You are so much richer than you think you are. I want to blow your mind with what I share here, because I consider myself exceptionally wealthy and I want you to be wealthy too. First, we need to define what wealth is, because a lot of people hear "wealth" and think only of money. To me, there's a lot more to it than that. Money is one form of wealth, absolutely. I've got $700 or $800 in cash sitting right here, and that's one form of wealth. But what good is this money if I'm not healthy enough to spend it? What good is it if I don't have time to spend it? What good is it if I'm miserable all the time and alone?
There are lots of different forms of wealth, and if you do anything as a result of reading this, I'm inviting you to take inventory of the wealth you already have in your life today. I'm going to do that by leading as an example. I'll show you the wealth I have in my life right now, and I'll invite you to inspect your own life, because you'll be surprised how wealthy you are.
What wealth really is — beyond money
Let's start with the money. I've got about $800 in cash here. What's funny is that a lot of you would think I'm broke, because I have a net worth of approximately negative $200,000 right now. You might think I'm broke. But there are people in the world that, if you whipped out a wad of seven or eight hundred-dollar bills in cash, would think you are absolutely, fantastically rich. It's important to see how relative your ideas of wealth really are.
You are so much wealthier than you think, because you're so used to living in the middle of wealth that you don't even know what it's like to be poor. Most of us are living in so much wealth that we have no experience of what it's like to not have any food, to not have a place to sleep, to not know how you're going to feed your family, to not have any health, joy, or free time. If you read Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, you'll see there are a lot of different forms of wealth, and money is just one of them — there are eleven others. I'll give you examples of how much wealth I have in my life, so you can take inventory of the wealth in yours.
A four-hour date and the wealth of free time
Yesterday I got a message from a woman I went out with a few weeks ago. I hadn't heard from her in a couple of weeks. She'd messaged me the night before and then gone quiet, and I'd already written her off. Then I woke up yesterday morning and she invited me to do three different things with her. I thought this was going nowhere, and suddenly she's inviting me to three different things. I find her very attractive. She's 23 years old, which is 19 years younger than me, as we calculated yesterday.
Because I'm wealthy in terms of time, I'm not stuck slaving away at a job. If I want to go spend time with her, I just do it. Yesterday I spent about four hours with her, because I didn't have to do anything else. One of the biggest forms of wealth you can have is not having to do anything else at significant moments in your life. As a parent, I can really see the value in that.
When I got divorced last year, in some ways I lost financial wealth. But in other ways I gained wealth in the form of free time. When I was married, I had less time where I was free to do anything I wanted, especially at my own house — my ex and I were home together a lot during the day. Having enough time to spend it however you want is itself a form of wealth, and that's part of what makes relationships tricky: some people want to spend a lot of time together and others don't.
I felt so wealthy yesterday, and I still feel wealthy today, because I didn't have to work right then and I got to enjoy the time. Some people think all you can see in wealth is a wad of cash, some nice stacks of bills. But do you know how wealthy I felt rolling into St. Pete Calisthenics with this woman I think is beautiful, 19 years younger than me, and we're in the sauna and the cold plunge together? That's priceless. I wouldn't trade being a billionaire for that feeling. That, to me, is as good as it gets — being able to have experiences you treasure that are fun.
I went out to eat with her too. I didn't get anything for myself, because I'm whole-plant-based and we met at Sourdough, which didn't have anything I wanted. But I paid for her, and she was impressed. I dropped about $80 going out with her, and I could do that because I have credit, because I have leverage. If you can borrow money, that is wealth. I'm borrowing money at 5% for a year or so right now, and that keeps up with inflation. Having credit, having leverage, being able to temporarily not have money coming in and still continue your lifestyle — that's a lot of wealth.
Relationships, memories, experiences. I want to record this because I had so much fun, and having the space in my life to be surprised is priceless. I didn't realize I was going to spend four hours on a date yesterday. It was awesome, and I ended up feeling totally fulfilled. Today I went to hang out with her for an hour at her work. She seemed sad when I said I was going home to film videos, and she's planning on coming over tomorrow. That's wealth.
And yet, if you read some of the comments, some people are extremely simple-minded about it — "you're going to run out of money later." I have money now. One way to enjoy your wealth is to think about how many different ways you could spend it. This $740 or so is enough to take five or ten women on a date depending on how fancy I'm getting. It's enough to take a hundred people on a coffee date. I could rent a nice car for a day. I could buy whatever I want at Whole Foods twice. Taking inventory of your wealth means thinking about all the things you could do with what you already have.
