Worked for the Ultra‑Wealthy… Here’s What They Don’t Want You to Know

In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on what wealth really does to people. After years of working for ultra‑wealthy families — old‑money, new‑money, almost‑billionaires, and the ones who think they built everything themselves — I’ve seen the patterns up close. The isolation. The power trips. The loss of perspective. And the moments when money becomes a shield instead of a tool.

I also break down the recent Jeff Bezos interviews and explain why the way he talks about taxes is so misleading. Not from a financial‑guru standpoint, but from the lived reality of someone who’s watched how wealth actually works behind the scenes.

This isn’t a rant. It’s a reality check — about money, power, and the stories we tell ourselves about success. And it’s also about the people who get it right: the Dolly Partons, the Sara Blakelys, the ones who stay grounded and generous no matter how high they climb.

If you’ve ever wondered what the ultra‑wealthy are really like, or why money changes people the way it does, this one’s worth your time.

If this episode brought you a little joy, consider liking, subscribing, or sharing it with someone who might need it.

As always, remember it really is All About The Joy.

Thank you for stopping by.  Please visit our website: All About The Joy and add, like and share.  

You can now watch the livestream version of the show on YouTube at @CarmenLezeth 

You can also support us by shopping at our STORE - We'd appreciate that greatly.  Also, if you want to find us anywhere on social media, please check out the link in bio page.

Music By Geovane Bruno, Moments, 3481
Editing by Team A-J
Host, Carmen Lezeth


DISCLAIMER:  As always, please do your own research and understand that the opinions in this podcast and livestream are meant for entertainment purposes only. States and other areas may have different rules and regulations governing certain aspects discussed in this podcast.  Nothing in our podcast or livestream is meant to be medical or legal advice. Please use common sense, and when in doubt, ask a professional for advice, assistance, help and guidance. 

Transcript

Carmen Lezeth HOST

[00:00:00] I've had so much experience working for and with wealthy people that I thought I would share some of the things I have learned. And the reason why I'm doing it is because I think we all have a different idea about what it means to be a millionaire or a billionaire, and in my experience, nothing could be farther from the truth than what the perception isI have worked for people of all different types of wealth, but still on the higher end of the wealth craze, and I will give you some examples to put it in perspective.

[00:00:51] I worked for one family that is old-school oil money kind of family, so, uh, exactly what you think you see on television, but just kind of, um, they have nannies, their kids have nannies, they were raised by nannies , you know? Um, there's just a lot of people around doing stuff for them. I worked for another family.

[00:01:17] their estate was just absolutely beautiful, one of the beauti- most beautiful homes I've ever seen to this day. Uh, tennis courts, pools, um, the whole bit. Lots of garages and cars, and the thing about this family, though, they had... And this is not the norm, but everybody was in uniforms that worked for them.

[00:01:40] So the staff would come in in the morning, and they would change into their, uh, uniforms, and I always thought that was weird. and I didn't last there very long. But I thought, like when I first-- I remember this. I remember when I first started, like that day, I thought there was some, you know, something special happening because everybody was dressed in these uniforms.

[00:02:00] And I was like, "Wait a minute. What?" This was like their regular day. And so, but I'll, I'll never forget working for them 'cause there was so many things I learned from those people as well. Um, I've worked for people who are self-made, you know, and I say that with a little caveat because they also didn't grow up extremely poor, but they were left money or they were given money by a a parent or whatever, and then they took that bulk of money and then made it into millions of dollars.

[00:02:29] But I don't know anybody who-- I did-- I have not worked for somebody who really had nothing at the beginning and created something out of nothing. Some of the stories that we hear, even like, um, I don't know. I, I won't name names, but you can guess. There's very many people who were handed... Like if you're handed $100 million or you're handed a million dollars, I'll take a million dollars, and you can kinda test things out and know that you'll always have a roof over your head and food on the table, that makes it really much easier to kind of test things out and try and, uh, to fail.

[00:03:14] It's much easier to fail when there's a cushion, and that cushion being a roof over your head and food on the table no matter what you do. I think what- People of wealth don't understand, and I've explained this to some of my clients, is you didn't do this on your own. You were given an amount of money.

