life in the long run.
Rapid Fire Insights: Key Takeaways
My grandfather once shared a piece of wisdom that has stayed with me: “You’ll achieve much more by being consistently reliable than by being occasionally extraordinary.” Reliability builds trust and opens doors.
Cultivate a reputation for being resourceful and solution-oriented. You will frequently encounter tasks you initially have no idea how to accomplish. The ability to “figure it out”—to put in the work, ask the right questions, and deliver results—is incredibly valuable. Individuals with this capability are highly sought after.
Manage your expectations; they are a significant financial liability if unchecked. If your expectations rise faster than your assets, you will perpetually feel financially strained, constantly pursuing an ever-receding horizon of “more.” Keep your expectations grounded and in proportion to your financial reality, just as you would manage any other financial obligation.
In your early career stages, the ability to live significantly below your means is a powerful advantage for achieving long-term financial independence. Before life brings on more responsibilities and heightened expectations, prioritize maximizing the gap between your income and expenses. If a purchase isn’t essential or a clear investment in your future, forgo it.
Don’t waste precious time on low-impact activities. For example, obsessively managing your investments when your total investable assets are roughly equivalent to your annual income is often unproductive. The returns from a $100,000 portfolio will rarely justify a substantial time investment if you are earning $100,000 annually. Instead, focus that time on strategies to double or triple your income—that’s a far more impactful use of your energy.
Side hustles are often thinly disguised distractions. While multiple income streams may sound appealing, truly passive income streams are rare. If a “side hustle” demands significant mental energy or creates undue stress, it may be diverting you from more strategic, high-impact pursuits.
Finally, remember that people prefer to do business with individuals they like. Being personable and pleasant to be around is a lasting competitive advantage. Cultivate genuine likeability.
The Inevitable Price of Success: No Free Lunch
On my first day of Economics 101 at Stanford, the core lesson was simple and profound: “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
My broader interpretation of this principle is that everything worthwhile in life comes with a price.
If your goal is to make alot of money, it’s crucial to have a clear and realistic understanding of the price you will need to pay to achieve that objective.
This article is intended to provide my honest perspective on what that price entails. If you are willing to pay it, then pursue your financial ambitions with vigor. If not, rest assured that a fulfilling and meaningful life can be built without extraordinary financial riches.
Ultimately, your life is yours to design. Choose your path deliberately and reject default expectations. Reject the default, live by design.