I'm amazed how many people I know who have all kinds of money in the bank and don't feel rich. I know a guy whose net worth is probably a million dollars higher than mine, but I live wealthier every day than he does, because he's stressed out, he has a hard time sleeping, and he doesn't think his car is nice enough. He criticizes my car because it's 20 years old — but I love my car. I bought it with my dad, it drives beautifully, and it's cheap to maintain. From his point of view, you need all this stuff financially to attract women, so he spends a fortune just to get dates on apps. Meanwhile I quit all the dating apps and I'm out meeting women in person. Even though his net worth looks higher, my health is vastly superior, my time freedom is vastly superior, and I have more freedom. I can just pop on and do a live stream whenever I want.
Relationships and kids — the number one wealth
To me, probably the number one form of wealth is relationships. I enjoyed that time with the woman yesterday, and then my kids came over afterward and spent the night so they could be here this morning for Father's Day. Having kids is a gigantic form of wealth — one of the wealthiest things you can possibly do. It's funny how the conversation around kids is so often about how much money they cost you. Do you realize how much love and joy and fun kids bring into a life? Yes, kids cost some money, but the other forms of wealth they bring in effortlessly are enormous. My kids are one of the greatest sources of wealth in the world. They play, they have fun, they unconditionally love me, and they value their time with me perhaps more than anybody else does.
The divorce over the last year really got me thinking about who's really important in my life, and it's obvious there's nobody more important than my kids. That's why, if I'm going to date a woman, I want to have more kids. Healthy, well-cared-for, loved kids are the most valuable contribution a person can make to humanity. My mom came over last night and we played Exploding Kittens. I went to the park with my son, we kicked a soccer ball and a kickball around and brought a football, and somebody just walked off with the football. My son was a little upset, and I told him, "No worries, I'll buy you another one." Wealth is being able to let go of something like that effortlessly — if somebody takes your stuff, fine, I'll just buy another one, and I'll buy it on credit. I didn't used to have a credit line over $100,000, and I love having one now.
I chose to move five minutes away from my ex after the divorce so I could be present for my kids, even though I could have moved a lot of places. Being a father is a huge form of wealth that a lot of men are wasting. I'm happy to support my kids financially while they support me in all these other forms of wealth.
Giving $20 away is proof you're wealthy
Here's one of my favorite tests of wealth. Yesterday the woman and I were walking down the street and a homeless guy walked up to us asking for money. A lot of people tense up in that moment. I love it — I'm about to show off. She gave him a dollar, which is great for the position she's in. I whipped out a $20. "Here you go, my man." He said, "Thank you, thank you, you've made my day. I'm going to be thinking about you all day. This is enough money for three days for me." I told him, "No problem, somebody gave it to me, and I'm happy I've got it to give to you."
The woman I was with had been homeless herself before, and she said, "Man, nobody ever gave me money like that when I was homeless." If you have money to give when somebody who's desperate asks you for help — if you can peel off one bill and not even notice it's gone — you've got wealth. And you don't have to be a millionaire or a billionaire. If you've got $1,000 in cash, you can feel extremely wealthy. Next time somebody comes along and asks you for money, I invite you to feel thankful instead. All I carry in my wallet is twenties and up, because there's no room for ones — this stack is fat enough.
It's not up to me whether they buy food or something else with it. If somebody is desperate enough and in bad enough shape to be asking for money on the street, I'm going to help out, and that has great karma. I've been thinking a lot lately about who I could give to that it really helps. When I give a homeless person $20, that really helps.
My homeless friend, the time billionaire
I have a friend who's homeless. I've given him way more than $20 over the years — thousands of dollars, honestly. One night I was on my way to an AA meeting and I sat down next to him for about 30 minutes. He talked most of the time, but there were quiet stretches too, and I could feel it: it was like sitting next to a time billionaire. Here I was with this busy schedule, and I could only even sit there because I'd already missed the first 30 minutes of the meeting I was headed to.
This guy has nowhere to be and nothing to do. Absolute freedom. I felt this sense of awe, the same way you'd feel sitting next to a billionaire. At the time my net worth was probably hundreds of thousands of dollars higher than his, and yet I felt like an absolute peasant sitting next to him. My whole life was scripted — go to the meeting, call mom, take care of the kids, put them to bed — and here was this man with total time freedom.