[00:03:38] And I remember one of my clients said to me, "No, I went to the bank and took that loan out." And I said, "You know what? You were able to get that loan because your dad has investments and has been working with that bank for over 30 years. And so when you walked in, you walked in with a legacy of information and possibility, and worst case scenario, your dad would foot that $100,000 loan you got."

[00:04:05] You know? And he was kind of upset with me, but he knew I was right. He knew I was correct about that. And so I've worked with a lot of different people on different levels of wealth, but I have yet to meet someone and work for somebody who really was struggling and, and doing what they had to do and then became, you know, ultra wealthy.

[00:04:28] And the interesting part about this is, um, you know, Jeff Bezos, who owns Amazon, is someone who has a really interesting beginning story. Um, his parents were, like, regular people who had regular jobs, and he started in his garage, you know, packaging up books himself. That's how he started Amazon. And it's an interesting story because it gets lost along the way because of the person he's become.

[00:04:58] And part of what I wanna share today is I've seen that transition. I've seen how people who have been given some money or who have been given an opportunity and have then made lots of money, and then watched how that money and that perceived power, uh, translated into being not such a great person. Uh, I have walked away from numerous people because I've blown up at them and, uh, yelled at them.

[00:05:36] And then there are a couple people, um, that I actually became great friends with who had lots of money because, um, when I did blow up at them, they were able to take a moment and, uh, reflect back. I've told this story before. We'll just call her Rose, Ms. Rose. she was an older client of mine, and I had started working for her when I first came out to Los Angeles.

[00:06:05] And at first I was working for her as a personal assistant, and that lasted, like, I think three months, and I couldn't do it. So I started doing bookkeeping for her, and then she hired, a personal assistant. But I remember vividly, having so many conversations with her because she just couldn't grasp how much she had, lost her way because she didn't understand the basics of how regular people function.

[00:06:37] Now, she was one of the people that grew up with nannies. Her children have nannies, and her grandchildren have nannies, and everybody lives off of the interest of trust funds. Like, this is probably the closest to a billionaire I've ever worked for. Um, and she wasn't a billionaire, but close. but, you know, all of her assets all together, whatever.

[00:06:59] But I think what's fascinating about my relationship with her is that once I had this blowup with her it changed, and it taught me so much. So here's what I'll say. I'll give you the moment that it changed. I've told this story before, but, uh, she had gone shopping. She had come back, and this is something, a regular thing she would do.

[00:07:21] She would go shopping for clothes or whatever it is, and she came back, and she was showing me all of the things she had bought. And, um, a $600 T-shirt will never get out of my head 'cause, uh, that was part of why I blew up at her. But while she was out, her, uh, housekeeper had come and asked me for a dollar raise, and I had just started working there.

[00:07:45] But the housekeeper was so humble and kind and, you know, she was almost in tears and embarrassed to even ask. And she had been working for her forever, like years and years. And so when my client, Miss Rose, came back and was showing me all the clothes she bought, the $600 T-shirt or whatever, and I told her, "Here are your messages.

[00:08:07] Here's blah, blah, blah. Oh yeah, by the way, your housekeeper was asking if she could have a raise of a dollar an hour," she completely just had like a temper tantrum, like a... I don't even know how to explain it. To this day, it is one of those moments where I was like, "What am I watching right now?" She was just beside herself that somebody on her staff would ask for a raise, and there was all of this like yelling and just completely...

[00:08:36] And I just watched it. I watched it, and then when she was quiet, I was like, "Are you done? Are you done?" And then I went off on her. And as I'm going off on her, because she is showing me clothes that she just bought that could fund three people who are on salary at the moment, you know? 

[00:08:59] But she was appalled that somebody was asking for a raise. So I was putting stuff in my bag or whatever and ready to leave 'cause I thought she was gonna get fired, but I didn't care, you know? And she had that aha moment. She had that moment where she realized how stupid she was being because I was pointing it out to her.

[00:09:19] And I think that's one of the things about being wealthy is you become very isolated. You become not just, like physically isolated, right? Because you have everybody doing stuff for you all the time. You, you know, you don't have to make any phone calls. You don't have to hold on, on the phone for anybody because people will either jump to it when you call or somebody else is holding the phone until somebody comes on the line and then will bring it to you, right?

[00:09:46] Will hand it to you. Um, you don't have to make f- um, any reservations at a restaurant, and even if they're full, they'll fit you in because you're who you are. And, uh, you're not gonna have to change your, you know... If you wanna go to a restaurant that's fully booked, they will fit you in because they know you.

