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Welcome to Money Talk for Real, a podcast where I talk about making money, spending money, and everything in between. I am Nick, and in this episode, let's just be honest with each other for a second. Okay. Most people, the average person, will probably never build real wealth. That's not to discourage you. I'm just being honest. This is money talk for real, the keyword for real. No BS. They're not going to build wealth not because they're not smart, not because they don't work hard, but because they're stuck playing the wrong game. Right? And the crazy part is a lot of people don't even realize it. They think, oh, well, I'm just doing everything right. And why am I not getting ahead? Well, that's what I'm talking about in this episode. I'm going to break down why most people never build wealth, the patterns that actually keep those people stuck and prevent them from doing it. And what actually separates people who build wealth from those who don't build wealth. The first thing is that they confuse income with wealth. A lot of people do this. You probably do this and don't even realize you're doing it. Heck, there's times that I do this. And I have a podcast that talks about money, right? The first mistake is that people think income equals their wealth. And it's not. You can, it is possible to make $40,000 a year and build wealth. It's also possible to make $250,000 a year and be completely broke because wealth is not what you make, it's what you keep and what you build. There's a difference in wealth and income. I just want to kind of hammer that home. Most people increase their income and then immediately increase their lifestyle. That's called lifestyle inflation. They get more money, they have more money coming in, so they spend it on nicer things. Maybe it's a better car, more expensive car. Maybe it's a better house. It's just more spending. So their kind of life improves, or at least they think it does. Their lifestyle improves because they have nicer things and they have money to do things, so they spend that money. But their position doesn't improve at all. Not one bit. That's the trap. They're making more money, they have more money coming in, but they're in the same situation. The next thing is that they never create a margin. I talk about margin and the gap and the buffer all the time. Wealth, to build wealth and to maintain wealth requires margin always. And what that means is that you consistently have money left over. There's a gap between how much money you're bringing in and how much money you have left over. But most people don't have that because their system looks something like this. They have income coming in, they pay their bills, they spend a whole bunch of money, and then they're down to zero. And you noticed how I just glossed over the whole spending a bunch of money because I don't know what they're spending money on. Probably junk they don't need. A lot of times people don't know what they're spending their own money on. That's called having zero control of your finances. And if you have no margin, then you have no progress. And if you have no progress, you have no wealth. It does not matter how much you make. If there's nothing left at the end, then there's nothing to build with. And people don't use usually build assets either. This is a big one. Wealth comes from the assets, something they've built and nurtured and maintained. Assets are things that grow in value, that don't cost you money. Things that cost you money are called liabilities. Things that make you money and grow in value, which in turn makes you money, those are assets. Or they they don't build those. They don't build things that grow in value. They don't build things that produce an income. An example could be building an investment, building a business, building content, building real estate. Those four things investments, businesses, content, and real estate are all assets. They can grow in value. They take time, they're nothing's a get rich quick scheme, but they're assets. Most people don't build assets. They consume, they pay for liabilities. They buy something, they use it, they're done with it, the money's gone, they spent their money, and they don't even know what they spent their money on. They spend their money on things that go down in value, liabilities, something that doesn't pay them back, something that doesn't move them forward. And over time, that gap becomes massive, right? Pennies add to dollars over time. I say that all the time. Because the person that's building the assets is getting paid again and again. Or at least they can in the future. I did make an episode talking about the passive income myth. You can go back and listen to that. But essentially, people think that you can make money. You know, I said the line a minute ago about getting paid again and again. That is a long-term plan. You're not going to build something that pays you overnight. Most people aren't. But you can build an asset, which is a long-term goal, a long-term, long game, long has a long tail on it. It takes a while, but you can build an asset that pays you again and again. The person that's not able to build wealth is consuming. They're buying something and they have to start over every single month because again, there's no gap. They have nothing recurring to make the money or grow in value. A lot of these people are too focused on the short term. And wealth is a long-term game. It takes patience, it takes motivation, it takes