- There's a very good chance that if you're watching this video and you are a person who
lives in the year 2023, you don't have as much money
as you probably want to have. It's difficult times right now. I've always been pretty
good at making money. I've always found a way
to somehow acquire money, but I've always been
horrible at keeping it. No matter how much money I
made I always found a way to live paycheck to paycheck somehow, like I just couldn't figure out how people accumulate wealth. And that is until first year of university when I read this book called
"The Richest Man in Babylon." I'd have one earbud in my
downtime at work listening to "The Richest Man in Babylon." And I remember my mind slowly being blown and it completely shifted
my mindset towards how money even works. And it really acted as the
catalyst, the game changer that shifted the trajectory
of my financial reality, and helped me end up where I am today. So I wanna share with you
guys some of the key takeaways that I learned from "The
Richest Man in Babylon," so that hopefully by the end of this year you will have more money
in your bank account and your financial future will end up looking a lot more optimistic. So the only way that you
are going to work your way out of financial misery
is if you stop falling for the biggest money mistake. What is the biggest money mistake? Well, it's not this cute little thing, it's not this little mistake
that you know, haha, silly me, it's so much bigger than you think. So let me paint a picture, it's kind of the only
way of understanding it. Let's pretend that you
are a little kid again, you're nine years old
and you really lucked out because it's your full-time job to play Chuck E Cheese games. You go to Chuck E Cheese,
you play Whack-a-Mole, you drain the hoops, shoot the guys, I don't know what you
do at Chuck E Cheese. I haven't been there since
I was nine years old, but that is now your full-time
job as a nine year old. You work there all day nine
to five, Monday through Friday and at the end of each day you're given the Chuck E Cheese tickets. And as a nine year old,
you're probably very excited. You're thinking, man, I'm making
so much damn ticket money, I can afford all of these cool prizes at the Chuck E Cheese Prize counter. Your entire mind is occupied by this. It's occupied by the amount
of tickets that you have and what you can purchase
at the prize counter with the tickets that you have. Everybody in the world is
playing this game with money. We are all in Chuck E. Cheese. We are under the illusion
that we are getting paid with Chuck E Cheese tickets,
and the only thing to do with the Chuck E Cheese tickets is to buy Chuck E Cheese prizes. But when you think this way,
you are living in the Matrix, you are not aware of the fact that you're actually getting paid in cash and you can step outside of Chuck E Cheese and spend money on whatever you want. You know, it sounds overly simple and kind of ridiculous
when I put it this way, but this is exactly what keeps
people financially stuck. It's because they slave
away for $10 an hour, eight hours a day, 40 hours
a week at the trinket shop and then they come home we start thinking about all these cool
trinkets that we can buy with our money that we earned from working at the Trinket shop. And this is extra sinister
because the Trinket shop actually makes more money off of you than you make off of them because when you work at the Trinket shop you are worth more than
$10 an hour to them. Otherwise they wouldn't pay you, you would be a net loss to them. So for all of the time and
effort and sweat you invest into the Trinket shop, they
give you a little bit in return and then you somehow fall for the ruse, and convince yourself to
give the money right back to the Trinket shop by buying trinkets. Everything that you watch
on the TV when you get home, every billboard that you see
on your drive home from work is just talking about Trinkets again. Ooh, look at this little
Trinket you can buy. Even though you just spent all
day serving the Trinket shop and the Trinket owners
here give your money back to the Trinket shop. That's how you get the (beep). The question is how do we
break free of this cycle? There's only one way really and that is to pay yourself first. This is one of the biggest takeaways from "The Richest Man in Babylon." If you pay yourself first, you make $10 from working at the Trinket
shop every day, just take one. This one is for you and
for you alone, okay. You take this, you put it
in a different account first and then you use this to buy trinkets. Do whatever the hell you want with this. You gotta pay rent, right. You know, rent's like all of it. There's like internet and phone
bill and you're out again, but at least you paid yourself first. 10% may sound like such a small amount, but if you save 10% you'll be doing more than most people do. Most people don't save anything because they feel like they can't. But in reality most people
have a Netflix subscription, a Disney Plus subscription,
blabbity, blabbity, blah, right. And they go to Starbucks or
they go to Tim Horton's here in Canada, McDonald's. Everybody manages to hemorrhage money. It's because if you are an average person then you follow right into the