[00:10:06] They know your name, you know? Um, you start to isolate yourself because then you become also, this was a big one, suspicious of why people are inviting you places. That was an interesting one. Uh, one of my other clients used to always say to me, "Carmen, I don't want people to know. I don't want people to know how rich I am because if they know how much money I have, you know."

[00:10:29] And I was like, "You do realize your entire outfit that you're wearing right now is like $30,000. Like, we can see that. Are you gonna like, you know, dumb it down a bit or bring it down a bit and wear something from Target or something?" Like, I couldn't understand that idea too. There was like an embarrassment of the amount of wealth that they had.

[00:10:50] Um, that's the old school money. That's like the real, real hardcore money, right? People like Jeff Bezos who made their money and made their wealth have a whole other different problem. They actually believe that they are somehow great because of what they have accomplished, and they see that in the things that they can purchase and buy.

[00:11:22] So it's an interesting dynamic. It's, "I want you to know how much money I have all the time because I am great." And here's the thing that's interesting about working for any rich people. Everybody around them is somebody they pay. Everybody. Even their children have money, right? Even their children and the people they love, even their friends are people they probably pay because either their friends are as wealthy as they are, or they've paid friends to help them along or whatever.

[00:11:59] And so there's always this question in the background of whether or not, uh, they love me or like me because I have money. I've had these conversations with people. This is part of what I do, and it's fascinating. 

[00:12:15] Um, most people do like that I'm blunt. They just don't like hearing the truth, right? But the fact that I can do that with also extremely wealthy people has been kind of my niche, has been kind of my thing. And I think what I've learned about money is it doesn't just isolate you from people in a physical way, but it's really emotional.

[00:12:41] There's also an emotional attachment to it because you're always questioning, you're always wondering, you're always unsure. And that, I think, is, uh, universal with everyone I have met and worked with who's had a lot of money. One of the other things that's really interesting, especially for somebody like a Jeff Bezos, um, and I'm, I'm using him as an example for a reason, but someone like Jeff Bezos has forgotten where he comes from, and that's always fascinating.

[00:13:11] I don't excuse people who grew up in wealth because they don't know any different. That's not what I'm saying either, because they should've been taught that stuff. But somebody like a Jeff Bezos, um, who does have actually humble beginnings, it's quite fascinating to kinda see him in this other mold where he literally seems to have forgotten truths, absolute truths.

[00:13:37] So let's watch this take right here, this video, and I'll explain it on the other side

[00:13:43] These people, uh, sometimes say that, uh, that, you know, uh, I don't pay taxes. It's not true. I pay billions of dollars in taxes, and it's a perma- again, if people want me to pay more billions- Right ... then let's have that debate, but don't pretend, you know, that this, that that's gonna solve the problem. You could, you could double the taxes I pay, and it's not gonna help that teacher in Queens.

[00:14:06] I promise you. Well- This is, th- th- Right So you can't connect those two things, not logically. Uh, you know, there, there, there, there are more examples. Why is rent expensive? Why is rent so expensive? I recently saw somebody blamed it on Airbnb. Okay, Airbnb is not the cause of expensive rent. Right. In fact, it's been almost- No, no.

[00:14:26] Let me finish here. One sec. It's already been outlawed- Right ... in, uh, New York City, and rents are still very high. So we know Airbnb isn't causing high rents

[00:14:38] So a lot of people have commented on this, uh, interview that he did, so I'm not gonna reiterate that part of the conversation because you can see it in the comments section of other people's TikToks and, uh, people have already talked about it. But what I'm gonna say is that it's disingenuous. It's not true.

[00:15:00] And the reason why it's not true is because what he is doing here is playing with words. He's playing with semantics, thinking, knowing, uh, that people don't know the difference. So when we talk about taxing each other, right? We want rich people to be taxed the same way we are taxed. The only way that I am taxed every single day is, just on a simple level, is my paycheck.

[00:15:31] I get a paycheck, and then taxes are taken out. Federal taxes are taken out of that paycheck, and that's whether I'm a 1099, you know, employee and independent contractor, which I actually am, or, or a W-4. So a 1099 is somebody who works as a independent contractor. I have to pay taxes on the money I get every year, okay?