dedication. But most people just think in the short term. They want the overnight success. They want the quick results. We're all results-driven people. Let's be honest. We expect to do things and see something change for the good in a positive manner in our lives. We want quick results. We want fast money. We want immediate payoffs because otherwise we feel like we're wasting our time. We're not. You're just, it takes time, but we feel like we're wasting our time. So then they, you know, people will quit too early. If you're not seeing results, you give up. You change the direction too often. You get the shiny object syndrome. You see someone else making more money doing something else. So you're going to give up what you're doing to go chase what they're doing. But what you don't see is that maybe they just started making money. Maybe they've been working on it for 10 or 15 years and they're just now making money, but you don't see that part. You try to chase a trend, something that's a fad and trendy, instead of chasing consistency. Consistency will obviously always get you farther, but we don't see that part. Meanwhile, the person who's building wealth honestly can be quite boring. They stick to the same thing over and over and over and over again. They build it over time, they invest consistently. It is boring. It's not sexy. It's not flashy. It's not exciting sometimes, but they're building wealth and it works. So the next time you're trying to like get rich quick, focus on the guy that is that has wealth and ask him what he did. He's probably not a very excitable person. Here's one that's kind of subtle, though. People that are building wealth, um, they have control. Those that are failing to build wealth never take control. A lot of people are just reacting. Again, the bills come in, they pay them. The money comes in, they spend it. It's all a reaction. There's no plan, there's no direction, there's no intentional moves, there's nothing controlled about it. And if you're always reacting, you're never going to build anything. Building wealth, maintaining wealth, nurturing wealth, having wealth requires decisions. And those decisions need to be intentional ones, intentional decisions over and over again. Intentional and consistent. So let's simplify this. What actually works? What actually can build wealth? Create the margin, period. I feel like I say this all the time. Spend less than you make. Lock in your living expenses before you ever get a pay raise at work. Do not spend more just because you make more. The next thing, build an asset, not just the income. Your income is your tool right now. Because that, you know, that's what that's how you get your money from your day job. But build an asset. The margin that you create, that leftover money that you could have every single month, use it to build something that nurtures over time. And don't expect to see results. At least not up, you know, not for a while. It doesn't happen overnight. Stay consistent though. Even when it feels slow, even when you get discouraged, stay consistent. There's a saying, and I don't know the exact quote, but it's something along the lines of if you do anything for long enough, it's bound to work. Right? I mean, at some point, if you do something, anything for long enough, it will work eventually. You just don't know how long that timeline is. Nobody does. There's no secret. So stay consistent. Think in the long term. Think in terms of not weeks, not even months, I would say years. Just plan right now. If you could tell, if I could tell you with a hundred percent certainty, if you invested $100 a month, $50 a month, that in five years I could guarantee you $100,000. Would you do that? You probably would. Because you know the timeline. You know that in five years there's a payday. The reason you don't do it is because you don't know the timeline. I don't know the timeline either. No one does. But I know that there is a payday. Again, you do anything long enough, it will pay off. Think in terms of years is the point I'm trying to make. Don't think, well, I'll do this for 90 days. That's a good measurable timeline, three months. Maybe it's not. Maybe you need to do it for, you know, nine years. I don't know. I'm making that up. But do it in terms of years, not weeks. And then lastly, just stay in control. Stay intentional. You tell your money where to go. You've earned that money by working at your job. You've worked hard at your job to get that money. Don't be silly with it. Tell it where to go. Don't let it tell you where it's going. Don't let it be react. Don't be reactive with it. You tell it where to go. That's it. There's no secret. There's no hack. There's no, we don't have all the answers. It's just discipline and time. The truth is that most people don't build wealth, not because they can't. It's just because they don't stick with what works. And if they do, they don't stick with that long enough. So if you feel like you're getting stuck or you feel like you're not getting ahead, take a step back, deep breath, and just ask yourself Am I building wealth or am I just maintaining life? If this hit home, please reach out to me. Share it with someone that you think maybe not seeing progress. And if you want to walk through your own financial situation, you can submit that to me at money talkforreal.comslash debt help. That's money talkforreal.com slash D E B T H E L P. Thanks for listening. Leave it a five star review. I'll catch you on the next episode. This is Money Talk for Real.