How to Get Rich on Easy Mode

AAli Abdaal
Small Business/StartupsAdvertising/MarketingJob SearchBeginning Investing

Transcript

00:00:00- If you look at the game of capitalism,
00:00:01the game of trying to get rich,
00:00:02there are essentially two ways to play it.
00:00:04There's hard mode and there is easy mode.
00:00:06Hard mode is what society romanticizes.
00:00:09Like, you know, the struggling artist
00:00:10or the passionate entrepreneur selling handmade candles
00:00:13at the local farmer's market.
00:00:14Or the guy lovingly crafting tote bags
00:00:16and hoping someone on Etsy is gonna buy them.
00:00:17We love these stories.
00:00:18They're authentic and they're also a terrible,
00:00:20terrible strategy for actually getting rich.
00:00:23Trying to get rich on hard mode is like trying
00:00:24to convince a stranger to take their hard earned
00:00:27post-tax salary and spend it on something
00:00:29that they probably don't need.
00:00:31You are fighting against their rent and their student loans
00:00:33and they're crippling financial anxiety.
00:00:34And so every dollar they give you is a dollar
00:00:37that they are literally taking away from their future.
00:00:39Now getting rich on easy mode is different
00:00:40and almost no one talks about it
00:00:41because it sounds way less romantic.
00:00:43You get rich on easy mode when you follow one simple rule,
00:00:47help other people make money.
00:00:49That is it, help other people make money.
00:00:51That is the entire thesis of this video.
00:00:52So here's how this video is gonna work.
00:00:54In part one, I'm gonna try and convince you
00:00:56that this is actually true,
00:00:57that the way to get rich on easy mode
00:00:59is to help other people make money.
00:01:00And then in part two, assuming you buy the thesis,
00:01:02I'm gonna share the four principles that you can apply
00:01:05to actually get rich on easy mode.
00:01:06And those will apply whether you have a job or a side hustle
00:01:09or you are thinking of starting a business.
00:01:11So the uncomfortable truth behind how the economy works
00:01:15is that the economy is functionally a giant pyramid scheme.
00:01:18The value gets generated at the bottom of the pyramid
00:01:20and it's captured at the top.
00:01:21So money tends to flow upwards through society.
00:01:24Now, if you, for example, think of starting a business,
00:01:26the place where you're probably gonna start
00:01:28is by selling to consumers,
00:01:30i.e. people at the bottom of the pyramid.
00:01:31But this is actually where the money is tightest.
00:01:33This is where people are drowning in debt
00:01:35and people are living paycheck to paycheck.
00:01:36And so trying to build any kind of business
00:01:39or even any kind of career serving consumers,
00:01:41people at the bottom of the pyramid
00:01:42is unlikely to get you rich on easy mode.
00:01:45Like if you take Amazon as an example,
00:01:46you and me will think of Amazon as that place,
00:01:48online shopping place where we go to get our groceries
00:01:50and toothbrushes and books and stuff.
00:01:51But actually for most of its existence,
00:01:53Amazon barely broke even on selling very cheap things
00:01:56to normal people like you and me, to consumers.
00:01:59The way Amazon makes most of its profits
00:02:00is through a thing called Amazon Web Services,
00:02:02where they basically sell like web and cloud infrastructure
00:02:05to other businesses like Netflix and Disney Plus,
00:02:08i.e. it creates the infrastructure for them to make money.
00:02:11And there was an enormous list of businesses
00:02:12that are essentially powered by Amazon Web Services,
00:02:14which is where Amazon makes the majority of its profit from.
00:02:17Similarly, if you look at the Fortune 100,
00:02:18like the top 100 companies in the US,
00:02:20like 70% of them, you can basically summarise what they do
00:02:23as we help businesses make more money.
00:02:26If you take the example of something like Google
00:02:27or something like Meta,
00:02:28which is a company behind Instagram and Facebook,
00:02:30again, you and I think of Google as a search engine
00:02:32or like Gmail, and we think of Facebook and Instagram
00:02:34as social media platforms.
00:02:35But the way they make money is through advertising.
00:02:38And the reason they make money through advertising
00:02:40is because Google and Meta help other businesses make money.
00:02:44We pay $20,000 a month to Meta
00:02:45to run Instagram ads to sell my courses.
00:02:47The only reason we do that is because those ads
00:02:49generate customers which makes us more
00:02:51than the $20,000 we spend each month.
00:02:52I have friends who give Meta and Google
00:02:54upwards of a million dollars a month
00:02:55in order to run ads on those platforms.
00:02:57And there are way bigger companies that are spending
00:02:59literally hundreds of millions of dollars every year
00:03:01on Google and Facebook advertising
00:03:03because it helps make them more money.
00:03:04Let's take banks, for example.
00:03:05You've got like JP Morgan, you've got Goldman Sachs.
00:03:07The way these banks make money is not because you and me
00:03:10are putting our $1,000 or $10,000 into the bank
00:03:13into like a savings account or whatever.
00:03:15The way they make money is by facilitating transactions
00:03:18for other businesses that help those other businesses
00:03:20make money.
00:03:20And so the point of all these examples
