https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ySuYdJ0H4s

1 00:00:00.000 --\> 00:01:00.000 in this video i'm going to talk to you
about the 28 ways to stay poor and the reason i'm framing it that way is
because charlie munger my personal hero had a seminal talk that he gave
multiple times on how to live a miserable life and the reason he gives
it that way is that he believes in a process called inversion thinking
which is where you solve problems in reverse so for example if you want
to have a good marriage rather than asking the question how do i have a
good marriage you ask the question how would i destroy my marriage and
then you list out all the ways to destroy your marriage and then you do
the exact opposite of that and what's interesting is that our brains are
much better at finding problems than they are finding solutions and so
we do is we harness this innate ability that we have to find the
problems and then after finding every possible problem we can imagine
every threat imaginable which evolutionary we're designed to look for
then flip that in reverse to find our solutions all right and this is a
process of thinking that i've applied to business i've applied it to
merit i've applied to a lot of different aspects in my life and i would
and i would encourage you to do it as well but in this video i'll talk
about the 28 ways to stay poor hey and stay tuned to the end of the
video because at the very end

2 00:01:00.000 --\> 00:02:00.000 i'm going to give you the reverse of
these the 28 rules of how not to be poor i'll take all of these things
and i'll reverse them for you in one hard-hitting blip that you will not
want to miss all right if you don't know who i am my name's alex for
moses i own acquisition.com it's a portfolio of companies that deserve
100 million a year and have nothing to sell you i make these videos
because i have a lot of fun doing it and i hope you enjoy them as much
as i enjoy making them for you all right so the first one this is one of
the best ways to stay poor and as a result by the way side note this
entire little mini thread here got over 5 000 shares on my twitter uh
and so that is why i decided to make this video because it seemed like a
lot of you guys like that okay so the first and best way to stay poor is
to start tomorrow so whatever it is that you want to do whether it's
losing weight saving money starting that business whatever it is to
start tomorrow all right so that's the best thing you can do to stay
poor is just start tomorrow okay the next one is to read lots of books
and then do nothing all right because it's one of the you know lots of
people talk about reading books and i see people all the time that i've
seen for years in the exact same position posting oh yeah i'm

3 00:02:00.000 --\> 00:03:00.000 reading 52 books this year that's my
commitment instead of reading 52 books maybe just read one book and
actually do something about it crazy i know number three take advice
from poor people on how to be rich all right so think about that for a
second a lot of us surround ourselves or at least i did when i was
starting out surround ourselves with people who are very poor and we
listen to their advice on how to be rich and they have no idea what they
are doing and we also listen to their judgment on why our idea is stupid
even though they are poor so what would they know so number three take
advice from poor people on how to be rich number four this is a big one
pick a spouse who will make you feel guilty for working all right so you
have your dreams you have these things you want to pursue but this
person is saying you shouldn't do that you need to be doing x y z blah
blah blah and then you feel like you need to compromise your dreams for
that person the problem is that you put your power of your destiny in
their hands and you're asking for permission instead of support right
because the end of the day if you don't accomplish your dreams and you
did it because of them who do you think you're going to resent so you
owe

4 00:03:00.000 --\> 00:04:00.000 to yourself and you owe it to your
marriage to hey pick people who are not who are going to support you in
your dreams even if they don't necessarily agree right but more easily
not put your power in somebody else right number five fail once quit
forever all right so as soon as you do actually start to decide doing
something you fail immediately and say oh i guess this isn't for me i
guess success isn't for me i guess business isn't for me i guess sales
isn't for me i guess whatever the thing is isn't for me because you
failed once but it's because we have we have an incorrect view of
failure because failure is a necessary part and the thing is you learn
from failure and so it's either you win or you learn but that is the
fifth thing you want to do if you want to stay poor forever number six
is think that the world is fair so a lot of us are get you know
especially me earlier on like i would complain i'd be like that's not
fair this is fair it shouldn't be this way blah blah blah blah and the
thing is is that all that complaining that i did did nothing at all
whatsoever did nothing and so the thing is is there's no activity that
comes from blaming your circumstances which just so happens to be the
seventh one