demographic of buying things that you don't need. Your money is going to go to the emperors of the world no matter what. It's just gonna happen, it's the way the world is structured. But if you pay yourself
first you will find a way to save a little bit on
groceries, a little bit on coffee. Human beings are super adaptable. If you learned that, okay next
month you're gonna make 90% of what you normally
make you would find a way to make it work, you always do. You're still here. We are survivors, and we're
in a situation economically where you really have to bet on yourself because nobody's gonna do it for you. It's crucial that you pay yourself $1 for every $10 that you make. You put it into an
account that you cannot, and will not spend on
anything other than things that can potentially yield a return, we'll get into that later. But at the very least
it sits in an account that you don't touch. You don't waste it away
on everything else, that money is for you, it's
yours and yours to keep. Okay, so let's summarize
what we've learned so far and then let's move on to the
next most important thing. Number one is we're
not at Chuck E. Cheese. Number two is that the only
way to escape the nightmare of the Trinket shop tyranny
is to pay yourself first. Then the next most important thing is to increase your ability to earn. Once you've gotten into a habit of continually saving as much as you can, paying yourself first
before you pay anyone else then the only way to increase
your wealth or increase the rate in which you
accumulate this stack of cash that you have and you
don't touch is to increase the income coming in. So how do you do that? The easiest way is through education. Now, I don't mean you
have to spend four years and tens of thousands of
dollars getting a college degree because we live in the information age. There are so many marketable skills that you can learn online
for free without the need to pay a cent, like a perfect example of this is video editing. So I know a guy who I know quite well, he might even be watching this video and be like, hey, that's me. He just learned video
editing basically this year, you know, dabbled a little bit in the past and it led to a four to six
month stint working as a video editor for some company and
now he has that on his resume and now he can go get
another video editing job. People want things that are popular. Video content is extremely popular. You learn how to do Photoshop, you can pose as a thumbnail expert. People are hitting up my
DMs all the time saying, hey, do you want YouTube Shorts? People pay money for that kind of thing. You know, you look around
you, you're here on YouTube, you're watching a video,
someone edits videos, someone makes videos, be the
guy who knows a little bit more than your average person on
how to produce video content and boom, you have a job that's in demand. Learn how to do things, okay. Learn how to make things, how
to build things and monitor what you're consuming. With whatever you input into
your brain on a daily basis, you have to ask yourself
is this helping me grow? Is this helping me expand my expertise and my usefulness to
the world and the value that I can add to people? Or is it just keeping me
distracted and entertained? Because the bar is so low, like if you don't fill your
time constantly with TikTok and YouTube, you are so far
ahead of the pack in 2023. Just find ways to just not be on these platforms all the time and you are well ahead of everybody else. And then have the added
upgrade of educating yourself on how certain creative things work, how to start copywriting,
maybe how to leverage AI to make creative content. Stick your finger into the
air, analyze where the wind is blowing, start
working on what's popular and figure out more about
it and you'll be surprised as to how many people want to
pay money for people like you who know what to do. And also ask yourself and reflect on what is occupying your mind. Like what are you
excited by, motivated by? And that might sound like
meaningless mindset, gobbly gook, but it really is everything. What you are preoccupied
with and excited by reveals what your incentive structure is. You know, are you excited
about the new Bethesda game that's never gonna come out? Or are you excited
about financial freedom? Spending time with people you care about, your spiritual wellbeing,
your social wellbeing? Like where is your mind at? Because the answers to
these questions often reveal where you're gonna end up
months and years down the line. Okay, before we dive
into the next takeaway I just want to give a
big thank you to Audible for sponsoring this video. And I'm extremely excited that this video is sponsored by Audible, specifically because
an Audible subscription is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of like a high
value return on investment. Like instead of spending the
exact same amount of money on your sixth streaming
service subscription where you can watch 68 episodes
of a poorly written show that's going down the
gutter, why not spend that on something that gives you access to some of the greatest
insights ever recorded? You know, audio books like