That's part of why I think the number you actually need is much smaller than people imagine. To me, you only need about $5 million in net worth to be set: maybe $500,000 to a million in cash, some ICP, a house you enjoy, and a car you enjoy. That's it. Aiming for $5 to $10 million net worth is easily achievable, and that's plenty. I don't need to be a billionaire, because I want my time freedom, my health, and my relationships all intact.
Whole-plant health and the energy it buys
When I rolled into the sauna at St. Pete Calisthenics with this woman 19 years younger than me, who do you think got out of their comfort zone first? She did. The sauna was so hot it was burning my nose to breathe, and I could have stayed in a lot longer than she could. My body is healthy enough to handle the cold and the heat extremes as well as most bodies 20-plus years younger than mine, because I take care of myself.
You want to know what I've eaten today? Half a purple sweet potato. Black beans I cooked and ate straight. Popcorn with seasoning and olive oil. Açaí and bananas I made for my kids this morning. A peanut-butter-chocolate-chip LÄRABAR, some seaweed snacks, a banana. I take immaculate care of what I put in my body, and my body works. I haven't been sick in years. My body has a fantastic level of energy, to the point where I need a woman in her 20s just to keep up with me.
If you've got your health, I don't care what's going on in the rest of your life — there's hope for you. Health is the number one area where you don't want to have poverty, because if you lose your health, everything else starts to slip away too. I would not trade my health for a thousand stacks of those twenties, which would be something like $700,000. None of that money would matter at all if I were too sick to enjoy it.
A clean conscience and real sleep
I also work on all my beliefs, and one of the biggest forms of wealth is having a clean conscience. When I fall asleep at night, I don't carry any guilt, remorse, or shame about anything I've ever done in my whole life. That gives me a clean conscience, and I can fall asleep. I've also exercised and dumped my energy out during the day, so by the time I hit the bed I'm ready to go — I gave everything I had during the day.
I'm sober now. Some of the structure that taught me to value space in my life came from AA meetings and a period when I had a lot less space than I do now. When my daughter was around three and my son was a newborn, my life was basically three things: work, self-care (AA meetings, massage, exercise), and taking care of my family. I was the main income provider at the time. Learning to protect a little space in that period is what eventually let me build the kind of free, unscripted days I have now.
Why I won't trade my hours for a paycheck
It's hard for me to even imagine working an eight-hour shift for someone else anymore. I went to see the woman at her job today — it was her last day there, and she didn't really like it. I asked if she got breaks, and she said not really. Trading eight hours of your day for a fixed amount of money, when that amount isn't even that much, is something I can't picture doing again.
A friend wanted me to do a podcast with him another night and offered me $50. I told him no. If you want an hour of me doing content creation, you're going to need to give me ten of these — that's $200, that's my rate. He said he was giving everybody else $50. I told him he's giving me $200 or I'm not doing it, because I can go home and do a live stream to my own audience and generally earn much more than $50 over time, and I'll be the star of the show with nobody else there distracting from me.
Being able to give your gift to the world is itself a form of wealth. Being able to step up and live stream, to do work I love and get paid for it, is a huge form of wealth. I love that I can do this. You can watch more of these money and wealth videos in my Money playlist if this is the kind of conversation you enjoy.
My 7,500 ICP and getting rich by doing nothing
The more you look at what you already have, the more it keeps multiplying. A lot of us have been tricked into playing hide-and-seek with our own wealth — "I don't have that, and I don't have that" — when the truth is you are so much richer than you think. I feel like an absolute billionaire right now because I've got my health, my relationships, and enough money to meet the needs of my day. I don't have to work for money; I'm borrowing right now to set that up. But I obsess about how wealthy I am now, because that's how I've created all the big financial wealth that's come to me — by feeling wealthy first. I don't need to grind and sacrifice to maybe get money later. I'm incredibly wealthy this second, and anything I get in the future only adds to what I already have.
Here's a point about not knowing how wealthy you are. Back when I was sitting on 60 Bitcoin, I had no idea how wealthy I was. I bought a thousand more ICP a day or two ago, and I have 7,500 ICP in my portfolio now. When I had all that Bitcoin — I actually sold over 80 Bitcoin at one point to a guy I knew at my office, who handed me a wad of cash about ten times bigger than this stack — I wasn't able to appreciate how much it could become one day. I didn't feel wealthy enough to hold onto that Bitcoin.