5 00:04:00.000 --\> 00:05:00.000 of how to stay poor is blame your
circumstances and complain all right complaining about things that you
cannot control and the thing is is like these sound so obvious but think
about these in reverse again so if the if the contrary of thinking the
world is fair is assume the world is fair it's unfair excuse me assume
the world is unfair and then act accordingly instead of blaming your
circumstances you think your circumstances for who you are and what they
gave you you are who you are because of the \[ \_\_ \] that you have
gone through right there's there's a saying your mess is your message
and i think it's a very it's a very beautiful saying because how sad
would it be to wish to have a life of ease and comfort because strong
character is built through hard times and so if we want to have strong
character we basically must have a hard life for periods of time or for
seasons and so we can't lament the thing that creates the outcome you
can't lament the heat and and that the beating of the hammer to to
strengthen the steel right they go one in this third they go hand in
hand and so we just have to accept them for what they are and and as for

6 00:05:00.000 --\> 00:06:00.000 complaining i think you can just accept
and move on so number nine i covered three there number nine expect the
government to save you all right that's a great way to stay poor expect
the government to save you or even say expect other people to save you
the reality is no one's going to save you except for you and a lot of
times many people have spent their entire lives waiting around for
someone to save them and still stay poor number 10 value the opinion of
others over your own it's an excellent way to stay poor you think
everyone else's opinions matter more than yours and i'll give you a
secret that it took me you know making a lot of money to then realize
which is you are successful the moment you say you are crazy right like
you are successful the moment that you decide you are successful there
are people who are billionaires who don't feel like they are successful
and there are people who have almost no money and absolutely think
they're an amazing success and the thing is is that they are both right
it's our choice and i can promise you that if you try and give yourself
a number you will just move the goal post i promise you that from the
depth of my soul you will move the number and make

7 00:06:00.000 --\> 00:07:00.000 something else the new goal and once
that once i am rich then whatever but it's a when then fallacy it
doesn't it's not true so you can accept and you can become successful
today because if you look at yourself compared to people in a much worse
off scenario they would love to have your life and so you just need to
decide for yourself if you are successful the thing is success is a
process rather than an outcome and so you can be successful in that you
are living your values of pursuit that can mean success if you choose to
define that way so number 11 way to stay poor avoid discomfort all right
a lot of us you know we have new things you have to take risks you have
to learn things and it's uncomfortable because you will suck right of
course you will suck it's normal to suck but people avoid discomfort
because they don't want to go through that and it's so silly the
discomfort that they're feeling is the judgment they impose upon
themselves about not being good at something they've never done before
how insane is that very and that's why humans are also kind of insane
when you think about the things that we do the things that we think and
so great way to stay poor is to avoid discomfort of all kinds you also
guarantee the number one discomfort

8 00:07:00.000 --\> 00:08:00.000 which is that you don't accomplish what
you want in your life 12 how to stay poor tolerate mediocrity from
yourself and others all right so as you start to grow if you're growing
you know a small business or even in the workplace if you tolerate
mediocrity from others you will get more mediocrity and people over time
will just degrade and get worse and worse over time rather than the
reverse of that of thinking like i will only tolerate excellence and
anything below that is intolerable if you think about the best leaders
and the best ceos the most successful people of all time they have this
innate trait right for lack of terms they're ball busters right they
hold a standard that and here's the catch that they themselves stay
above which means you must raise your own standards so that you can
model what it looks like for other people around you to hold themselves
right the best like most people need to be led most people need a model
and they can see that right and you're you're leading by example and so
best thing to do to stay poor tolerant mediocrity from yourself and
others 13. how to stay poor make promises break promises

9 00:08:00.000 --\> 00:09:00.000 so you make promises to yourself made
promises to other people and you both you destroy your reputation with
other people and that's a terrible thing and it takes a long time to fix
that but the one that's the hardest one to fix is the reputation you
have with yourself you make promises to yourself and you break promises
to yourself because the thing is you're the only one who's holding you
accountable and i think a different version of happiness in my opinion
is respect for oneself and i think your own respect is the hardest to
earn because you know how hard you could have pushed you know if you
could have gone for an extra mile you could have showed up to the gym
more times you could have eaten better you could have made more cold
calls you could have done more reach outs you could have made more
content you could have actually done a left a nice note for somebody on
your team when you when you were too tired to do so you could have over
delivered on the product you could have made a better version of that
video and you decided to put it up anyways even though you knew it
wasn't as good as it could have been and so you make promises to
yourself and then you break promises to yourself and you lose respect in
the process it's an excellent way to stay poor number 14 wait for
perfect conditions all right this is a great one great way to stay poor
is uh it's one of my favorites you

