What is Wealth?

Mental Models

Letting Go of Your Negative Beliefs About Wealth

“Seek wealth, not money or status.”

– Naval Ravikant

Our newsletter is called Wealth Potion… so I imagine you subscribed to learn how to build wealth.

But what is wealth, exactly?

And beyond it’s official definition, what does wealth mean to you?

Why is this important? Because there are negative beliefs that many people associate with wealth – beliefs that they adopt early in their lives that prevent them from achieving their very own definition of wealth.

Today, we’ll dive into:

  • The definition of wealth
  • Our definition of wealth
  • Your definition of wealth
  • Negative mindsets to avoid that hold people back
  • A thought experiment…

The Definition of Wealth

For this discussion, we will not be using the secondary definition of wealth (i.e. abundant supply, profusion)

n: “abundance of valuable material possessions or resources.”

The ‘valuable material possession’ part is more straightforward. Money, and all the things that it can buy, are generally referred to as material possessions.

But what are these ‘resources’ being referred to?

My Definition of Wealth

One of my goals with Wealth Potion is to provide you with the education you need to build your material wealth.

However, I also include the following ‘resources’ in my definition of wealth:

  • Good Health
  • Loving Family
  • Time Freedom
  • Strong Relationships
  • Fulfillment and Purpose

And while this is my list of what constitutes wealth, your list may very well be different. Wealth is partly subjective to each individual’s preferences.

Here is one individual’s unique definition of wealth to give you a sense:

And so one action I’d recommend you take:

Set time aside (e.g. with a journal) to write a story about what wealth means to you.

We’ll re-visit this later.

Regardless of what wealth means to you, we can agree that money is the fuel that enables you to achieve those things that you desire. Family, Health, Freedom, Fulfillment, etc.

But it is important to recognize that money does not guarantee those things.

You can pay for a personal trainer, and never get fit.

You can hire an administrative assistant, and still be stuck in meetings all day.

You can buy gifts for your friends and family, and fail to build meaningful relationships with them.

To put it simply: Wealth is more than money.

If you have the time, I highly recommend listening to this talk by Naval Ravikant.

Naval does a great job expanding on his “Seek wealth, not money or status” tweet from the top of this article. In this talk, he clearly differentiates between wealth and money.

“The reason you want wealth is because it buys you freedom.“

– Naval Ravikant

There are many rich people who are obese, miserable, divorced, have terrible relationships with their children, and so on.

In our humble opinion, these people are not wealthy.

Mindsets Holding People Back From Wealth

Now that you have your list of what wealth means to you, it’s time for a more difficult exercise.

We’re going to unpack some of your fundamental beliefs about wealth.

Have you ever met someone who despises billionaires? Perhaps they say things such as:

  • “A billion dollars is too much money for one person.”
  • “Billionaires shouldn’t exist.”
  • “We need to tax the rich!”
  • “No one becomes a billionaire without exploiting people…”

These people despise wealth.

They might not admit it explicitly, but they have a negative relationship toward wealth.

They see the pursuit of wealth as a game of winners and losers. That in order for someone to grow their wealth, another person has to lose their wealth.

This is fundamentally incorrect.

Capitalism is built on the notion of voluntary exchange. And voluntary exchange is by definition positive sum.

If you ever need a simple proof to demonstrate that capitalism is positive-sum, here it is.

In fact, this zero-sum thinking is one of the most dangerous mindsets one could have.

You might be reading this and thinking “Well, I would never say those things… I don’t despite wealth!”

Dig deeper into your beliefs.

Because even if you don’t hold this specific belief, you may still harbour subtle resentment toward wealth in a way that is holding you back.

A Thought Experiment

Do you believe Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Bill Gates deserve their net worths of hundreds of billions of dollars?

A hundred billion dollars is $100,000,000,000 when written out, FYI

Really pause to consider how much money hundreds of billions of dollars is…

For example, if they placed their net worth in a 5% high interest savings account (HYSA), Elon and Bezos would make >$27,000,000 per day in interest.

Does any part of you feel resentment toward them for that?

If there is a single morsel of you that feels like their wealth is unethical, ask yourself why you believe that.

To be clear, this is not a political statement about progressive taxation, wealth inequality, and so on. The system we live in is not perfect. I am not suggesting otherwise.

But it is important to recognize the underlying beliefs you hold about wealth, and investigate whether or not they are serving you.

And only you alone can embark on this journey.

Now that you have your own personal definition of what wealth means to you, I recommend re-visiting it regularly.

Read it aloud.

Close your eyes and imagine waking up tomorrow with all of those things.

Tweak and iterate on your definition of wealth as you gain more real-life experience and progress toward your goals.

And watch as your life slowly re-aligns toward this new vision that you have for yourself.

Build in Public Update

I shared recently that a $500m CEO and Founder gave me advice to slow down, and to not rush it.

It has forced me to think very intentionally about what I want Wealth Potion to become.

Here’s what has been on my mind:

  • The newsletter is just the beginning. A newsletter itself can become a huge business on its own (see Morning Brew, The Hustle, Milk Road), but there’s also huge potential to provide more value via courses, digital products, or a community.
  • Doing this for decades is critical. In an exponential equation x*y^n, the n is the most important variable. In other words, the longer I can sustain this business, the more successful it will be.
  • Setting a solid foundation will maximize ‘n’. While there is a temptation to move faster and try more things, taking my time is counterintuitively the best thing I can do to ensure I don’t get burned out.

Another thing he told me was extremely valuable (paraphrasing), that I want to share with you:

“When you think you have an idea, do your “100 interviews”. Set up 100 calls with friends, families, experts, whoever. But at the beginning of the call, you need to give them permission to rip your idea apart. Friends and family have no incentive to destroy your business idea. It’s way easier for them to nod their head and tell you your idea is great. So tell them what you really need – for them to be brutally honest with you.”

I posted about this very advice on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. If you enjoy learning from short-form video, follow Wealth Potion on your social media platform of choice.

To your prosperity,
Wealth Potion

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