[Saweeep]

(01-20-2016 12:44 PM)Peregrine Wrote:  

(01-20-2016 11:52 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  

This thread is really "How to be comfortable".

I hate to, once again, question you on your threads Hank, but what is your net worth? Over what period was it accumulated? How was it accumulated specifically? How do you intend to translate what you have now into being rich not comfortable?

This just sounds like any old business insider article on building a comfortable retirement, which doesn't make it bad advice per se, re-writteen and wrapped up in personal "anecdotes".

He already told you how it was accumulated. Went into a lucrative career, kept expenses (significantly) under income, started his own business, and then invested (in real estate). It's really that simple.

If you aren't satisfied with his level of "rich" and want to achieve what Gringuito has, add risk. More risk, more variance in result.

If you think Hank's advice is like any old Business Insider article, I don't know what to tell you. He's not telling you to stay at your 9 to 5 for shit pay while thinking one less Starbucks coffee is going to catapult you to riches.

Edit: Hank's advice can take you to 10MM USD while you are still young enough to enjoy it. That's "rich" in my books, when combined with great health and strong relationships.

Ok, well I think you are naive for believing any of it. One thread after another of make believe, in my opinion.

[H1N1]

(01-20-2016 12:44 PM)Peregrine Wrote:  

(01-20-2016 11:52 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  

This thread is really "How to be comfortable".

I hate to, once again, question you on your threads Hank, but what is your net worth? Over what period was it accumulated? How was it accumulated specifically? How do you intend to translate what you have now into being rich not comfortable?

This just sounds like any old business insider article on building a comfortable retirement, which doesn't make it bad advice per se, re-writteen and wrapped up in personal "anecdotes".

He already told you how it was accumulated. Went into a lucrative career, kept expenses (significantly) under income, started his own business, and then invested (in real estate). It's really that simple.

If you aren't satisfied with his level of "rich" and want to achieve what Gringuito has, add risk. More risk, more variance in result.

If you think Hank's advice is like any old Business Insider article, I don't know what to tell you. He's not telling you to stay at your 9 to 5 for shit pay while thinking one less Starbucks coffee is going to catapult you to riches.

Edit: Hank's advice can take you to 10MM USD while you are still young enough to enjoy it. That's "rich" in my books, when combined with great health and strong relationships.

10mm USD is roughly the price of an actual rich guy's 2nd or 3rd home that he uses twice a year for a couple of weeks of holiday.

CBW is making the same point I am - nothing wrong with being comfortable rather than rich, nothing wrong at all with what Hank has chosen for himself; however, for anyone really trying to get rich, and using money as the means of keeping score, 10mm USD is two fifths of fuck all, and would just about buy you a nice house with 30 acres of land where I grew up. It's not bad, and it's perfectly possible to live a far happier and more contented life than others who have more money, but rich, enough to be considered so by people who are also rich, is probably more like 50mm USD and up.

[Peregrine]

(01-20-2016 12:59 PM)H1N1 Wrote:  

(01-20-2016 12:44 PM)Peregrine Wrote:  

(01-20-2016 11:52 AM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  

This thread is really "How to be comfortable".

I hate to, once again, question you on your threads Hank, but what is your net worth? Over what period was it accumulated? How was it accumulated specifically? How do you intend to translate what you have now into being rich not comfortable?

This just sounds like any old business insider article on building a comfortable retirement, which doesn't make it bad advice per se, re-writteen and wrapped up in personal "anecdotes".

He already told you how it was accumulated. Went into a lucrative career, kept expenses (significantly) under income, started his own business, and then invested (in real estate). It's really that simple.

If you aren't satisfied with his level of "rich" and want to achieve what Gringuito has, add risk. More risk, more variance in result.

If you think Hank's advice is like any old Business Insider article, I don't know what to tell you. He's not telling you to stay at your 9 to 5 for shit pay while thinking one less Starbucks coffee is going to catapult you to riches.

Edit: Hank's advice can take you to 10MM USD while you are still young enough to enjoy it. That's "rich" in my books, when combined with great health and strong relationships.