[00:15:53] But most people get taxes taken out of your, paycheck every week or every two weeks, whatever it is you get paid. And it doesn't matter, you get $400,000 a year or you get $30,000 a year, you get federal income taxes taken out of your paycheck.

[00:16:09] You get state income taxes taken out. You have to pay Social Security, you have to pay all of those things, whatever. You have to pay so many different things, and that makes your weekly check or your biweekly paycheck much less than what you actually are getting paid because you pay taxes What Jeff Bezos is talking about here is that his company, amazon.com, pays billions of dollars in taxes.

[00:16:45] That's true. That is the price of doing business in this country. That is a corporation tax. That's not what anybody's talking about. If you have basically monopolized... Is that the right word? You have taken over every mom-and-pop shop or every bookstore or whatever, and you have this huge, huge company that makes so much money, yes, you have to pay taxes to have that company.

[00:17:20] That's not what we're talking about. That's the price of doing business in this country. But what Jeff Bezos is not telling you that is actually documented anywhere is that he only pays taxes on his salary of $80,000 a year. That's it. He makes $80,000 a year, and he pays the same taxes you and I do, depending on what state, and he pays his federal income taxes from that, $80,000.

[00:17:53] And he pays his state taxes and everything else, because in the big scheme of things, he only makes $80,000 a year as an employee of amazon.com Now you and I both know, right? We know that that's not what he lives off of. And that's how most people who are billionaires and of any amount of wealth, that's what they do.

[00:18:22] They turn around and they have the ability with a CPA or their financial teams to turn around and use every loophole anywhere that they can find to pay the least amount of taxes. With Amazon, his company, they're not paying their full amount because they have a team of people. But okay, they do. They pay billions of dollars in corporate taxes as they're making tons of money.

[00:18:52] What we're saying, now I'm talking just to Jeff 'cause he seems so confused and flustered, what we're saying is that is not what you live off of. You live off the money you make by taking out loans against your assets. And assets, for people who may not know what that is, it's just stuff you own. So if you own your house, that's an asset.

[00:19:18] And so if you go to a bank and you say to the bank, "Hey, bank, I have an asset here. I have a, a house," or, "I have a car," or, "I have something worth money, can you give me a loan against that house?" That's what Jeff Bezos does. He goes and he takes out money against that house that he owns, and he lives off of that money.

[00:19:43] Then he goes to another bank and says, "Hey, I have stocks that I don't pay any taxes on that are attached to Amazon." He doesn't sell those stocks either, by the way, right? So he has the stocks that he gets money from, like that, that he gets 'cause he owns amazon.com, and I guess it's, I guess it's just Amazon, not amazon.com, but Amazon in general, the entity.

[00:20:09] Um, and he turns around and he says, "I wanna take out an- a loan, another loan against my," whatever it is, "million dollar stocks that I own." And the bank says, "Sure." And he uses that money to pay off that loan and to live off of. And they do this over and over and over again. And I'm making it really simple because that's the easiest way to understand it.

[00:20:39] But when he gets on television and says to you that you can ch- you, you can- "I'll pay even more money," that's not gonna help the person in Queens, the nurse in Queens. He's being disingenuous. He's lying And this is the thing, this is the thing that kills me of all the people that I meet who are wealthy.

[00:21:04] They've lost their way. They've lost their way because they forget where they came from, and then they actually believe that the things that they're saying, we're going to take in hook, line, and sinker, right? Like, we're just gonna... We're not gonna question it. We're not gonna... Because they believe that they are so smart and brilliant now.

[00:21:25] And that gets to the next part, right? You're, you have this weird kind of loss of friction, right? Because you don't interact with other people. And in order to stay a grounded human being, you really need to be around people who challenge you, who question you, who say no, who say something to make you really think your belief system.

[00:21:49] But when nobody is questioning you, when nobody is saying, "No, Jeff, you're wrong," and you're just being flattered all the time, everyone is always saying like, "Oh my God, yes, absolutely. Yeah, you're amazing. Oh my God, did you build Blue Origin?" Or whatever it is he owns, you know? Like, there, there's only flattery after flattery.

