The Truth About The Rich
Being a millionaire isn't about luck or being a genius. The vast majority of rich people aren't celebrities or crypto investors. They're normal people who took a tried andrue path to success.
I'm one of the people who took the stealthy wealthy path. I run a business that makes $22 million a month. And before that, I was placing option trades for multi-millionaire clients on Wall Street.
I've seen how rich people create and manage their wealth, and it is nothing like what you see on social media. So, these are the rules I would teach my kids on how to become a member of the stealthy wealthy.
You probably have no idea how most millionaires made their fortunes. They like it that way. The first step to being a millionaire, being willing to be bored.
- The owner of.
How We Really Make Money
the Jacksonville Jaguars didn't make his billions in sports. He made his money in a completely unsexy industry, manufacturing car bumpers. His company produced parts for automakers, a business most people overlook.
It's not a tech startup. It's not flashy, but it was stable and scaled massively. Manufacturing and supply chain work is often low competition, high reward.
These are the kinds of businesses that fuel stealthy wealthy. So why are boring bluecollar businesses often more scalable and defensible than ventureback startups? Because they solve real recurring problems, not imaginary ones.
This is the thing. Most people chase the next hot app or trendy tech, but the money is in solving the unsexy headaches that no one else wants to deal with.
Things like replacing HVAC units or cleaning air dugs, making custom air filters, fixing trucks, or manufacturing car bumpers. These businesses scale quietly because they serve massive, often fragmented markets.
Their customers have long-term repeat needs. Competition is low because nobody wants to do the work. And ironically, they're less vulnerable to tech disruption or investor sentiment shifts.
Meanwhile, startups, a lot of these things you've seen talked about on YouTube, are often fragile. Burning capital, relying on hype, or praying for an exit.
Boring businesses just print cash month after month. So, you might be asking, what characteristics should someone look for if they want to acquire or start a boring business? I would look for these three things.
- First, recurring need. Think of things like air filters, my industry, or laundry, pest control, anything that people or businesses have to deal with regularly.
Second, low customer turnover. If it's a pain to switch providers like HVAC or janitorial contracts, that's a moat. Third, older operator fatigue. Many competitor businesses are run by tired founders ready to retire.
They're often profitable but outdated, which means big upside if you bring fresh energy. Here's the kicker. Once you have a successful business, most people think that that's when you sell the But the wealthy understand something that most people.
Get Rich By Paying Rent
don't. I know multiple people who've made millions of dollars by paying rent. Let's say you own a coffee shop and you buy the building that the shop operates out of.
You hold that building in a separate LLC from the business. The coffee shop pays rent to the LLC, creating a new income stream for the owner.
But here's the part that takes you from thousands to millions. Later, the owner sells the building to a real estate investor who values it on the lease value, not the business value.
So, the shop owner pays $100,000 a year on the lease. They can sell the building with that lease in place for a million. The buyer of the building gets a guaranteed 10% return on investment in their first year and the owner gets a million dollars without having to sell the coffee business.
Everybody wins. So on this channel, we always come back to how can you actually use this information to go out and take action. If you own a business or plan to start thinking like an investor, not just an operator.
Buy the building your business runs in or find opportunities where you can own the real estate and the operation. set up the two in separate LLC's, one for the business, one for the property.
Then you lock in a lease agreement between the two. That lease becomes a predictable, sellable, incomeroucing asset, even if you never sell the business itself.
- This is how the wealthy build multi-layered wealth. What are the risks you should look out.
These Risks Could Ruin You
- for when doing this? You don't want to buy a building unless it's actually a good real estate deal on its own. Second, business volatility.
If your business struggles, you may struggle to make rent, which affects the value of the building. In order to do the strategy well, you have to have a solid business and a solid piece of real estate.
- There's no shortcutting that. Then there are lease structuring mistakes that I see people make. You have a market lease agreement between the two entities.
Otherwise, investors aren't going to take a risk on the building. Then you have tax and legal complexity. In order to execute this, you need a good CPA and an attorney to structure it properly.
This is not a time when you want to do it yourself. However, done right, this strategy can quietly double your wealth one rent check at a time.
- Most people think you can become a millionaire from selling your business. But I know plenty of.
Debt Wins
people who choose to go into debt instead. So, just a heads up here. If someone is really trying to convince you to get good debt, they're probably already extremely rich.
I mean, let's be real. But it's important for you to know this even if you're not extremely rich yet because this is the type of strategy that you want to be working towards.
Let's say a business makes a million dollars every year. Instead of selling the business, the owner decides to get a big loan using the business's future money as a promise to pay it back.
The owner borrows, let's say, $3 million or three times that earnings from a bank or lender. This money isn't taxed because it's a loan, not money the business actually earned.
The business keeps running and uses its profits to pay back the loan over time. Now, the owner still owns the business and also has a lot of cash to use however they want.
This is called dividend recapitalization. This is exactly what private equity does. They buy a business, load it with debt, and pull out a chunk of cash up front.
They don't wait to sell the business to get paid. They monetize the asset while still owning it. Just to be honest on this one, you usually need a million dollars or more in IBIDA.