10mm USD is roughly the price of an actual rich guy's 2nd or 3rd home that he uses twice a year for a couple of weeks of holiday.

CBW is making the same point I am - nothing wrong with being comfortable rather than rich, nothing wrong at all with what Hank has chosen for himself; however, for anyone really trying to get rich, and using money as the means of keeping score, 10mm USD is two fifths of fuck all, and would just about buy you a nice house with 30 acres of land where I grew up. It's not bad, and it's perfectly possible to live a far happier and more contented life than others who have more money, but rich, enough to be considered so by people who are also rich, is probably more like 50mm USD and up.

That's fine. I don't think 10MM even rates "comfortably poor" in Dennis' scale. On the other end, I'm assuming the average American can't even comprehend having 100K in their bank account.

Actually, allow me to re-edit my edit. Hank's advice can take you to infinite money, because they key part is "start your own business" and "invest". If anything, the criticism should be that his advice is very non-specific, but it has to be. As you're aware, there's no step by step guide to getting rich because every rich person's path will vary in the details. However, the general idea is still the same. Assuming you didn't luck out with a generous inheritance, you acquire capital through the highest income you can command and not blowing it all on hookers and blow. That initial capital allows you to start a business, which speeds up capital accumulation in a nonlinear fashion. Eventually, you have enough to make meaningful investments.

I don't see where we disagree.

[Saweeep]

(01-20-2016 01:09 PM)Peregrine Wrote:  

Hank's advice can take you to infinite money, because they key part is "start your own business" and "invest".

Yeah, but everyone knows that.

Hank told us "I will teach you to get rich".

[Peregrine]

(01-20-2016 01:23 PM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  

(01-20-2016 01:09 PM)Peregrine Wrote:  

Hank's advice can take you to infinite money, because they key part is "start your own business" and "invest".

Yeah, but everyone knows that.

Hank told us "I will teach you to get rich".

No, not everyone knows that. Willing to bet there are forum members that don't know that, judging by some of the posts and threads that I come across.

Yes, he said "I will teach you to get rich", not "I will hold your hand every step of the way to riches". Even Felix Dennis' book, the best book I've read to date on how to get rich, gives broad advice. Read Wall Street Playboys and they keep the advice stupid simple as well. The difference between WSP and Hank is Hank is modifying step 4 to specifically target real estate, and WSP modifies step 2 to say work in high finance or affiliate marketing (which is sales, leveraging the internet).

Anyone offering you a specific step by step plan to get rich is selling you something, because there isn't one.

Edit: To reiterate, there is no secret to getting rich. The concepts are simple as fuck. It's the execution that is "too hard" for most people. http://wallstreetplayboys.com/how-do-you...two-rules/ for further reading.

[lavidaloca]

(01-20-2016 12:59 PM)H1N1 Wrote:  

10mm USD is roughly the price of an actual rich guy's 2nd or 3rd home that he uses twice a year for a couple of weeks of holiday.

If you think this, you have a very unrealistic perception of rich people or classify rich as billionaires, celebrities and heirs to large fortunes.

[Saweeep]

It's no different to starting a thread saying "I will teach you to get girls" then saying 1) Go to the gym 2) Buy new clothes 3) approach.

That's general advice too. But equally worthless without detail.

See the thing is, like game concepts, we on this forum like to get into the nitty gritty of things. If the thread was "I will teach you how to spot undervalued real estate" or "How to scale a law firm" or "how to add value to your home via improvement" or any of the other things Hank claims to have done, I would sit up and notice.

Let's hope they'd be better than his "short guy solution" which was to buy big great heeled shoes...

They are specific, accountable things that require actual knowledge and experience to sound credible...not something one can regurgitate from a Facebook article.

Hank is either a bullshit artist, a deeply insecure attention seeker or setting himself up for some generic self improvement business (despite what he says), if you ask me.

What other reasons would there be for a super successful: professional/businessman/real estate investor/playboy (delete as per which thread we read) to spend his time writing these threads? Surely someone of that calibre would have something more nuanced and insightful to say.

