Are you Jeff Bezos?
If yes, stop reading and go do something useful for mankind instead of taking joyrides in spaces.
Are you a millionaire?
Do you have at least several hundreds of thousands of dollars/ euro/ crypto?
How much wealth do you have?
I guess it’s somewhere above average but not that far from ‘normal’. That’s nice and all. But have you asked yourself why you are not actually rich?
You are smart and hardworking. You are engaged and motivated. You put real effort in work and try to create added value. Colleagues and bosses like you and appreciate your results.
Look around. Do the millionaires appear superior? Are they really hundreds of times smarter, more hardworking, more innovative, more motivated? They cannot be. It’s not humanly possible.
So why are they rich and you are not?
Your Unconscious Sucks at Making Money
I, Your Unconscious, really like the idea of having boatloads of money. Imagining it makes me feel warm and cuddly. It means we are safe and have all the resources we would ever want. It means we get infinite social validation and have high status. It means we get our pick of reproductive partners and our offspring will thrive.
But I also suck at making money and getting you rich. Why?
I have five beliefs, deep algorithms about the world, which make you not rich.
1. I don’t understand money, but I like Stuff
Money does not make sense. It’s paper. That’s useless to me. I want food and tools to survive in the Paleolithic.
Digital money is even worse. I just cannot keep track of it. That’s why you spend more with your card than you did cash by the way. And even more with contactless than PIN payments.
This means I suck at making or saving or investing money.
But I am great at buying stuff.
I really like physical things. They make me feel good. I feel we have resources to survive and thrive. Even if those resources are a new pair of stiletto or an obscure gadget.
I like having stuff and I don’t understand money.
Of course I am a consumerist over-spender.
2. I don’t understand exponential growth, everything is linear for me
Millionaire don’t just make more money than you. They make exponentially more money.
As your unconscious, I don’t get that. I evolved for a world where everything grows linearly. Two rabbits breed and make another couple of rabbits. They never make two hundred rabbits.
Yet a stock or a crypto investment can multiply hundred-fold.
Not only do I not understand money. I don’t understand really profitable investments. I don’t understand scalable business. I suck at making business plans for getting really rich. Which brings us to point 3.
3. I assume we get rewards for producing useful things. But we don’t.
I assume other people pay me more if I bring more real value for them. I have this basic assumption that our society rewards things that make lives better for people.
But it does not.
What are the most useful professions? Those which have the most beneficial impact? Nurses, teachers, researchers, scientists, social workers, firefighters. How much do they make? Very little.
What are the least useful professions? Those which have the least beneficial impact on others? Consultants, brokers, finance people, lawyers, politicians. How much do they make? A lot.
Do the math. Do good, make little money. But as your unconscious I believe it’s the opposite way.
4. I am scared of doing stuff on my own. I want the validation of the tribe, aka colleagues from the company
You probably have a job. I hate it. It’s confusing and stressful.
But I crave the safety and validation of the tribe. Your colleagues are your tribe. So I crave their validation. It’s why you work so much and get so stressed.
Employees don’t get filthy rich. Unless they are CEO, which are not really employees. So you would need to leave the tribe and strike out on your own. I don’t like that. It’s dangerous. So I don’t let you do it. I imagine all the fantastically negative scenarios that could unfold. And I secrete tons of fear to keep you in the job you hate.
5. I lack motivation if for long-term when short-term needs are met
I would like tons of money. But not really.
You have food. Shelter. Sex (or at least porn). A tribe (sort of).
You get loads of instant gratification from social media, news, food, games, news, etc.
To be honest I am intoxicated with dopamine almost all the time. And when I am not, I crave it like an addict.
I really do lack the motivation to risk all of this for the promise of some abstract digital numbers (the millions of dollars).
Do millionaires lack these unconscious algorithms?
Many surely have them. They just lucked into money. It happens.
But many others have found ways to minimize or go around these beliefs.
Some develop these in childhood. Maybe their parents taught them that money is everything. So now being richer than people around them is a necessary component of social status. Their unconscious fight for that.
Or they changed their model of the world. They made the current situation seem bad enough to get their unconscious moving towards wealth.
Or some lucky few, might have stumbled upon an activity that their unconscious likes and that also makes lots of money. It is possible.
What can you do?
You can do like the millionaires. Find ways around my anti-rich algorithms.
But be careful. The most accessible methods have big risks.
You could change my model so that I equate wealth with status. Then you will never get me satisfied. It’s a rat race with no finish. You might make a million or two. But I will always want more and more.
You could change my model so that I internalize abstract money and get motivated about it. Then I might ignore everything else to focus on it. I will do this if I get tricked into making it a dopamine activity. But then I will get depressed and sick if my needs for health, social, development, nature, etc. are not met.
Maybe the trick would be rather to find something that makes you money and is rewarding for you. It would help if you were good at it. And if you want to be happy long-term, it should also help other people. There is a method for that. It’s called IKIGAI. Try it out.