[00:22:11] Nobody pushes back. Nobody says no. Nobody says no. So you keep believing that you are greater than you actually are, and then you go and do interviews like this. Let's look at another interview

[00:22:25] So people talk about, you know, making the tax system more progressive. How about we start by having the nurse in Queens not pay taxes? At all. Why is somebody... At all. Why is some, why is a nurse in Queens who makes $75,000 a year paying more than $1,000 a month- Right ... in taxes? That's $1,000 a month that could help with rent or groceries or anything.

[00:22:49] And so, and, and by the way, do you know what that all adds up to? The, the, the bottom half of income earners in this country pay only 3% of the taxes. So- It's only 3%. We can find 3%, so we don't have... It's, it's, it's a small amount of money for the government. Right. You know that. And really it's, and the more I thought about it, to me, it's kind of absurd that we're doing this.

[00:23:16] You know, we shouldn't be asking this nurse in Queens to send money to Washington. They should be sending her an apology. It really makes no sense.

[00:23:29] And look it, I'm not just trying to pick on Jeff Bezos, but it's just too rich not to, right? And I mean, the s- he did these interviews, and it's like this is all so disingenuous. It sounds really great to say that people who make under 70,000, isn't it interesting under 70,000 when now you know he makes 80,000?

[00:23:55] Okay, people under $70,000 shouldn't pay any taxes. That sounds good, right? It sounds interesting. But like he said, people under that amount of money that are making less than 70, they're only paying 3%. That part is true. What he doesn't say is that people making under $70,000 a year are also pay, paying things that have nothing to do with their paychecks.

[00:24:24] Property taxes, for example, sales tax. We pay gas tax. We pay all of these other things. We're still going to be taxed if we make under $70,000 a year. So he's just talking about don't make them pay federal income tax. And again, shifting the conversation to him doing more, being better. Jeff Bezos' people that work for him at Amazon who actually are the reason why he has the success that he has, because let me tell you this, this is the one thing I know for sure.

[00:25:05] Nobody becomes successful by themselves. Nobody. You cannot do it by yourself. I don't care what you think the story is. You need to have the break. You need to have somebody who says, "I believe in you," or, "I'm gonna help you out," or a bank who's gonna say, "I'm gonna give you a loan. I'm going to take a risk on you to see how you do."

[00:25:30] He knows better than this. And so when he's talking about this situation and he's talking about it, he's being disingenuous. Again, that's like my favorite word for wealthy people, being disingenuous You can turn around and take a billion dollars, not even that much, I don't even know, but you can pay your own workers, the people that created the wealth for Jeff Bezos, get paid more than minimum wage, just a little bit, but still not enough not to need SNAP benefits, not to need a second job, not to need other assistance This is around the world.

[00:26:18] And depending on where you live, it's harder because they get paid the minimum wage and just recently raised it just a little bit, just enough. He could pay his people well enough, like a good, decent living. They could all have a decent living, and he'd still be a billionaire. He still would not suffer one bit because he doesn't live off of his $80,000 a year salary from Amazon

[00:26:52] When I say to people that the people I have worked for, the amount of wealth, clients that I have had, that I would not trade my life. I never once was jealous, not of them, not of their children. You know? I mean, I think it's because the one thing I know for sure is that money does not make you happy. And I know people are trying to twist that around now.

[00:27:21] I know people are trying to be like, "Yes, it does." Someone who said that... Yeah, no. That's not true. Happiness is on a pendulum, right? Happiness is something you experience because you know sadness. Happiness, if you have a life at all, you will experience it once in a while, maybe more times than most or whatever, but happiness is not the goal.

[00:27:47] I've said this a million times. Joy is, and joy is not about a dollar amount. Joy is something you can't pay for, just like respect. And that's the other part of this that is fascinating to me. Everyone I know that has this amount of wealth and is not in their right state of mind about it, so that's how I'll put it, is looking for validation.

[00:28:19] They're looking for respect, and it's all fake power. Because just having a lot of money and having the ability to hurt people with that money or make them keep begging or make them keep hoping for more, that's not real power I have had people working, and I've done this, I've had people working for one of our clients and that they were so miserable I helped get them out to move to another place of work 'cause I knew that this place was about to break them

[00:28:59] I'm not saying all wealthy people are bad, 'cause they're not. There are people who are absolutely brilliant wealthy people that I've worked for. Not as many as the wealthy people I've worked for that are not great. Um, but the truth is, is that money doesn't change your ability to have joy. Joy is something you have to figure out because it's within, right?