[Peregrine]

(01-20-2016 02:26 PM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  

It's no different to starting a thread saying "I will teach you to get girls" then saying 1) Go to the gym 2) Buy new clothes 3) approach.

That's general advice too. But equally worthless without detail.

This is a game forum, not a make money forum. There wouldn't even be a Lifestyle forum if it wasn't beneficial to increasing quality of girls.

Advice is not worthless without detail. What if someone believes that you get girls by 1) compliment 2) cuddle 3) beg for sex? Your 1 2 3 could change their lives.

Quote:

See the thing is, like game concepts, we on this forum like to get into the nitty gritty of things. If the thread was "I will teach you how to spot undervalued real estate" or "How to scale a law firm" or "how to add value to your home via improvement" or any of the other things Hank claims to have done, I would sit up and notice.

Let's hope they'd be better than his "short guy solution" which was to buy big great heeled shoes...

They are specific, accountable things that require actual knowledge and experience to sound credible...not something one can regurgitate from a Facebook article.

No, the problem is you sat up and noticed when the title was "How To Get Rich" and were disappointed that it wasn't a step by step guide. Your complaint can be summarized as unmet expectations.

Quote:

Hank is either a bullshit artist, a deeply insecure attention seeker or setting himself up for some generic self improvement business (despite what he says), if you ask me.

Now that's low, considering you repped him with "Don't agree with everything that he writes but respect him as a well intentioned, reasoned and intelligent contributor to the community. Don't stop!" two weeks ago. Which one is it?

Quote:

What other reasons would there be for a super successful: professional/businessman/real estate investor/playboy (delete as per which thread we read) to spend his time writing these threads? Surely someone of that calibre would have something more nuanced and insightful to say.

Insight comes in many forms. He's chosen to take the big picture approach.

[Saweeep]

I certainly don't need advice on how to get rich, my friend.

Your defence of someone you don't know...to the point of searching around for things previously written by me...is very strange.

I'll leave you and this thread to talk in circles.

[TheFinalEpic]

(01-20-2016 02:20 PM)lavidaloca Wrote:  

(01-20-2016 12:59 PM)H1N1 Wrote:  

10mm USD is roughly the price of an actual rich guy's 2nd or 3rd home that he uses twice a year for a couple of weeks of holiday.

If you think this, you have a very unrealistic perception of rich people or classify rich as billionaires, celebrities and heirs to large fortunes.

Can you state your perception of what "rich" means then? Seeing as you've criticized multiple people for their definitions including myself.

It's beating a dead horse to criticize others of what their definitions of this word means. It is literally as productive as saying a girl I perceive to be a 10/10 to be your 8.5/10, completely pointless.

It's all relative.

Here's Felix Dennis' scale:

$2-4 million: The comfortable poor
$4-10 million: The comfortably off
$10-30 million: The comfortably wealthy
$30-80 million: The lesser rich
$80-150 million: The comfortably rich
$150-200 million: The rich
$200-400 million: The seriously rich
$400-800 million: The truly rich
$800 million - $1.998 billion: The filthy rich
$1.998 billion and Above: The super rich

[Gringuito]

(01-20-2016 03:22 PM)TheFinalEpic Wrote:  

(01-20-2016 02:20 PM)lavidaloca Wrote:  

(01-20-2016 12:59 PM)H1N1 Wrote:  

10mm USD is roughly the price of an actual rich guy's 2nd or 3rd home that he uses twice a year for a couple of weeks of holiday.

If you think this, you have a very unrealistic perception of rich people or classify rich as billionaires, celebrities and heirs to large fortunes.

Can you state your perception of what "rich" means then? Seeing as you've criticized multiple people for their definitions including myself.

It's beating a dead horse to criticize others of what their definitions of this word means. It is literally as productive as saying a girl I perceive to be a 10/10 to be your 8.5/10, completely pointless.

It's all relative.

