Transcription
So, imagine this because this happens more often than you believe. You're living in the perfect house, you're wearing the great clothes, you got the great car, you got everything. And yet, your day-to-day life is frantic, rushed, worrisome, miserable. That's exactly what happened to me.
When I hit my first peak of being rich, I was happy about it for about 15 minutes. And as soon as I hit the $10 million level, I was up to the $50 million level and so on. It never stopped. And I was never able to enjoy the satisfaction that I thought I would enjoy when I hit those levels. Now, this, I know, is a very common story. You've heard it a million times, but it's also a very true story. The question is, while you're growing your wealth, will you spend the time to learn how to be happy whether you have the wealth or not?
If you're new here, I'm Mark Ford. I'm the author of Ready, Fire, Aim and Automatic Wealth. But, I'm also the author of a book called Living Rich, which I spent a lot of time writing and thinking about. And in this video, I'm going to tell you all the secrets about Living Rich on a middle-class income that were in that book and some extras that I've learned since. So, if you really want to live like a billionaire, let's begin with where you're currently spending 1/3 of your life. I'm talking about your sleeping time.
Let me tell you a true story. When I was in the early stages of becoming wealthy, I walked into a mattress store and spent $25,000 on a mattress because the salesman told me [music] that this mattress was slept on by the queen of some place I don't even remember. Most people spend 7 to 8 hours each day sleeping. And what's the number one thing that affects the quality of your sleep? The answer is, it's the quality of your mattress. I took it home, my wife and I slept on it for 2 years, but we couldn't take it any longer. We had to get rid of it. What we discovered is that the 25 grand we spent on this mattress, we spent because we believed that somehow our 8 hours or 7 hours of sleep was [music] going to be somehow better because some queen slept on such a mattress. It was actually quite uncomfortable.
In the meantime, I had started a project for the book Living Rich, and one of the things that we studied was mattresses. And what we discovered, the best mattresses, the mattresses that are most comfortable and give you the best sleep, those mattresses actually cost only about $1,500. So, why spend $25,000 or why spend even $2,000 on a mattress that is not going to be as comfortable, won't give you as good a rest, and also, very importantly, won't last as long.
Just think about this. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk make more money while they're taking a 20-minute nap than most people make in 10 years. But ask yourself, are their 20-minute naps actually worth a million times more than your 20-minute naps? You don't want to always pay the least for a mattress because you'll be sleeping poorly, but you don't want to pay the most either. You want to know what quality is in a mattress, find out what that costs, and pay that and not a penny more.
So, now you've had a nice rest, it's time to get up, get dressed, go outside. How can you present yourself as well as a billionaire could, but on an ordinary income? Car you drive, clothes you're wearing, your watch. So, think about Ralph Lauren, not only a very wealthy man, but a man who is heralded for his taste in clothing. What does he wear? He wears jeans and a t-shirt. looks great, but he's not trying to impress anybody with fancy clothes. And when I think about the best-dressed people I know, they're almost always getting their clothes from second-hand shops. It's about dressing in a way that attracts just enough attention to have people notice you, but not so much that you're making yourself into a spectacle.
The things that signal to other people that you have taste and refinement are things that are almost never the sorts of things that you're seeing in flashy magazines. They are almost always the things that signal like refinement, modesty, and so on. In other words, things that you can buy for the most part second hand. The same thing also applies to the watches, your shoes, cars that you drive, virtually everything else that you bring with you when you're in public. You have a choice. You can bring things with you that announce, "I'm rich, look at me, I'm special." Or you can bring things with you that announce, "I have discernment, I care about quality, I'm here for the long haul."
So, let's talk about cars. You're standing outside a restaurant and some fancy Ferrari pulls up and some 75-year-old guy steps out. What do you think? You think, "What a jackass." You don't think, "Gosh, he's cool. I want to be him." This is the number one thing you have to understand about living rich. We all want affirmation. We all want to be loved. But, you'll get none of that by overspending on flashy things. [music] You will get it, however, if what you bring with you are modest things that say, "I could afford a flashy car, but I choose to drive this car."
In every area of your life, in every area of the things that you wear and you bring with you, if you could send that message out, "I'm bringing this with me, not because I can't afford anything more, but because this is what I know is right for me." Then, you're sending out the message that you have good judgment, that you are a quality person, and that you are open to business. Let me give you an example. I used to have 10 or 15 cars in my happy-to-be-getting-rich phase. Now, I have two. One car, which I drive every day, is about 10 years old and I love it because it's performance and I won't give it up. But, my favorite car is a sedan that I bought 21 years ago that every time I drive into a restaurant, the valets ask me, "Is this such and such a car?" because when I bought it 21 years ago, it was the top BMW of its time. I'm still driving it today. I still love it. It drives perfectly. It's an amazing car. And not only is it great in every way in terms of quality, but it actually does get me the prestige, at least of the valets. And you can buy this car today and drive it for $35,000.
So, what have we been talking about? So, you can have the best mattress, you can have the best car, you can have the best watch, you can have the best everything for a fraction of the cost. But if you don't have one thing, then you've got nothing.
I figured this out 25 years ago when I turned 50. I was with my wife, we were in Italy, we were having a wonderful trip, and I was walking over a bridge, I remember, and I realized that I was thinking about money, business issues, and so on. I was in this beautiful environment, I should have been enjoying myself, but I was a little stressed out. And I thought to myself, "I have all the money I will ever need for three generations. There's no way I I will ever need another dollar in my life. So, why am I doing this?" And I promised myself at that point that I would not give any more attention in my life to making myself wealthier. And [music] that made a big difference. And the interesting thing about that is it didn't actually impede me from getting wealthier. But what it did is it allowed me to spend some time figuring out how to have more happiness in my life. And that's what I've been trying to do ever since.
So, if you want to live rich, if you want to live like a billionaire, like you imagine a billionaire could live, you have to start off by understanding that you're not going to get any of these great things like admiration, affirmation, respect, and love from becoming rich. What you're going to get is often quite the opposite. However, you can get all those things while you're becoming rich by doing something else. It's [music] by paying attention to what is it that brings us admiration, love, and respect. And you can learn those same things while you're getting rich. It's not that complicated, but it takes a sincere effort. It takes open-mindedness. It takes a certain sense of vulnerability. And I took that journey, and it certainly helped me. I'm far from where I want to be, but that's the great thing about this path that we're talking about is that you can do both things at once. You can develop your wealth, you can live rich, and you can also learn to be happy all at the same time. They're just three different things.
Everything I've been talking about in this video is contingent on your commitment to [music] and your desire to build your wealth. If you'd like to know more about how you can do that, click right here.