Making money is weird. We’re taught from a young age that if you work hard, you get a paycheck, and that’s basically the end of the story. But if you actually want to get more money than you currently have—or more than you even think is possible for someone in your position—you have to stop looking at your bank account as a scorecard for your effort. It isn’t. Honestly, the world doesn’t pay you for being tired. It pays you for solving problems that other people can't or won't touch.
The gap between "comfortable" and "wealthy" is usually a gap in leverage.
Most people are stuck in a linear relationship with their income. You trade an hour; you get twenty bucks. Or fifty. Or a hundred. It doesn't really matter what the number is if the formula is always $Time \times Rate = Money$. That’s a trap. To break out, you have to look at how systems, equity, and psychological barriers actually function in the real world.
The Math of Why You Aren't Rich Yet
Let’s be real for a second. If you’re working a standard 9-to-5, your upside is capped by the clock. There are only 168 hours in a week. Even if you never slept, there is a hard ceiling on what you can earn. This is what economists call the "low scalability" of labor. To get more money than you have ever seen before, you have to move toward things that scale while you sleep.
Think about a software developer versus a plumber. Both are highly skilled. However, the plumber can only fix one sink at a time. The developer writes a piece of code once, and it can be sold to ten million people simultaneously. The marginal cost of replication is nearly zero. This is the "Product-Led Growth" model that companies like Slack or Zoom used to explode their valuations.
- Capital (Money working for you)
- Labor (People working for you)
- Code or Media (Software or content working for you)
Code and media are the newest forms of leverage, and they are the most "permissionless." You don't need a bank to give you a loan to start a YouTube channel or write a script. You just need a laptop and a decent idea.
Psychological Barriers and the "Glass Ceiling" of the Mind
I’ve talked to people who make $50,000 a year and people who make $5,000,000 a year. The biggest difference isn't usually IQ. It's often their relationship with risk and their "internal thermostat" for what feels like a "normal" amount of money. If you grew up in a house where $100,000 was considered "rich," your brain will subconsciously start to coast once you hit that number. You’ll stop taking the risks necessary to reach the next level because you feel like you’ve already "won."
🔗 Read more: US Stock Futures Now: Why the Market is Ignoring the Noise
Cognitive dissonance plays a huge role here. When you start to get more money than you are used to handling, you might actually feel guilty. You might start spending it impulsively just to get back to a "baseline" where you feel comfortable. This is why lottery winners go broke. Their internal thermostat is set to "broke," and their subconscious works overtime to get them back there.
Tax Efficiency Is Not Just for Billionaires
We need to talk about the boring stuff because that's where the leakage happens. If you earn $200,000 as a W-2 employee, you are taxed way more heavily than someone who makes $200,000 through long-term capital gains or a business structure.
In the United States, the tax code is basically a series of incentives. The government wants you to provide housing, so they give tax breaks to real estate investors. They want you to provide jobs, so they give deductions to business owners. If you are just a high-earning employee, you are the least "incentivized" person in the eyes of the IRS.
- Moving from "Earned Income" to "Portfolio Income."
- Utilizing 401(k)s, IRAs, or HSA accounts to shield growth.
- Understanding depreciation if you’re into physical assets.
It’s not about being "sneaky." It’s about following the roadmap the government literally wrote for you. If you don't use these tools, you are essentially giving away 25% to 40% of your wealth-building potential before you even start.
The Power of Specialized Knowledge
Naval Ravikant, a well-known investor, often talks about "specific knowledge." This is the stuff you can't be trained for. If the society can train you, it can train someone else to replace you. And if you can be replaced, you can’t demand a high price.
You want to be the only person who does what you do. Or at least, the best at a very specific niche. For example, a "marketing person" is a commodity. But a marketing person who specializes in "scaling B2B SaaS companies using TikTok organic reach" is a specialist. They can charge ten times more because their results are specific and hard to replicate.
💡 You might also like: TCPA Shadow Creek Ranch: What Homeowners and Marketers Keep Missing
To get more money than you have now, look at your skills. Are you a "generalist" who is easily replaced? Or do you have a stack of skills that makes you unique? Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, calls this "Skill Stacking." You might not be the best artist in the world, and you might not be the best comedian, but if you are "pretty good" at both, you can create a world-class comic strip.
Real Estate vs. Stocks: The Great Debate
Everyone has an opinion on this. Some people swear by the S&P 500. Others won't touch anything they can't kick. Honestly, both work, but they work differently.
The stock market is great because it’s liquid. You can buy or sell in seconds. It’s also passive. You don't have to fix a toilet in an index fund. However, real estate offers something stocks usually don't: massive leverage. You can buy a $500,000 asset with only $100,000 of your own money. If that asset goes up 5%, you didn't make 5% on your money—you made 25% on your cash investment.
But leverage is a double-edged sword. If the market drops, it cuts both ways. You have to be careful. Real wealth isn't just about how much you make; it’s about how much you keep during a downturn.
Why "Saving" Is a Losing Game
Inflation is a quiet killer. If you leave $100,000 in a savings account earning 0.05% interest, and inflation is at 3% or 4%, you are literally losing purchasing power every single day. You’re getting "poorer" while the number stays the same.
To get more money than you have, you must be an investor, not just a saver. Saving is for emergencies. Investing is for freedom. You need an emergency fund of 3-6 months, sure. But every dollar beyond that should be "deployed" like a soldier to go out and bring back more dollars.
📖 Related: Starting Pay for Target: What Most People Get Wrong
Actionable Steps to Scale Your Income
Stop overthinking and start doing. Here is how you actually move the needle:
Audit your time. Spend one week tracking every hour. How much of your time is spent on "low-value" tasks like checking email or scrolling? How much is spent on "high-value" tasks like building a product or learning a high-income skill? Shift the ratio.
Build a "Value Project." Whether it's a newsletter, a small Shopify store, or a freelance side-gig, you need something outside of your main job. This isn't just for the extra $500 a month. It's for the "business brain" you develop by running it. You learn how to sell, how to market, and how to handle failure.
Redefine your network. It sounds cliché, but if your five closest friends are all complaining about being broke, you probably will be too. You don't have to "dump" your friends, but you do need to find mentors or peers who are five steps ahead of you. Join a mastermind, go to a conference, or just cold-email someone you admire and offer to help them for free.
Automate your investments. Don't "wait until the end of the month" to see what’s left over to invest. There will never be anything left over. Set up an automatic transfer the day you get paid. If you never see the money, you won't miss it.
Negotiate your current value. Most people are underpaid simply because they never asked for more. Do the research on sites like Glassdoor or Payscale. Bring a list of your accomplishments to your boss. If they say no, you have your answer—it's time to start looking for a place that values your contribution.
Wealth isn't a mystery. It's a combination of psychology, math, and the willingness to be uncomfortable. You don't get rich by doing what everyone else is doing. You get rich by doing the things everyone else is "too busy" or "too scared" to do. Focus on leverage, protect your time, and stop trading your life for a paycheck that has a ceiling.