- That's earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, or amortization before banks will actually take you seriously. And ideally, a few years of consistent and growing profits.
If it feels like some of these strategies are impossible for you to use, don't worry about it. The closest thing to guaranteed wealth is compound interest, which anyone can.
My Entire Investment Portfolio (it’s so simple)
access. I am a multi-millionaire CEO and I'm just going to reveal my entire investing philosophy and I promise you anyone can copy this. Stealthy wealthy operators aim to invest at least 20% of their total income after taxes.
That money typically goes into real estate, index funds, and occasionally crypto. This is my exact personal breakdown. I take the income that I'm taking out of the business which is at least 20% of our of our business earnings and I put it into a diversified set of stocks more or less which include a healthy crypto allocation.
I'm a fan of Bitcoin doesn't mean that you have to believe in that and have to do it. You have to find something that you're comfortable with.
It compounds with time and it's something you should be doing too. The rest funds a modest stable lifestyle without lifestyle creep. They're not trying to beat the market.
They're trying to preserve and compound. This forces them to live below their means. Even with high income, it builds long-term wealth outside the business that grows passively.
So, what are the downsides of reinvesting 100% of profits back into the business? I can tell you this from firsthand experience because this is exactly what I did for the first decade in my business.
It sounds smart in theory. Just keep compounding the business. But here's what no one tells you. You're all in on one asset. Your income, your wealth, your future, all tied to one business.
If that business gets hit by a market shift, lawsuit, economic turndown, COVID, you're exposed. It also creates a tremendous amount of stress. You never feel safe unless the business is thriving.
- I've seen people, and myself very much included, build an 8 figureure business and still feel broke because they didn't take chips off the table.
And that's not wealth. That's a treadmill. Keep it stupid simple. Auto transfer 20% of your net income every month. Put it into broad-based index funds, income real estate, or safe yield plays.
If you have no idea what you're doing, I suggest opening a Wealthfront account or something similar and just set it and forget it. The goal isn't to get rich from investing.
It's to build a fortress around your freedom. Over time, your boring investment account will start doing more work than you do. And that's when compounding becomes a superpower.
- So, so far we've talked about growing wealth, but we should also talk about keeping it. More specifically, common.
Your W2 Is Keeping You Poor
strategies that stealthy wealthy use to limit their taxes. Earning the same amount of money in a mediocre business is almost always better than earning in a great job.
So, let's use an example. Let's say person A earns $500,000 through a W2 job, whereas person B earns $500,000 through a business. Person A pays high income tax with few deductions.
Person B deducts expenses, depreciates assets, and pays themselves a split of salary and distributions. Person B pays far less in taxes and keeps more after tax cash.
This allows person B to invest more, save more, and grow faster. So, what are the downsides of this strategy? Running a business comes with risk and responsibility.
You don't get a guaranteed paycheck. You're responsible for tax filings, payroll, and compliance, or you'll pay for it later. And if you abuse the system with fake deductions or aggressive write-offs, the IRS can come knocking.
Bottom line, the tax code favors owners, but it assumes you're actually doing the work of running a real business. So, if you currently have a W2 job, how do you take action to start accessing owner level tax benefits? It's simple.
Use your side hustle to start this process. Sell something online, freelance under an LLC, power wash on the weekends, build a content brand. The key is to start earning any income outside of your job, even if it's just $500 a month.
That unlocks business deductions. Your laptop, your phone, your internet, even part of your home. It's the first real taste of how the tax code treats owners differently.
- And once you see the benefits, it's hard to go back. This final strategy is at the center of.
Buy, Borrow, Die
financial empires around the world. If you forget everything else I've taught, remember these three words: buy, borrow, die. Let's say you buy $100,000 of Apple stock.
After 20 years, the stock is now worth a million, but you never sell it. If you sell it, you'll have to pay taxes on that sale.
But instead of selling, you're smart. You get a $200,000 loan using the stock as a promise to pay it back. The money from the loan isn't taxed because it didn't come from selling the stock.
You're borrowing against it. When you die, your family gets the stock and the $900,000 in gains that you made reset once they're passed to your family.
Because of this, nobody ever has to pay taxes on the $900,000 that the stock grew. The benefit is obvious. You unlock cash without triggering taxes, and you keep your investments compounding.
But as with anything, here's the risk. Leverage cuts both ways. If your portfolio drops, lenders may reduce your credit line or force you to sell at the worst time.
Also, you owe interest. So, if your asset doesn't outperform your loan rate, you're moving backwards, and you have to manage cash flow carefully. That said, when done responsibly, this is how the ultra wealthy fund their lifestyles while paying little to nothing in taxes.
It's important to remember that this strategy only works for people with significant excess asset value. So, you need to be patient and follow my earlier steps first because in order to execute this strategy, you definitely need a margin for error.
If you only have $100,000 in assets, borrowing $50,000 is risky. A small dip can wipe you out. But if you have 10 million and you borrow $500,000, you're still sitting on a fortress of capital.
Buy, borrow, die. It's not just a meme. It's the wealth preservation playbook. For more about how the wealthy think, watch my video on the first five lessons I learned as a vice president at Goldman Sachs..