10 00:09:00.000 --\> 00:10:00.000 gotta wait for everything to be
perfectly aligned for you to be successful and here's the secret there
are never gonna be perfect conditions and here's what's even crazier if
you need perfect conditions to be successful the moment the conditions
change you will stop being successful so you might as well start when
the conditions are their absolute worst because it means that they will
only get better from there and if you can prove success when things get
bad when they get bad again which is guaranteed you will still remain
successful because you have learned how to do it in this time in this
circumstance make sense great reason do not wait for perfect conditions
15. prioritize looking rich over being rich this is a classic one of
poor folks in general i get the the loving amount of troll comments that
i get from the fact that i'm in my mama's basement and wearing a wife
beater and wearing a nose strip right must mean that i am poor of course
right because you confuse looking rich with being rich right just silly
you can just google my name and just put uh private equity and uh at gym
lunch and american pacific group and you can see what we sold to our
businesses for so the point is

11 00:10:00.000 --\> 00:11:00.000 you have to prioritize being rich
which means spending less for a long period of time because you are not
valuing the opinion of other people over your own which because you
respect your own approval more than that of other people you have to be
willing to die to the opinion of others rather than dying to the opinion
of yourself and i mean that it's real \[ \_\_ \] stop trying to look
rich be willing to look poor all right i know this contrary to like
dress the part and all that stuff but like the thing is is like you've
got to be real to you or you'll be real to no one that's a promise
number 16 avoid working on what matters most all right this is a great
way to stay poor is that you work all day long you're busy you're full
of activity you're doing stuff and nothing important moves forward
because the nature of speed is not about activity the people who are the
richest in the world aren't doing the most stuff they're doing the right
stuff right they're making sure better stated making sure the right
stuff gets done in general whether or not it's them or someone else and
so it's looking at the many things that you can or could do and picking
the very few that are the ones that move the needle the most and

12 00:11:00.000 --\> 00:12:00.000 typically they're the ones that you do
not want to do and you are procrastinating on and you can probably
eliminate all the stuff that you that give you the mental masturbation
of getting stuff done without actually moving the ball forward towards
your goals so it's a great way to stay poor it's just keep doing stuff
that does not matter 17. say you're going to do something and then don't
do it this is just like making and breaking promises to others himself
but this one is actually just like that so take that 18. this is a
really good one great way to stay poor is do what everyone else is doing
right because if you're doing what everyone else is doing most people
are not in the one percent if you want to be in the one percent you
can't do what 99 of people are doing which is hard for people which is
why you can't value their opinions because again talking to poor people
about how to get rich is a great way to stay poor right they have no
idea and so you can't look for their approval on what you are doing or
model what everyone else is doing because everyone else is poor why
model them right think about it number 19 do your best not what it takes
because the

13 00:12:00.000 --\> 00:13:00.000 reality is a lot of times your best
may suck and what is required is what is required and that may be beyond
you which means you must become better so that your best is beyond what
is required because the number of people who say well i tried my best
universe doesn't give a \[ \_\_ \] the marketplace doesn't give a \[
\_\_ \] your boss doesn't give a \[ \_\_ \] what they care about is what
is required and so what you have to do is figure out what is required
and then if you are incapable of doing it be better and do it for long
enough that would be unreasonable for you not to be good and then your
best will surpass what is required and you will become better in the
process but if you don't do that it's an excellent way to stay poor it's
just keep doing your best and giving yourself paddling back and say i
tried 20. talk more do less post about your goals post about your
affirmations spend all day doing routines and stuff of getting prepared
to work and actually do very little all right it's a great way this is
one of the favorite ones especially in the the internet community people
love talking about how much they're working rather than actually getting
\[ \_\_ \] done so i would advise you to rather than spend all this time
preparing to work and creating