"The Richest Man in Babylon" that will get you thinking about ways that you can change your
financial situation. And for those of you who don't
know Audible is the leading provider of spoken word, entertainment, and audiobooks all in one place. Every single month you receive one credit, which you can spend on any
audiobook of your choice, regardless of price and you get to keep that audiobook forever. And you also get access to
a rapidly expanding catalog of Audible originals,
podcasts and exclusive series. So if you're interested in
joining me in becoming big brain and expanding your mind,
then if you use my link in the description below or
text betterideas to 500-500 then you'll get a free 30 day trial. And also in August, I'll be
going live here on YouTube discussing the Charisma Myth. So if you head on over to Audible, or if you already have an Audible account download the Charisma Myth because we're gonna be talking
about that on the channel and I think it'll just
be a really good time. It's the first time I'm
doing something like this here on YouTube. So once again, head on over
to audible.com/betterideas, or text better ideas to 500-500 to get your free 30 day trial. Thanks again to Audible
for sponsoring this video. Oh, hey Joey, from the
future here I totally forgot to film this part, so here we go. As we talked about earlier,
you save your money, right? So as you're escaping the
Matrix you're starting to develop this pocket
of wealth for yourself. You're saving $1 for
every $10 that you make so that you're slowly making
your gold pouch fatter. What do you do with it? Do you just let it sit there? Well, you know what's funny
is if you did nothing else and you just let the money sit there, and you didn't invest it, you didn't let the money work for you, you would still be doing so
much more than most people. Most people don't save anything. But I do want to say that saving
while it is so much better than not saving it's also the
second worst thing you can do with your money. The worst thing is to not save at all. The second worst thing you
can do is to just save it and do nothing with it. And the reason why that's
bad, well, I mean it's good, but the reason why it's not optimal is because when your
money sits in the bank you actually lose money over time. I mean, you gain money over time assuming that you are saving it, but you
actually lose a lot of money due to inflation. Year after year because
of inflation your dollar, even though the dollar amount
is constant, the dollar value, the weight of the dollar
is going down over time. It's inevitable. So you're actually losing money, you're slowly leaking it
when it sits in the bank. Another important point to make is that when your money just
sits in a savings account in the bank, it's not actually
sitting in a savings account in the bank, right? This isn't the olden days
where you had sacks of gold and you gave it to a bank
and it's just sitting there. You know, you can open up the vault again and take your money out
whenever you want it. What's actually happening
is you're loaning your money to the bank and the bank is
doing what you should be doing with your money, but
they're doing it instead. And that's how they make a profit. That's how the banks make
money, is they borrow your money and they invest it and grow the money. And they say, oh yeah, you know what? We're just paying for security, so when you want your money
again you can take it out, but that's not always the case. You know, the Great
Depression proved that. If you've ever seen the
movie, "It's A Wonderful Life" you know there could be a bank run and you can't take your money out. The bank goes sorry, we
lost all of your money because the economy crashed. You can't do anything about it. So I think that's why it's crucial that while it is better than nothing to have your money sitting in the bank you should start learning how to invest. And I will never give
you investment advice because I'm not an expert, but I will give you just a
vague idea of what I'm doing. Essentially what I do
is I diversify, right. So instead of having 100%
of my money in the bank, I'm currently building a property where property value is high. I understand not everyone
has the luxury to do that, but you know I'll at least have some land that I can call my own
that has no mortgage on it. I really want to get
into buying some gold, you know some actual tangible
things that are out there as well as put money in
index funds and whatever, in the states you have 401ks or whatever. But the the point being
is that the only way that you're going to learn
how to invest is by investing. You're going to lose your money because you're not a pro at it. But "The Richest Man In Babylon"
has a lot of great advice about seeking advice. You'll start to gain a lot
of wisdom about evaluating the types of people that
have the highest probability of helping you out and giving
you sound investment advice and sort of making yourself immune to its too good to be
true type situations. Get rich quick schemes are schemes. The only way to get rich quick is to offer genuine value to people. To help people out you
either have to help a lot of people solve a small problem, or help a few people solve a big problem. And if you really luck out, you help a lot of people