But I feel wealthy enough to hold my ICP today, because I see ICP as the one thing I have where I could do absolutely nothing and still become a millionaire. If the ICP price goes to around $130 to $150, counting my debt, I'll be a millionaire — and I literally wouldn't have to do anything. That's wealth: when you can do nothing and still have a real possibility of becoming a millionaire. It's not guaranteed; ICP could go to zero. I think that's unlikely, and I think it's probable ICP goes to $150 instead. Whether it takes a year or a decade remains to be seen. With Bitcoin I wasn't ready to wait a decade — it felt like forever. But sitting still and doing nothing to become a millionaire is worth waiting for. You can follow my full ICP journey in the ICP Crypto playlist, and I broke my holdings down in my full crypto portfolio update.
My kids hold ICP too, and they're down on it right now, but it's a good lesson in patience. I believe in giving my kids whatever I can, as long as it's not junk food. I got them a PS5, an Xbox Series X, a gaming PC, and another PC. I dropped a thousand dollars on plane tickets to take them to Michigan in a month — the first trip I'll take with my kids by myself that I can remember. When I was married, my ex wouldn't let me take the kids anywhere on my own, so this is a big form of wealth for me.
One more thing on giving: I'm of the mindset that it's better to give money to people who don't have it than to hoard it. I don't plan on having anything when I pass on — I'd rather see the joy of giving it all away while I'm alive, and if I mess up and have some left, give it away before I go. I'll make it rain all over the earth when I pass on. I even joke that I'm just doing slightly upgraded panhandling with these videos — I've got a YouTube studio now, but I'm basically out here asking the world for support and giving as much back as I can.
Gaming, GTA 6, and time wealth
One of the reasons I quit gaming before was that it felt like a waste of my time. But now, if I have time to play video games and make money, take care of my health, keep up my family relationships, and parent my kids, then playing games is just proof of how wealthy I am. My ex has the kids about four days a week and I have them three, on the same fixed days every week, and we set our routines around that instead of a rotating schedule. I have time for all of it — and I even have time to date as often as possible.
There are all these live streams out there about men giving up on dating. Not this man. I'm dating harder than ever, and all the men who want to get out of my way, please feel free. I think a lot about the wealth of time I used to have, too. As a young man I had eight hours a day to play video games, seven days a week. That's a crazy amount of time wealth — being able to throw your time away on Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 and get eight nukes in one night. I want to do a gaming stream and try the new Star Trek game, and when GTA 6 comes out I'd love to play it. I wasn't that into GTA 5; San Andreas was the last one I was really into.
The wealth we take for granted every day
Some of us are so wealthy we act like a spoiled kid who's never not had it good and so can't see how good they've got it. A lot of us are like that. Have any of you ever gone a single day in your life without food, unless you chose to fast? I've never had a single day in my life where I didn't have a building to sleep in. Sometimes it was on somebody's couch, but I've never had to sleep in my car — I tried a couple of times when I was drinking and trying not to drive drunk, but I'm sober now. I've never had one day where I had to sleep outside. I've never had one day without food, because I couldn't get any. That is so much wealth, and most of us take it completely for granted.
We also live with a lot of freedom compared to most of the world. A lot of us have never lived somewhere you had to be afraid for your life based on what you said. You can talk pretty freely here. That's real wealth, and it's worth appreciating.
I had a guy tell me I couldn't get women with the car I drive, the hairline I've got, and the income I've got. I told him: watch me. I get women with the car I've got and the hairline I've got because I've got confidence, and confidence comes from wealth — from knowing how blessed you are. I went through a stretch where it felt like the universe was working against me. I got divorced, my net worth dropped about $100,000, and I moved out of the house I was in. Was that what I deserved? I dug into that question in "Did I Get What I Deserve?" The way I see it now, I wanted a new chapter — a new home and a relationship that brings out my full potential — and everything that happened was clearing the way for it.
Take inventory of your wealth today
So here's what I do, and what I'm inviting you to do. The more you look at what you have, the more it multiplies. A lot of us look at material things and say, "When I get a house like that, I'll be wealthy. When I get the cars, I'll be wealthy. When I get the relationship, I'll be wealthy. When I get the money to invest, I'll be wealthy." But the most important thing is to see how wealthy you already are right now. That's what effortlessly attracts more wealth.
If you've got your health, there's hope. If you've got people who love you, you're rich. If you've got time that's actually yours, you're rich. If you can peel off a bill and give it to someone who needs it more than you do, you're rich. I'm dating, raising my kids, staying sober, eating well, holding my ICP, and feeling like a billionaire at a negative net worth — because I count the wealth that actually matters. I hope this helped you appreciate the real wealth you already have. Be rich today, and appreciate your wealth.