14 00:13:00.000 --\> 00:14:00.000 superstitions and routines around the
things that you think you should do in order to maybe potentially get
something done start with the doing because sometimes the doing just
needs done all right 21 start something new today start something new
tomorrow repeat great way to stay poor do stuff try something try
something else try something else try something else always leave
half-built bridges right you never complete anything you start just keep
starting new things because it's exciting and it's new and you have what
is called uninformed optimism because as soon as you jump into the new
thing you realize that it will take work and the things that were
awesome about it also have downsides which is the work that is required
to be good and as soon as you realize that is work you go through the
change cycle you go uninformed optimism to informed pessimism and then
you go through the valley of despair and this is where everyone then
jumps to the next opportunity and they just do this forever and they
just never achieve what they want so it's an excellent way to stay busy
and poor all right just keep trying new stuff and never see anything

15 00:14:00.000 --\> 00:15:00.000 through okay number 22 believe what
other people think about you more than what you think about you all
right it's a great way to stay poor i think it's just it's easily stated
there so i'm not going to belabor the point but that's what you need to
do to stay poor just keep believing what everyone else thinks about you
and not what you think about you excellent way to do it number 23 way to
stay poor make a mistake then wait repeat the mistake do it again and
again and again and you've probably seen people who stay stuck in their
life like this like they keep dating the same person they keep making
the same business mistake that keeps getting the same bad partnerships
whatever right or they keep trying to do something that stopped working
and they keep doing it over and over again because they think that for
some reason that's gonna work somehow or they just don't have the
wherewithal to realize they keep making the same mistake and so if you
keep doing the same stuff you're going to keep getting the same outcomes
right like we kind of know this but the thing is is that people still do
it it's like well whatever you're doing right now has gotten you to
being poor so don't do that right and when i say poor poor can be
whatever you want it to be you could be a billionaire and be poor it
might be whatever whatever that amount is it's

16 00:15:00.000 --\> 00:16:00.000 not as much as you want it to be right
which of course gets into the deep things of like maybe you should
decide not to want it to begin with and then whatever we won't get into
that number 24 be replaceable all right this is a great way to stay poor
because if and i i heard this from navarro kind of like it a lot which
is if you can if you can get a degree to do the job you're never going
to be on wealthy doing it because everyone can do it right and so you
have to be able to learn things that other people can't do right and
that therein makes you irreplaceable or less replaceable right at the
very least less replaceable you want to be replaceable by a marketplace
of people lined up behind you ready to take your job and do it for less
all right because they're also poor and they are willing to do it for
life which is a terrible way to do business it's also an excellent way
to stay poor though do what everyone else is doing do it for less unless
you have an operational strategy which is you know like walmart and
whatever and that's probably not you right now so number 25 way to stay
poor find something that works dear god find something that works and
then stop doing it think about it how many of you have needed to make
money last minute you had to pay payroll

17 00:16:00.000 --\> 00:17:00.000 you had to pay taxes you had to some
bill unexpected you know surgery iphone whatever right some bill comes
up and you need to pay for it and you find a way to make the money
because if you're watching this video you're still alive right so you
found a way to you found a way to pay for it what did you do there when
you needed to make money you heard something messed up you were willing
to make money and you had the ability to make money when it was for
someone else and not for yourself think about that you had the ability
you knew what to do and you just chose not to do it you stopped doing it
as soon as you paid someone else's bills because you were willing to pay
other people's bills not your own interesting which leads me to one of
the most retweets i had recently which is most people know what to do to
achieve their goals most people do know what to do people are like i
don't know how to lose weight i'm like yeah you do stop eating \[ \_\_
\] and move you know how to you know do that you want to make money
start making calls start reaching out to people start promoting the
thing that you are trying to sell not i mean not complicated i got this
thing do you want to try it no cool talk to somebody else got this thing
you want to try it no cool call somebody else