Here's Felix Dennis' scale:

$2-4 million: The comfortable poor
$4-10 million: The comfortably off
$10-30 million: The comfortably wealthy
$30-80 million: The lesser rich
$80-150 million: The comfortably rich
$150-200 million: The rich
$200-400 million: The seriously rich
$400-800 million: The truly rich
$800 million - $1.998 billion: The filthy rich
$1.998 billion and Above: The super rich

Personally I agree with lavidaloca that second and third homes are not in the 10M+ range. I am guilty of owning a few places and being in them for just a few weeks a year. Once you get above a certain size you need real staff (more than just 1 or 2 people) to maintain the place. I'm sure there are people at my net worth that own multiple 10M+ homes, it just seems like a time waster to me. How people choose to spend what they have is very individual. There are very wealthy people (i.e. Buffet) that live very modestly. Quite a bit of the wealth you see flaunted on TV is more advertisement than reality.

I haven't seen the Felix Dennis scale of wealth before. It's strange in that it's very skewed toward the top. The last category has just around 1000 people in it. Out of 7 billion people on Earth, that seems like too small of a group to be a useful metric.

The reality in the US is:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-am...2015-10-06

If you are unhappy when you are poor, you are very likely to still be unhappy when you are wealthy. I think a more useful goal for people is to become income independent. Have enough saved and invested to be able to live how you like live anywhere in the world. You can continue working if you like, but you won't have the stress of knowing you have to work.

What I enjoy doing the most: playing poker with my friends, scuba diving, traveling, volunteer work etc. are all low cost. After a certain amount of money, it's ability to make you happier goes away. Just my 2c.

[Dr. Kahn]

This absolutely captures my feeling about this thread.

+1 rep for cutting through the bullshit

I would have appreciate it more if Hank dropped a datasheet like LouieG did on business: thread-29744.html

Just look at the level of granular detail and good information density of that thread, showing how LouieG goes about making solid 6 figures from little to nothing.

He sure as hell didn't title it "How to Get Rich" only to turn around and feed us boiler-plate advice you can read in esquire magazine at the doctor's office like Hank did. On the other hand, LouieG's brought the thunder and lightening in that thread. thread-29744.html

Even Gringuito's thread was titled "Starting and Growing a successful business". thread-33451.html ; NOT some charlatan sounding "How to Get Rich".

(01-20-2016 02:26 PM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  

It's no different to starting a thread saying "I will teach you to get girls" then saying 1) Go to the gym 2) Buy new clothes 3) approach.

That's general advice too. But equally worthless without detail.

See the thing is, like game concepts, we on this forum like to get into the nitty gritty of things. If the thread was "I will teach you how to spot undervalued real estate" or "How to scale a law firm" or "how to add value to your home via improvement" or any of the other things Hank claims to have done, I would sit up and notice.

Let's hope they'd be better than his "short guy solution" which was to buy big great heeled shoes...

They are specific, accountable things that require actual knowledge and experience to sound credible...not something one can regurgitate from a Facebook article.

Hank is either a bullshit artist, a deeply insecure attention seeker or setting himself up for some generic self improvement business (despite what he says), if you ask me.

What other reasons would there be for a super successful: professional/businessman/real estate investor/playboy (delete as per which thread we read) to spend his time writing these threads? Surely someone of that calibre would have something more nuanced and insightful to say.

[Peregrine]

(01-20-2016 02:56 PM)CrashBangWallop Wrote:  

I certainly don't need advice on how to get rich, my friend.

Your defence of someone you don't know...to the point of searching around for things previously written by me...is very strange.

I'll leave you and this thread to talk in circles.

You leveled some serious accusations against the guy, so I figured I'd scan through his post history and rep logs because, you're right, I don't know him. Imagine my surprise when I see your +1 comment. Hey, maybe your opinion really did change in the last two weeks and you forgot to edit/remove your rep. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but maybe that's just me.

Quote:

I haven't seen the Felix Dennis scale of wealth before. It's strange in that it's very skewed toward the top. The last category has just around 1000 people in it. Out of 7 billion people on Earth, that seems like too small of a group to be a useful metric.

