The Mentality That Will Keep You Poor

“I deserve better than this…”

If you’re having a hard time and you say, “I deserve better than this,” most people in the modern world will agree with you. They may even give you a little pat on the back, a knowing nod of the head, and a hearty, “Yes, you do!”

Not me.

Because in my mind, “I deserve better than this” is an incomplete statement. A correct, complete statement would be, “I deserve better than this IF I EARN IT.” If you pass over the last few words in that statement, it can literally turn you into a failure and keep you poor forever.

In fact, most people who are poor long term are poor for EXACTLY that reason. They’ve embraced the FIRST half of that statement, “I deserve better than this,” while leaving off the part about, “If I earn it.”

You can see a great example of how this works on X, as people debated a surprising subject: The cost of lunch:

What he basically says there is that he can’t stand it when he sees younger adults making 70k per year, spending $28 on lunch. He asks people to think about how much money that would amount to if they put it in an index fund and made 8 to 10% per year for 50 years.

Incidentally, before we go any further, let’s do some math on that. Let’s conservatively assume 50 weeks per year (two weeks of vacation) and $5 lunches instead of 28-dollar lunches (so $23 per day invested), at the lower number he suggested – 8%. How much money would that be over the course of 50 years? Let’s ask ChatGPT…

So, really tasty lunches or 1.8 million dollars in 50 years? Kevin O’Leary certainly has his preference. What might surprise a lot of people is how many people are bitterly resisting what he’s saying, seemingly because they prefer the expensive lunches:

Here’s a guy who was born middle class, founded a company, is now worth 400 million dollars, and he’s telling people how to become millionaires using the money they’d otherwise spend on lunch. Sounds pretty valuable, right? Yet, what are the replies? Basically, “Shut up, boomer,” and “It’s too hard,” and “Don’t I deserve a nice lunch?”

There are two things at play here.

The first is our victim-oriented culture, where everyone pretends that they’ve got it SOOOOOO TOUGH. Oh my gosh, NOBODY HAS EVER HAD IT AS BAD as Gen Z! Look at the cost of housing! Fast food is super expensive! Everything is so bad!

Meanwhile, back in the real world, if you were really generous, you could argue that MAYBE the Baby Boomers and Generation X had it slightly better than Generation Z. I wouldn’t even agree with the idea that Generation Z has had it tougher than Generation X, but still, let’s act as if it’s true.

What that would mean is that out of the 8,000-12,000 generations of humans that have lived on Planet Earth throughout history, Generation Z in America has had it the third easiest out of all of them. I don’t really think some caveman trying not to get eaten by a wild animal, an American taken as a slave by Barbary Pirates, or some poor bastard bleeding out after being shot in the Vietnamese jungle is going to think a bunch of pampered 20 year olds in air conditioned rooms, playing on the Internet and working 40 hours a week to pay their bills in some safe, clean, cool office have it particularly tough.

Setting all that aside, there are a lot of people who have embraced the idea that they shouldn’t have to make any sacrifices or have any challenges to get somewhere, which is something that has never really been present in American culture before.

Financial success doesn’t “just happen” for 99% of people. For almost everyone who makes it, there’s a lot of time, work, and sacrifice involved. You might say, “Oh yeah? What about you? You own a house. You live at the beach. Didn’t you just get back from a week long vacation? You seem like you’re doing okay. What sacrifices have you ever had to make?”

Well, I’ve moved to get better job opportunities. I’ve worked two jobs to save up money several times. I put in 80-hour weeks for a year, 70-hour weeks for many years, worked 7 days a week for a long time, and even worked on vacations for years. I’ve slept in my car because I couldn’t afford a hotel room, wore clothes with holes in them, driven a beater with both rearview mirrors held on by duct tape, and spent a year+ getting 4 hours sleep per night M-F to build my business. I worked terrible jobs, had my water and power cut off, went over a decade without a credit card, and went without cable TV for years. I lived with roommates several times, went for LONG periods with very little in my bank account, and have done everything from bouncing to Wal-Mart Portrait studio manager, to laying sod. I didn’t have a house before I was 30, I still don’t live in a giant house, and my current car is over a decade old, although I could easily buy a new one if I wanted to do it.

When I tell you that you need to sacrifice to get ahead, I speak from experience. Incidentally, many people have had those experiences. I’m sure there are plenty of people in the world who’ve had everything handed to them on a silver platter, but everyone I know who has been successful worked their asses off for it, made a lot of hard choices, and did a lot of things they’d rather not have done.

If you insist on ignoring all the good advice that’s out there from people trying to tell you what it takes to really make it financially, you can expect to spend your life on a treadmill, never really getting anywhere, eating your $28 lunches and wondering why you’re one of the roughly 60% of Americans who always seem to be living paycheck-to-paycheck, no matter who’s in office. If that’s too harsh, well, life’s harsh, and it’s a lot harsher if you don’t want to listen to smart people trying to help you.

Stop treading water, quit eating expensive lunches every day, and start doing the tough things it takes to really get ahead. You won’t be sorry.

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