What Really Separates The Rich From The Poor And Middle Class

Key Takeaways

I live in one of the most prestigious and one of the most expensive buildings in Vancouver. And just about 10 minutes away from my building, it's one of the poorest neighborhood in Vancouver as well. Vancouver has some of the richest people living here and also has some of the poorest people living here. And you can see the entire street on that side of Hastings, a lot of homeless people. It always fascinates me what separates the rich from the poor and the middle class. So, what's the difference between someone who is living on the street? I'm sure everyone's got a story. And but what is the difference with someone like that versus someone who is making millions or tens of millions of dollars? We all have 24 hours a day. We all have the same opportunity. For God's sake, we're in the same [ __ ] city. Is it education? Is it a background? Is it because of luck? Is it because of hard work? No, it's none of those things. It's none of those things. I believe what truly separates the rich, the poor, and the middle class is one word, leverage. Leverage. Rich people use leverage and poor people don't. Now, there are many, many forms of leverage. Let's first define what leverage actually is. All it means is leverage is getting something done with less effort. Just like a lever, right? How you can you can use a a less at least amount of of effort to lift something very, very heavy. That's all that means, using leverage. So, there are many, many forms of leverage. Today I'm going to I'm going to give you just a few of those. The first form of leverage is OPT, other people's time. Rich people know how to use OPT, other people's time. Example, a CEO hiring employees. He's leveraging other people's time to perform certain tasks for the organization. Example for me, I have people coming to coming to my home and mow my lawn. I'm using other people's time to help me do tasks that may not be something I enjoy to do. It may not be something that is worthwhile for me to do just because my my hourly rate is much much higher. I also have someone who comes to my house weekly to do cleaning. That's other people's time. So, that's the first form of leverage, other people's time. The second form of leverage is other people's knowledge. Other people's knowledge. Because as a person, you could only do so much. You can only learn so much. You can only know so much. To grow within if you want to grow your income, rich people you notice they have a lot of advisors around them. In all areas of their lives. Example, I just had a meeting a few days ago with all my my my two accountants, my tax strategies, my financial planner, my insurance person. We have this board meeting talking about how we're going to flow the money, how we can minimize taxes, and what are some of the things that we need to do to to take cash out from the company, maybe loan to another company. We're looking to do all of that. It's not just on me to figure all this [ __ ] out. It's we surround ourselves with people that are smarter, that have specific knowledge. No different No different than I'm running a my business. If I need certain help, let's say with YouTube or with Facebook or with Instagram or whatever it is, it doesn't matter. That I bring in the best of the best. I hire them, maybe sometimes as a as a project manager, sometimes as a consultant, independent consultant, but I am paying them for their knowledge. So, I'm leveraging other people's knowledge. People have been there and done that. Whereas poor people, you notice they they don't read books, they don't hire people, they they are rugged individualists. They take on everything on their own. You know what? You want something done, you do it yourself. Right? That's a poor person's mentality. So, that's the second form of leverage. The third form of leverage is other people's money. Rich people are very very good of utilizing and leveraging OPM, other people's money. They buy a piece of property, they put a down payment, they borrow from the bank to buy an investment. A developer, right here. You see that? Developing right now. There's a financial institution, sometimes multiple financial institutions, loaning money for that particular project. An entrepreneur, maybe they are going through uh a a first round of funding. They are raising capital from investors. That's other people's money. Rich people, we don't use our own money. Only poor people people use their own money. Rich people, we don't use our own money. Only poor people use their own money. There's an infinite amount of money out there that's floating around, but people don't know how to multiply, how to use it. Money goes to people who knows how to multiply. And that's why it's easy. It's easy for rich people. Not only do they have a track record, but it's once they know how to multiply, it's easy for them to attract more money to make more money. And that's why you do see the rich do get richer. You could [ __ ] about it. You could say, "How come it's not me? Why only me?" Or you could say, "You know what? This is how the game is played." What a What a What are the rules of the game? What do I need to learn? So, that's number three. Third form of leverage, other people's money. And the fourth form of leverage is other people's relationships. Wealth comes from relationships, and rich people, we are very good at leveraging relationships. Example, there's an important person I need to meet. Maybe I don't know that person. I would ask my friend, "Hey, can you make that introduction? Can we do some business together?" I'll give you another example. Let's say you have an offer, you have a product, you have a service that you're promoting, and you want to leverage other people's relationships, OPR, you would maybe do a potential joint venture with someone else who already has an existing customer base. That that customer base trusts and believes in that particular person. You can have that person, that influencer, endorse your product, your program, your service. And there, you're leveraging the relationships he has he has built for years with his customer base. And there, if he promotes and you you're more than happy to give him a a commission, and in our world it's called affiliate commission. That's leveraging other people's relationships. So, all these are different forms of leverage. I'll give you one more. Also, technology. Rich people also leverage technology. Automation, software, right? All these tools that's out there that could AI nowadays that could help you to be more efficient, more effective, that we also utilize. So, technology, I believe, is a huge part of leverage. Even your cell phone, right? The smartphone that you have, the different apps that you have, is all those are many forms of leverage. So, think about it. It doesn't matter what business, it doesn't matter what industry, it doesn't matter what investment they do. If you What it boils down to you study and you look at every single rich person, they are masters of leverage in some way, shape, or form. And the more you know how to utilize that, the more successful you'll be. And the more you know how to utilize leverage, the more successful you'll be and the wealthier you'll be. I'm going to leave you with one quote by John D. Rockefeller. "I'd rather have 1% effort of 100 people versus 100% of my own effort. Think about that.