Probably because he was a billionaire. Notice that he doesn't make any distinctions between 5bn and 20bn. I thought it was interesting that he didn't see any lifestyle improvements from 100MM to 1bn.

[H1N1]

(01-20-2016 02:20 PM)lavidaloca Wrote:  

(01-20-2016 12:59 PM)H1N1 Wrote:  

10mm USD is roughly the price of an actual rich guy's 2nd or 3rd home that he uses twice a year for a couple of weeks of holiday.

If you think this, you have a very unrealistic perception of rich people or classify rich as billionaires, celebrities and heirs to large fortunes.

You have this backwards - I have an entirely realistic perception of rich people because they are my family's friends, and I went to the same schools as their children. If you do not think that around 10m USD is about what a real rich person spends on a holiday home, you do not know many actual really rich people.

[H1N1]

(01-20-2016 04:00 PM)Gringuito Wrote:  

(01-20-2016 03:22 PM)TheFinalEpic Wrote:  

(01-20-2016 02:20 PM)lavidaloca Wrote:  

(01-20-2016 12:59 PM)H1N1 Wrote:  

10mm USD is roughly the price of an actual rich guy's 2nd or 3rd home that he uses twice a year for a couple of weeks of holiday.

If you think this, you have a very unrealistic perception of rich people or classify rich as billionaires, celebrities and heirs to large fortunes.

Can you state your perception of what "rich" means then? Seeing as you've criticized multiple people for their definitions including myself.

It's beating a dead horse to criticize others of what their definitions of this word means. It is literally as productive as saying a girl I perceive to be a 10/10 to be your 8.5/10, completely pointless.

It's all relative.

Here's Felix Dennis' scale:

$2-4 million: The comfortable poor
$4-10 million: The comfortably off
$10-30 million: The comfortably wealthy
$30-80 million: The lesser rich
$80-150 million: The comfortably rich
$150-200 million: The rich
$200-400 million: The seriously rich
$400-800 million: The truly rich
$800 million - $1.998 billion: The filthy rich
$1.998 billion and Above: The super rich

Personally I agree with lavidaloca that second and third homes are not in the 10M+ range. I am guilty of owning a few places and being in them for just a few weeks a year. Once you get above a certain size you need real staff (more than just 1 or 2 people) to maintain the place. I'm sure there are people at my net worth that own multiple 10M+ homes, it just seems like a time waster to me. How people choose to spend what they have is very individual. There are very wealthy people (i.e. Buffet) that live very modestly. Quite a bit of the wealth you see flaunted on TV is more advertisement than reality.

As you say, it's really all a matter of how people choose to dispose of their income. Here, rich people will typically have a country pile, a skiing chalet somewhere like Klosters, and a house somewhere hot. To be perfectly frank, if the very many people I know who are genuinely rich are anything to go by (I made it past 35 people I actually see on a semi-regular basis who are worth approximately $50m or more - I honestly reckon I'd make it to triple figures comfortably if I included the people I was at school with whose parents were worth that), they will also have a flat worth a few million in a nice part of London, and probably buy their multiple children one each for ~$2m.

Whether the properties are all exactly worth $10m is really splitting hairs, but it amounts to a similar thing if their combined property portfolio is pushing over the $30m mark. Not trying to say I'm right and your wrong, or anything silly like that, rather that here in the UK at least, for people of a certain background, this is what rich looks like in practice. I've lost track of how many of my friends have bought $2-5m houses/flats mortgage free simply because the parents are looking for something to do with all their disposable income.

[Gringuito]

H1N1, if your friends have a property portfolio of over 30M with net worth of about 50M then they would have 60% of their net worth in illiquid assets. This may be normal for old money in the UK but my advisors will kill me if I wanted that amount of my worth in any one asset class. In addition, homes are a cash sink (like boats and jets) since you need to pay upkeep, property taxes, staff to maintain. In any event, it's not worth arguing over.

