13 money lessons that pay BIG dividends
Hey Contrarians,
Anyone who works with me knows I’m a stickler for taking notes.
Case in point: 15 years ago, I started collecting lessons on money from people who had more of it than me. The list is great, but it’s 129 bullets long and this isn’t a coffee table book. So I narrowed it down for ya.
Today’s piece isn’t inspirational. No storyline. No zero to hero. Just 13 lessons on money that have helped me make more of it.
I wish I had known these earlier…
Today in 5 minutes or less, you’ll learn:
CONTRARIAN FRAMEWORK: THE GET RICH TRIPOD
Ever had to check your bank account when buying lunch to make sure you didn’t end up with overdraft fees you couldn’t afford? I have. Not fun.
But I also think saying “it takes money to make money” is a bit lazy.
Sure, you need to start with something. Sure, the best way to create money is to invest money.
BUT, let’s say you weren’t birthed with a golden spoon (makes two of us), the good news is you may not need it.
That’s because there are 3 legs to the tripod of wealth building, not 1…
LEG #1: YES, MONEY
Do you have money now that you can leverage to do the work for you?
If the answer is yes, stand on this leg. If not, move along.
LEG #2: EXPERTISE
No money? Lean on your mind. Trade insights for opportunities. It can be as little as the right questions, connections, or ideas, and not a large time commitment.
I know how to buy businesses, so I use that expertise to help others buy businesses.
LEG #3: TIME
When you don’t have money or don’t know sh*t, offer your time. Pair your sweat equity with somebody else’s expertise or cash. Use it to gain your own.
We’ll drop some inappropriate commentary on this in a bit…
13 OF MY FAVORITE MONEY LESSONS
1. PASSIVE INCOME IS A MYTH
Anyone who says to focus your time on making “passive income“ is talking out of their ass. It’s a 21st-century fallacy told to us by a bunch of 12-year-olds on TikTok and YouTube.
Everything takes something.
2. SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF MONEY
When I was at Goldman, I remember someone asking a partner what EBITDA meant. The partner kind of looked at the person and said, “I don’t know how you got a job at this firm without speaking the language of money.”
That always stuck with me. Financial literacy is the foundation of financial well-being.
3. PEOPLE BEFORE PROFIT
The right relationships are better leverage than money AND they compound.
Walk into rooms with the simple goal of bringing value to others. If you live by that and pay it forward, man do you get paid out more on the back end.
4. DON’T WEAR YOUR MONEY
As you grow up, you learn there’s a huge difference between the people who try to LOOK rich and the people who actually are.
I like to make money loudly and teach from my failures and wins, but I’ve always admired the quiet ones.
My dad always said he “sold marble and granite.” He never used the words entrepreneur, founder, or owner. There’s a lesson there.
(Throwback to the good old days when Jeff Bezos only had a $10B net worth and drove a Honda Accord.)
5. LEVERAGE + EXPERTISE + TIME
This is the Get Rich Tripod from earlier but with 1 more (wildly inappropriate) pointer… And yes, this one comes from my husband:
“You f*ck with the dick you got, not the one you want.”
Determine the leg of the tripod that you actually have and use it.
6. PAINKILLERS VS. VITAMINS
One of the first CEOs I really admired once said this rhetorically: “Are you selling the pain or the potential?”
At the time, I sold investment products to large funds. I could’ve gone to them saying, “Hey, if you do this, you could make more money because X, Y, and Z.”
But those are vitamins, not needs. The better approach: “You have a risk in your portfolio that our products fill.” That’s called selling the painkiller.
7. YOU DON’T WANT TO BE RICH
You want to be free, and that’s what money gets you. The question is: Do you want to save your way there or earn your way there?
If you’re into saving, check out:
- The book Your Money or Your Life
- The FIRE movement (Financial Independence, Retire Early) and its 350k-person Reddit community
- The FatFIRE movement (an extra hefty version of FIRE)
- And yes, the DINKWAD and DINKWADACS movement
I prefer owning and earning, but neither is perfect.
8. YOUR JOB ISN’T SAFE
Most think having a job is safer than owning a business.
But any moment you can be escorted out of a building with a box full of years of hard work. That’s what I watched happen to my friends during the 2008 financial crisis.
It’s also why I’ve grown to love small, boring biz’s. They don’t have to grow 50% annually or raise massive capital in volatile markets. They can kind of just grow like this…
… Beat the rate of inflation, and maybe a little more. Plus, owning a business gives you the freedom to answer to yourself.
9. DEVELOP GRIT
When it comes to entrepreneurship, I tell people it’s 5% timing, 5% idea, 10% talent, and 80% grit.
Many successful people will tell you they often find that the amount of ”pain” people tolerate is a key predictor of their potential. It turns out, researchers have noticed this, too.
10. TIME + FOCUS + CONSISTENCY
I learned this on a plane sitting next to Geoffrey Kent, who built one of the world’s most prolific luxury travel companies.
I asked him, “How many times have you thought about quitting or giving up?”
“This week?”, he asked. (He was being sarcastic, but the point was clear.)
The ability to slowly bang the drum for a long period of time leads many people to outsized returns.
11. TRACK YOUR $$$
Money is a cruel mistress. She’ll leave you if you don’t show her some attention.
If you don’t have a clear idea of your financial state or goals, you’ll never get where you want to be.
My trainer Jess once told me you don’t get a six-pack by accident, and I think it’s the same with money.
12. GET IN ROOMS YOU DON’T FIT IN
By that I mean get in rooms where your dreams are others’ realities.
It becomes much more reasonable to think you can achieve something if you spend time around people doing it. Choose your tribe wisely, and the effect will compound.
13. MASTER NEGOTIATION
You have to learn to ask for things in life, and any ask involves a give and take.
Become good at getting people to give you what you want.
ARCHIMEDES’ LEVER
The single best explanation that I’ve heard on the power of leverage is this:
“Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it and I can move the world.”
A tripod is just a 3-pronged lever. Heck, any of these lessons can be, and they don’t have to MOVE the whole world…
Just tip you in the right direction.
Adelante = always moving forward
– Codie
🚜 Food for thought: How US soybeans influence global economics.
🏛️ Word on the street is Microsoft owes the IRS $28.9B in unpaid taxes…
🤖 Open for business: OpenAI’s revenue is tracking at $1.3B annually…
🦈 Anyone else catch that ridiculously cool sandbag pitch on Shark Tank?
🧱 Will 1B people ever play Roblox? CEO David Baszucki hopes so.
