The label brings up images of smashed avocado sandwiches by the yacht in Morocco while smoking a cigar with Andrew Hate (ya’ll know the one).
No thanks, mate. Not for me. But the new rich isn’t a group of mega-rich entrepreneurs fighting each other in a cage and screaming how manly they are. Nope. It’s a name given to a new movement.
They believe being loud and flashy is stupid. They seek to create enough wealth so they can join the permissionless economy and stop doing work they don’t enjoy doing.
It’s a crowd driven by freedom instead of status. And the new rich is one of the best movements in history to join.
Here are the traits you must develop.
Screw being famous
I’m approaching 200,000 email subscribers.
I recently announced that I won’t be focused on social media growth as much anymore. Readers were shocked. They didn’t get it.
The reason for my decision is thanks to a Tim Ferriss article on fame many years ago. He says privacy is the new form of wealth.
Having everyone know who you are is annoying — and even dangerous.
One night at the airport Tim got off a flight and went to meet his chauffeur car. Another car showed up pretending to be his driver. But something felt off. Tim realized the car that showed up wasn’t the car he booked.
They were kidnappers.
They knew of his enormous wealth, and they wanted to put a hefty ransom on his head. He’s lucky he didn’t end up dead. That’s what fame gets you.
Lots of risk and no privacy.
Imagine not being able to take a piss in a public toilet again without worrying whether a selfie camera might be used to snap a pic of your d*ck or tit while you enjoy some personal time. No thanks.
The new rich are obsessed with privacy. Make privacy your new #1 value.
They value this new type of education
College used to be the best career move one could make.
The trouble is college is overpriced and leaves you in a mountain of debt not even a gopher can tunnel out of.
The new rich value self-education. They’re not interested in just-in-case education. They’re focused on just-in-time education. They learn with a goal in mind. They back up the goal with habits and systems.
Instead of drowning in information and strategies that age worse than an 85 year old man’s bald head, they focus on the least amount of information possible with the highest amount of curation they can find.
The teachers they choose matter. They have to have social proof. They have to have done the thing and at a high level. Just being “qualified” or having 40 years of “experience” doing the same dumb thing isn’t enough.
Make education a habit. Align it to a goal. Back it up with a system. Learn from practitioners instead of experts.
Lots of money gets spent on this
The fake rich you see everywhere driving Lambos focus on spending money to elevate their status.
They’re nothing more than chimpanzees you see taking a pee in the zoo. They fight in packs and flash their possessions to get attention like 12 month old babies that need a nappy change (shout out to my daughter).
The new rich couldn’t give a fudge about looking rich.
They focus on spending money to acquire experiences. They live and breathe the Bill Perkins quote, “You don’t retire on money, you retire on memories.” Some even tattoo this quote on their chest.
One of the coolest things I’ve done with money is use it to buy more free time, so I can pick up my daughter from daycare in the middle of the afternoon. The daycare teachers think I’m a weirdo.
No other dads at our daycare pick up their kid this early or have this flexibility.
The purpose of life is to experience things for which you will later experience nostalgia — fed_speak
Time, calendar, and location freedom
Real wealth is time, not money.
Plenty of loud, rich people have lots of money and zero time. They have to put their hand up in a meeting to ask the boss if they can take a piss, as if they’re still an adult attending elementary school.
They have to ask for a day off and keep their boss up to date with their attendance. The new rich reject this way of life. They may start there but they build after hours so they can escape this nightmare on Elm Street
They want to use money to buy more free time. They want to be home in time for dinner with the family. They want a mostly empty calendar. And they want to work from wherever, forever.
Daily office attendance is their idea of a nightmare. It forces them to stay stuck in one location and get a big ass mortgage on a home close to the city. No thanks.
Remote work should be the only type of work. Business is worldwide and the metaverse is already here — it’s called Zoom.
An investor’s mindset
The new rich aren’t completely detached from money.
Money is a resource and it buys time, solutions, and people to help you build your empire. The new rich understand how to earn money and invest it. They’re not Warren Buffett and don’t read Bloomberg while eating lunch. But they understand two key concepts:
- Exponential growth
- Compounding
As a result they buy financial assets. They invest in tech companies and take part in the blockchain and artificial intelligence trends. They might own a bit of Bitcoin. They probably own some Tesla, Amazon, or Nvidia. And they know all about Open AI and ChatGPT.
They do deep research in these areas and get outsized returns on their money. But they don’t bet the farm and YOLO every dollar. They have cash in traditional investments and allocate a small amount to the higher-risk opportunities. Most of all, they’re patient with their investments.
They’re not looking for a GameStop lottery investment fuelled by TikTokers and 21 year old Reddit investors in their underpants.
Investing creates a second income. At some point that income is larger than the one a job or business offers.
A minimalist mental model
Yesterday I accidentally watched Mo Vlogs on Youtube.
Every video featured him and some model going around flashy towns in different luxury cars or touring houses with more bedrooms than I have pot plants.
It never seems to be enough. These fake rich types always want more. They always need another watch or to meet another fake-rich person to be impressed by. All of these possessions are a giant stress.
The things you own end up owning you. It’s only after you lose everything that you’re free to do anything ― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club movie
The new rich believe less is more.
They want fewer possessions because that means fewer decisions. And they don’t want to have to think about their possessions and who could steal them while they’re away on holiday.
They also don’t want vaults and security cameras in their homes because they make them a magnet for criminals.
I learned this lesson the hard way. I had a bunch of stuff stolen from me (including $1.2M) and realized the only thing I give an F about is my family. All these possessions can’t fit in my eventual grave. So why bother?
YOU versus YOU
The old version of getting rich had a subtle theme most people haven’t picked up on. Getting rich is a competition.
People compete at work or in business to generate the most revenue or collect the best sounding job title. The new rich laugh at this.
I hate competition because it comes from sports and I suck at all of them. In high school they called me lanky bum because I couldn’t kick a ball or lift a 1 pound dumbbell (and probably still can’t).
So I learned to hate competition.
As I became obsessed with personal development from 2011 onwards, it taught me the only competition is you versus you. When you compete with yourself, outside factors don’t affect you as much.
The new rich simply want to beat who they were 12 months ago. They want to become a new person every 12 months through learning, experimenting, and meeting new people.
Final Thought
Show ponies are out of fashion.
The coolest thing about the new rich is they’re quiet. They move in silence, don’t shout out their goals, and seek to impress no one. These people are all around you and you probably don’t even know they exist. Good.
Re-learn these new rules for life. Join the new rich. Trade status for meaning. Find your obsession. Use money to buy time.