[00:29:27] It's innate. It's something you have to work on, and no amount of money is going to make you happy. And that's the struggle you see. That's why you see people become so absurd about money and what it can do for them. That's why you'll see Jeff Bezos and his wife try to take over the Met Gala and look absolutely ridiculous and out of place, because they want so badly to fit into places they don't belong in.

[00:29:57] Not yet, anyway, because they're not authentic people. They're not authentic in who they are. And I've never met Jeff Bezos, but just this interview was ridiculous. And I'm not a big aficionado of financialness, but I know enough to know that he's lying, that he's playing with words, that he's ob- obfuscating.

[00:30:24] I can't even say the word. Like, he's hiding the truth. Everyone knows I stutter, so whatever. But, um, you don't have to be a genius to understand what I just talked about, and I think it's really important. Because I actually think the quest for more money, for everybody wanting money, for everything to be about money...

[00:30:47] Everything in this country, in the United States, is about money. Everything. We have created monsters of ourselves because our whole world every single day revolves around money and the exchange of money for something It's not just the United States, it's the world. And I think it's shameful, and you can see it.

[00:31:12] You can see how manipulative it is. You can see how much it can hurt and damage people And I'll end with this part I think if I've learned anything, I look up to people like Dolly Parton, who would be a billionaire, but she goes out of her way to help the world. She embodies joy, and it's because money is not what makes her brilliant.

[00:31:45] Money is not the definition of who Dolly Parton is. I don't even listen to her music , you know what I mean? Like, I'm not a country music fan at all, but Dolly Parton is one of these brilliant people that everyone respects and admires. That's real power. Sara Blakely is the person that invented or created Spanx.

[00:32:13] Um, and I say that as if I've never worn them, but I think they're still called Spanx. Um, she used to, uh, sell fax machines or something, which is kind of a funny, great story. You don't hear that much about her, but I follow her on LinkedIn, and a magnificent woman, also a billionaire, who is just someone who is just doing her thing and helping the world as she goes along.

[00:32:36] And she created something, just like Jeff Bezos did, just like Dolly Parton did, and is somebody who is sharing with the world and embodies a kind of authenticity that I think we all crave. That's what we all want, is to be our best human selves. Warren Buffett, We can go down the list of all the greats, and while I'm here, why don't I go down the list just to give Jeff Bezos some information on where he's headed if he doesn't make some changes quick.

[00:33:10] There are people who have regretted, their lives, and they were immensely wealthy, right? Andrew Carnegie, is a great... Carnegie. You've heard of Carnegie. he had said, "The man who dies rich dies disgraced." it's kind of an interesting thing to think about, Rockefeller. he was actually the first billionaire in US history, and late in his life, he said, "I have made millions, but they have brought me no happiness."

[00:33:39] one of my favorites, and this one's a good one because he's always in the news, Nobel. Alfred Nobel. people know because of the Nobel Peace Prize or whatever, but what happened with him is actually one of my favorite stories, is, He accidentally saw his obituary.

[00:33:59] Somebody thought he had died and wrote his obituary, and at the top it said, " The Merchant of Death." Because if you don't know, Afr- Alfred... I can't say his name. Alfred Nobel actually was the inventor of dynamite. And see, that's not what he's known for, because the minute he saw that obituary, he changed his life and turned around and created the Nobel Prizes, and that's what we know him for, right?

[00:34:30] Steve Jobs had a lot of regrets. He said, "The nonstop pursuit of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being," and he regretted a lot of things in his life. Um, look at these are just some samples of people who had immense wealth, and I think embody a lot of people who are extremely wealthy who have lost their way that I have worked with.

[00:34:58] And I don't think money is a bad thing, but I also don't think it's a good thing. Money is a tool. It doesn't give you power. It gives you the ability to make things, to change things, to have choices. But we as a society have to come to terms with what it means to not just have money, but also what it means for people not to have money.

[00:35:27] And is it okay for there to be so many billionaires and people with so much money when most people are making under $70,000 a year, and some are making much less than that and can't make ends meet? That's not the world I wanna live in, so... Anyway, thank you again for hanging out. I hope that was kind of helpful and interesting and intriguing, or at least something to think about.

[00:35:55] And remember, at the end of the day, it really is all about the joy. Bye, everyone.