This might sound just like another piece of advice comes from an old rich dude but hey, I’m still in my 20s and I want to give you this honest perspective on why we should stop chasing money and do this instead.

Basically, we all know that money will allow us to buy and own things. We all believe that money makes us rich. Having 6 or 7 figures in our bank account is something that we’re all dreaming of.

But the reality is, being rich doesn’t mean you need to have 1 mil in your bank account or probably that new brand car.

The best way that makes you rich is “Wealth”

And the definition of wealth is the abundance of valuable possessions

A few examples of the wealth that I can think of are:

1. Non-movable assets (Land, house, farm)
2. Equity (Stock, shares, convertible notes)
3. Digital assets (Cryptocurrency, NFTs, Music, photos, etc.,)
4. Liquid assets (Cash, oil, gold, silver)
5. Short-term assets (Car, motorbike, electronic devices)

If you look at the list of examples above, most of us are working very hard to build this short-term assets such as owning car, having cash or electronic devices but ignoring to own other wealth class. There could be multiple reasons but what I’ve learned from most of us believe that the other assets class is only for the rich to own.

The good news is, you can own these assets so that you could become wealthy too even if you are a 9-5 office guy. Building wealth doesn't really require that much capital and you all can start from an empty pocket. What really essentials are skill, time and a wealth machine.

Skills

Yes, you need to have skill(s), and this skill has to be so good that it can solve one person or maybe a group of people's problem.

You can be a good doctor, designer, scientist, programmer, or inventor ~

In society, you'll be rewarded each time you solve one's problem or needs. You can't be rewarded by doing nothing.

This is why people like Elon Musk and Bill Gates became so rich because they work so hard to have the skill and solves the humanity's problem.

It's a big reward, btw.

Leverage your time

What’s distinguish between wealthy people and average people is that, wealthy people still can be rich even if they don’t work today. They don’t tie their assets to their input time. You have to understand that we have very limited time, just 24 hours a day. It’s finite. You cannot depend on your living expenses and wealth creation by the amount of time you put into your work.

Or else, you cannot take spaces when you wanted to.

You need to zoom out and question yourself, how can you do something that even if you are sleeping or off going on a hike, the money still comes in. As long as you can understand this reality, you will do whatever you can, to build a wealth machine, to ensure that you don’t have to tie your time to your cash. You’ll experience this freedom that you can just sit back and let the things do their own sh*t.

Wealth machine

A wealth machine will return you the cash and wealth for a good period of time.

Here are some good examples I can think of:

1. A profitable business that the customer keeps coming back
2. A startup that can scale and expand with good exponential return
3. An intellectual property where you can earn money everytime people use it
4. A royalty where you can earn in commission every time people consume it
5. An investment mechanism that you can always re-invest and compound the value

What is not a wealth machine

1. You sell an asset and get the cash but unable to re-purchase and compound the return
2. A business where input and output has a strong correlative

That’s why the rich is getting richer because they can hack the way they can build their wealth by building their own wealth machine(es). You can too and some of the examples have already been listed above.

Always remember that everybody can be rich and wealthy and the secret is you need to have skills, leverage what you have, and allow it to work for you even if you sleep, and there you can have your own wealth machine.

Do share with me what wealth you are already holding and maybe your next goal of how you are going to build your own wealth?

Maybe through building a good investment mechanism or probably building the next startup?