18 00:17:00.000 --\> 00:18:00.000 right it's not it's not complex it's
not complicated but people just don't do it it's because they're not
willing to do it right and so excellent thing to do find something that
works so a lot of you do know something that works and then stop doing
it number 26 we're rounding off we got two more hire dumb people
excellent way to stay poor and have a bad business all right really
really highly recommend it's also really good for if you have a job too
if you have the ability to hire people hire dumb people it's just it's
just a great way to make your life miserable there's very few ways that
are better than this one like if you just want to be surrounded by dumb
people just hire people i mean just hire people don't run you you know i
mean and um you'll you'll feel good but you'll be poor and so don't do
that number 27 this is a huge one that i see all the time for staying
poor it's a really good strategy it might be one of the top ones on this
list assume you are always right how many people here right you're
watching this know someone who always just think they're right and
they're not successful they get advice from somebody who might be
successful more successful than them and they're like no that's not
going to work for x y and z because they

19 00:18:00.000 --\> 00:19:00.000 assume they're always right they
assume they know everything well if you know everything then why aren't
you achieving what you want hmm and i will tell you this from the people
that i've met who have been far ahead of me they have a voracious desire
to learn and a voracious interest in learning from anyone and every
single possible source they can and those people have the humility to
say that everyone knows something that they don't know and so in that
way they can learn of them which is i think an emerson quote if you
cannot learn then what's the point so you give yourself zero advantages
like there's no way that you can learn from other people if you think
you're always right and i know this sounds \[ \_\_ \] obvious but a lot
of you guys do this why like you'd rather be right than be rich and it's
silly but it's an excellent way to stay poor so that's why it's number
27 and then the last one and this is the simplest of the economics
around it i'm just gonna drive this baby home is make money period spend
more than you make and the beautiful part about this is that it doesn't
matter how much you make if you spend more than it you can be poor which
is why this is such a great one it's a great way to stay poor

20 00:19:00.000 --\> 00:20:00.000 it doesn't matter how much you
increase your income just spend more than you made right go into debt
and adjust your lifestyle to your new income at all times or rather
above your income so that you can always stay poor no matter how much
money you make it's just an awesome way to stay poor and so i highly
recommend doing that all right um just and honestly the more you can do
it the more you can outspend your income the poorer you will be and so
again highly recommend it and it sounds silly but you know a few people
like right now i think it's like the bottom 50 of america like doesn't
have any savings and what's crazy is that like you can you can control
like these these things are controllable like you can always downgrade
your lifestyle but the thing is you care more about the opinions of
others than you do about your own right you care about more about
looking rich than being rich right all these things and that's why all
of these things go together and so to wrap this up the reason that
inversion thinking is so powerful is that we can use our brain to find
threats more easily than we can find solutions and so if we think about
your business career or you think about your marriage or you think about
your body or you think about whatever it is your money goals think about
the ways to

21 00:20:00.000 --\> 00:21:00.000 destroy it i just gave you 28
different ways that you can be poor when you reverse them and you make
those the rules for living that you have then what happens is you
succeed by accident because you avoid the pitfalls because the thing is
if you don't make many mistakes you succeed without trying because all
you're doing is just focusing on just not making these stupid mistakes
that most people do right if we if we were to reverse these and this is
what i'm going to hit this with hard enjoy we're hitting it right now
start today read books do the stuff that's in the books take advice from
rich people on how to be rich pick a spouse who makes you feel awesome
about working fail once try again think the world is unfair and act
accordingly never blame your circumstances thank your circumstances for
making you who you are instead of complaining do something expect no one
to save you except for yourself value your opinion over those of other
people seek out discomfort tolerate nothing but excellence make promises
keep promises wait for the worst conditions wait for imperfect

22 00:21:00.000 --\> 00:22:00.000 conditions and act anyways on what you
want right avoid working on the stuff that doesn't matter work on the
things that matter most ignore the rest say you're going to do something
and then do it do what no one else is doing do your best and make it
above what it takes to be successful talk less do more start something
new today and keep at it until you are good do it so long that it would
be unreasonable for you to be bad don't believe what other people think
about you more than what you think about yourself be irreplaceable find
something that works and don't stop doing it keep doing it until you're
bored out of your mind because you're so good at doing that thing that
worked hire smart people assume that you were always wrong and be
willing to learn and make money and spend less than you make and that is
the 28 rules of poverty flipped on its head and you can make your own
conclusions about where that'll take you i love you mostly nation keep
being awesome i'll see you guys next video bye