solve a big problem, but it's not as easy as it sounds. So if you wanna get rich, maybe you help a few
people solve a big problem or a medium-sized problem. Maybe you invest in a
pressure washer for $500. Maybe you knock door to
door on people's doors because you knock on doors
when you go door to door and you say, hey I noticed
your driveway is really dirty, I'll pressure wash it for a hundred bucks. And they'll say, oh, a hundred
bucks, that's super cheap. Or they'll say, a hundred
bucks, that's a ripoff, my driveway is super small. You never know until you try. If you pressure wash four
driveways during the Summer then you pay for your
pressure washer back. See, investing doesn't always have to be into the stock market. There are ways where you
can invest in yourself. You know, maybe you buy
two pressure washers, three pressure washers, maybe
you start charging $200, you start paying a friend to help you with the pressure washing company. You take a little bit of the cut because you invented the
company and you scale. You know, there's so many
ways to invest in assets that will make you money. You just have to be creative
and you have to be engaged, and you have to fill
your mind with good ideas from audio books, YouTube
videos, online courses, talking with people who are knowledgeable, you know start occupying your
mind with inventive ideas and then go and take action on them. That's the most important thing. So step one, like I said be
aware that you're in the matrix. Step two or Chuck E Cheese or whatever. Step two is to escape Chuck E Cheese. Start paying yourself first, developing a little
money patch on the side that's growing and growing and growing, and adding and adding and adding. And all of a sudden while you're living a
very similar lifestyle, it's a lifestyle 90% similar
to how you were living, except the only difference is
that you have an accumulation of wealth growing. And then with that wealth,
start educating yourself on how to make the money work for you. Diversify so you're not just
keeping everything in the bank. Maybe this is stuff you've
heard a million times before, but if you are an average
person, you're not doing it. Statistically, you're
not doing these things. So really start with step one
and step two and step three. It doesn't have to be perfect, but the enemy of good is perfect. Perfect is the enemy of good, something like that. Take care guys. If you're investing, let me know in the comment section below what you're investing in. Are you banking everything on crypto, on a niche coin that
you're hoping blows up? Why is that not a get rich scheme? I wanna know these things, I wanna learn from you guys. Hopefully this video gives
you some ideas that... Hopefully it just
simplifies things for you. Personal finance does not
need to be super complicated. If you do the basics
and you nail the basics, you're doing so much
better than most people. But most people fail at the
basics and then they look for the super complicated get rich schemes while they're simultaneously
hemorrhaging money due to lifestyle inflation and
they're never saving anything or paying themselves first, or
developing any kind of wealth in the background. So nail the fundamentals and then go to the financial experts
of YouTube and try to find the best way to help your
money make you money. Other than that though,
guys thank you so much for watching this video as
per usual and I have a favor to ask of you if you are
on Instagram anyways, please follow the Better Ideas Instagram because I really want to start a podcast and I want to get the highest
quality guests possible, but my presence is so small on Instagram 'cause I barely use it. You know, I plan on using
it more, but when I slide into people's DMs that I want
to talk to I just get ignored because I have like no
presence on Instagram. So merely as a tool to help
me reach interesting people, go ahead and follow me on
Instagram at Better Ideas, so that I can secure the coolest, most badass and interesting guests on the secret podcast I am developing. Other than that, guys, good luck. If you're in a bad financial
place, it can get better. No matter how bad the
economy is around you, there are always outliers,
people who can change their situation through
hard work and determination and just the right information. You know, maybe you've
been given bad information, and hopefully this is kind
of simplifying things for you and gives you encouragement to help you develop
wealth slowly but surely, so that you can escape whatever
situation that you're in. And if you think I'm completely
oversimplifying things, fair enough, let me know why
in the comment section below because yeah I'm not a finance guy, so maybe I just have a
terrible take on all of this, but you know, these overly simple methods are working really well for me recently. I just find that simplifying
things just works better for my brain. So let me know all of these things. Looking forward to talking
to you guys in the future and stay hungry. I don't know, what do I usually say? That's all for today. Thank you so much for watching and we'll catch you in the next video.