[Peregrine]

Quote:

I made it past 35 people I actually see on a semi-regular basis who are worth approximately $50m or more - I honestly reckon I'd make it to triple figures comfortably if I included the people I was at school with whose parents were worth that

That's awesome. I'm currently working on improving the quality of my network. Already made the acquaintance of several successful older gentlemen in the past six months (no idea how to assess net worth). Any tips? I imagine you met the people you know through school/work?

Edit: Goes without saying that I'm not hoping to leech off them.

Edit #2: "You have this backwards - I have an entirely realistic perception of rich people because they are my family's friends, and I went to the same schools as their children. If you do not think that around 10m USD is about what a real rich person spends on a holiday home, you do not know many actual really rich people." Gotcha.

[texas]

While some (U)HNW people may have 10M second or third homes, it is probably not the norm. Even with enormous sums of money, they are not great places to park money even for wealth preservation. There are maintenance costs, security costs, high HOA-type dues in exclusive areas that may cover the prior two things mentioned, taxes, along with a handful of other liabilities that are hard to ever foresee and can make you a target if ownership is not masked properly. The money would be better spent acquiring a commercial building or hotel which could be leveraged with a mortgage and further produce income (not to mention jobs) from rents/tax advantages rather than a drain like an extra seven-to-eight figure residence that only produces more costs. You can always save the penthouse/desired floor for yourself and outfit it as a vacation space while the floors below generate money.

[scorpion]

Quote:

Here's Felix Dennis' scale:

$2-4 million: The comfortable poor
$4-10 million: The comfortably off
$10-30 million: The comfortably wealthy
$30-80 million: The lesser rich
$80-150 million: The comfortably rich
$150-200 million: The rich
$200-400 million: The seriously rich
$400-800 million: The truly rich
$800 million - $1.998 billion: The filthy rich
$1.998 billion and Above: The super rich

This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. Categorizing someone with a $4 million net worth as "comfortably poor" requires a staggering lack of perspective and a general disconnect from reality. It would be akin to calling Ron Jeremy "needledick", or Shaquille O'Neal a "tiny little man". It reveals an obsession with money that is absolutely pathological in nature, the financial equivalent of the 78 lb. anorexic girl who thinks if she just lost a few more pounds she would finally be beautiful.

Making money is good, and making a lot of money is better, but past a certain point an obsession with money serves no purpose. Health, family, good friends, challenging/fulfilling work, interesting hobbies, peace of mind, purposeful living, spiritual contentment and hard-earned wisdom are going to matter a lot more to your satisfaction in life than stacking millions upon millions of dollars on your existing fortune. The "comfortably poor" guy worth $4 million who manages his priorities well is going to have a much, much better life than a guy who sacrifices his entire life to claw his way into a nine-figure fortune, only to realize once he acquires it that ultimately it was just a number he was chasing, and all those years he spent scratching and clawing and living red-eyed in the trenches were actually his life - a life now mostly behind him.

Money is not an end in and of itself. It's a tool to be used to enable to you live a better life. If you lose sight of this fact and make money an end rather than a means to an end, it's very likely you will come to regret it. Living a successful life is much less about how much money you acquire and much more about how wisely you spend your limited time on this planet.

Ecclesiastes 5:10
"He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity."

[Gringuito]

(01-20-2016 07:42 PM)texas Wrote:  

...
The money would be better spent acquiring a commercial building or hotel which could be leveraged with a mortgage and further produce income (not to mention jobs) from rents/tax advantages rather than a drain like an extra seven-to-eight figure residence that only produces more costs. You can always save the penthouse/desired floor for yourself and outfit it as a vacation space while the floors below generate money.

This is great advice. It's still an illiquid asset but an income generating one.

[texas]

Exactly. A friend of mine recenltly acquired an expensive house from a business owner who wanted to unload his third home and dump the money back in his industry while others are running scared shitless and unloading assets for pennies on the dollar (O&G). He ended up selling at a 250k discount because it's hard to shop around a high-priced house to potential buyers in a timely manner, the pool of buyers that can get a loan or close quickly (don't need financing) is inherently smaller than on lesser-priced properties, and monthly holding costs are in the five-figure range so he can limit his hit on the front-end now or take it later but with a greater degree of uncertainty. That 250k may have been a spore of the seller's net worth, but it's still another Aston Martin. Or a scholarship for a promising student. Or whatever.

