The past couple of weeks I’ve had some strange interactions with people. First, the person pretends that everything is fine when we both know they are financially struggling. The second person knows the first person’s situation but doesn’t want to make a thing out of it so they keep quiet.
The two people depart and the opportunity for a person with wealth and money to share their good fortune with a person in a tough spot is lost. Why?
I suspect there are literally millions of interactions like this going on every single day all across America and maybe the world and I just don’t understand it.
It is embarrassing to be broke, I know I’ve been there, when I left home I had $10 to my name and there were many time I had to eat my own pride and call mom/dad for a bailout. Fortunately, they were always able to help even though they weren’t wealthy themselves.
Over time, I worked myself out of brokeness/poverty and the painful lessons of that time have never been forgotten. Every chance I get to invest in real estate, bonds, stocks, or most importantly self-improvement is never missed.
People frequently ask me why I don’t live in a mansion or drive an expensive car and the answer is always the same, I’d rather invest the money into income producing assets. A Bentley means nothing to me other than the lost opportunity to use that money to buy a rental property, dividend stocks or tax free bonds.
If I’m not investing in assets, I am investing in my education, learning to use AI, creating apps with AI to help me make even more money or manage my money better. I’m happy to spend money on a new computer dedicated to AI over a useless $5000 handbag for the wife (note to readers: wife rich with own money, she can buy her own $5k bag if she wants).
This past Christmas, I gave out money to all nieces and nephews with the recommendation that they invest the money. I have only had one contact me about the investment so far which indicates the others probably spent the money and only one followed through with my advice. I suspect that the Pareto Distribution will emerge with this grand experiment I’m running, 80% of the wealth will end up with 20% of my nieces and nephews and I already have a good idea of who that will be.
The experiment got me thinking, do people not ask for help because they know they will just squander the money? Do they fear later judgement when the question comes up, “Well, what did you do with the money I gave you?”
Share The Wealth
Are you broke and hiding it? Why?