Real estate over a certain price point is illiquid by nature but it's always better to be illiquid and "income-producing" rather than illiquid and "income-depleting."

[Peregrine]

(01-20-2016 08:12 PM)scorpion Wrote:  

Quote:

Here's Felix Dennis' scale:

$2-4 million: The comfortable poor
$4-10 million: The comfortably off
$10-30 million: The comfortably wealthy
$30-80 million: The lesser rich
$80-150 million: The comfortably rich
$150-200 million: The rich
$200-400 million: The seriously rich
$400-800 million: The truly rich
$800 million - $1.998 billion: The filthy rich
$1.998 billion and Above: The super rich

This is one of the dumbest things I've ever read. Categorizing someone with a $4 million net worth as "comfortably poor" requires a staggering lack of perspective and a general disconnect from reality. It would be akin to calling Ron Jeremy "needledick", or Shaquille O'Neal a "tiny little man". It reveals an obsession with money that is absolutely pathological in nature, the financial equivalent of the 78 lb. anorexic girl who thinks if she just lost a few more pounds she would finally be beautiful.

Making money is good, and making a lot of money is better, but past a certain point an obsession with money serves no purpose. Health, family, good friends, challenging/fulfilling work, interesting hobbies, peace of mind, purposeful living, spiritual contentment and hard-earned wisdom are going to matter a lot more to your satisfaction in life than stacking millions upon millions of dollars on your existing fortune. The "comfortably poor" guy worth $4 million who manages his priorities well is going to have a much, much better life than a guy who sacrifices his entire life to claw his way into a nine-figure fortune, only to realize once he acquires it that ultimately it was just a number he was chasing, and all those years he spent scratching and clawing and living red-eyed in the trenches were actually his life - a life now mostly behind him.

Money is not an end in and of itself. It's a tool to be used to enable to you live a better life. If you lose sight of this fact and make money an end rather than a means to an end, it's very likely you will come to regret it. Living a successful life is much less about how much money you acquire and much more about how wisely you spend your limited time on this planet.

Ecclesiastes 5:10
"He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income; this also is vanity."

You are right, and I think Dennis would agree. He spends a good amount of time in the beginning of his book on how to get rich asking you why you want to get rich. He admits that he should have stopped at 100MM, and the decade spent going from 100 to 1bn was not worth it.

I take no offense at his suggestion that I'm not even comfortably poor yet. I sit here saying that 100K/year is not a lot of money, while most of America thinks 100K/year = you've made it. It's all perspective.

[TheFinalEpic]

This thread has made me re-read Dennis' book. And early on he states that money will not make an unhappy poor man happy, and that past a certain point it becomes almost more of a game than anything else. You need to ask yourself what getting rich means, and where you want to be. That chart is a direct quote out of his book, and that's what money meant to him. It is completely perspective. For me, even at a young age, I see it as a game; for others, it's a completely emotional topic. That article that Gringuito posted about how few people have over 1k in savings hit me hard though, it brings me back to Earth and shows me where I am in life compared to more than half the U.S. population.

I think that anyone, if they desire it enough, can get to a point of freedom. I don't think desire alone will bring someone to a billion dollars however. Personally, I enjoy building businesses and building relationships because of them. I enjoy learning about investing and playing with my money in the markets not only because it makes me money, but also because it shows me how interconnected the world is, and how everything impacts everything else. I am lucky to have a dad that has always had the mentality needed to build his companies and been able to teach me that mentality, and because of that mentality had the time to be able to do it too. I desire the freedom that business can create, and have been inspired by business and creating value for others since I was a boy. But I think being rich in time is what rich actually means.

When you have time, you have freedom. Take all the fancy houses and cars out of the equation, they are an afterthought. Rich is being free to live as you want. For many people, that is spending time with loved ones. For some, it is building their empire. I enjoy the many perspectives in this thread though, because it has made me look at myself and ask what do I really want.