00:03:21and the point of this video is to basically just explain
00:03:23that if you wanna get rich on easy mode,
00:03:25you build something or you do something
00:03:28that helps other people make money.
00:03:30If you're trying to get rich doing anything else,
00:03:32anything other than helping someone make money
00:03:33or maybe even save money, anything other than that,
00:03:36you are playing getting rich on hard mode.
00:03:37There is nothing wrong with that,
00:03:39but I just want you to be aware of that.
00:03:40Okay, so this idea that like basically easy mode
00:03:42equals help other people make money
00:03:44and hard mode equals basically everything else.
00:03:46This idea directly leads to a handful of principles
00:03:49that I wanna talk through in this video.
00:03:51Principle number one is that if you wanna get rich
00:03:53on easy mode, you need to tie your work directly to revenue.
00:03:56Now let's say you have a job,
00:03:57i.e. you are working for someone else
00:03:59rather than working for yourself.
00:04:00Most people actually have no idea
00:04:01how their job makes money for the business.
00:04:03And most people will think of their jobs
00:04:04as like completing tasks or filling in forms
00:04:07or attending meetings or sending emails or looking busy,
00:04:09depending on who you speak to
00:04:10and what corporation they work for.
00:04:11But that is not what you are being paid for.
00:04:13The only reason your employer is paying you money
00:04:15is because somewhere in the chain of logic,
00:04:18you are helping them make more money than they are costing.
00:04:20So if you wanna get rich on easy mode and you have a job,
00:04:22the first step to do is to do a revenue audit.
00:04:25You wanna ask yourself,
00:04:25how does my job help my employer make more money?
00:04:29And crucially, can I put a number on it?
00:04:31So for example, if you're in customer support,
00:04:32you might initially think that your job is answering emails
00:04:34or like replying to support tickets,
00:04:36but it's actually not that.
00:04:37Your job and the reason why they hire you is because
00:04:39by virtue of you answering emails and support tickets,
00:04:42what you're doing is you are preventing customer churn.
00:04:44You are keeping customers from canceling their subscriptions
00:04:46to whatever the thing is.
00:04:47And this is something called revenue retention,
00:04:48which is a very measurable thing
00:04:49in which the CFO of your business really cares about.
00:04:51Similarly, the people who are making the most money
00:04:53in customer success are the ones
00:04:54who are able to upsell the customers,
00:04:56i.e. to generate more revenue from existing customers.
00:04:59If you can do that,
00:05:00and if you can demonstrate you can do that,
00:05:01you're far more likely to get rich.
00:05:03Now, if you think about it in the context of jobs,
00:05:04like what are the highest paying jobs?
00:05:05Generally, if you have a job in sales,
00:05:07that tends to be a very high paying job.
00:05:08In fact, the salespeople in a company
00:05:10are often paid more than the CEO is
00:05:12because the salespeople can directly tie
00:05:14whatever they are doing to revenue.
00:05:15As a salesperson, you can say,
00:05:16"Hey, I brought in $200,000 of revenue this month.
00:05:20Therefore, you know, I should get my $20,000 commission,"
00:05:23or whatever the thing might be.
00:05:24And because you can tie it to revenue,
00:05:25it's got a very clear return on investment for the business,
00:05:27it's a lot easier for you to get that raise
00:05:29or get that promotion or get that commission
00:05:31because it's just really obvious how you are adding value.
00:05:33The way that most people ask for raises is, you know,
00:05:35thinking that like, "Oh, I worked really hard
00:05:37and therefore I should get a raise,"
00:05:38or like, "Inflation is up 3%
00:05:40and therefore I should get a raise."
00:05:41And all of these things
00:05:42are working against the current of capitalism.
00:05:44If you can say, "Hey, I have so far generated
00:05:47X amount of value to the business
00:05:48and I'm gonna continue generating X amount more,
00:05:51therefore I should be able to capture a slice of that value,"
00:05:53that is a much easier decision for an employer to make.
00:05:56Okay, so at this point you might hopefully be thinking
00:05:58that YouTube would like to go all in on your dreams
00:06:00and maybe one of those dreams is starting a business,
00:06:02which is where the sponsor of this video, Stan, comes in.
00:06:05Now, if you haven't heard of them,
00:06:06Stan is basically the dream toolkit
00:06:08for creators and solopreneurs.
00:06:09It gives you a super easy to set up digital storefront
00:06:12where you can sell courses and digital products
00:06:14and memberships and coaching calls
00:06:16and pretty much anything else you could wanna sell online.
00:06:18We absolutely love Stan
00:06:19and we have been recommending it wholeheartedly
00:06:21to the students of our Lifestyle Business Academy,
00:06:23which is sort of like our online business school
00:06:25that helps people start lifestyle businesses.
00:06:26And in that context, especially if you're someone
00:06:28who doesn't have a lot of time on your hands,
00:06:30especially if you're someone who doesn't know how to code
00:06:32and doesn't wanna spend all of the time and the faff
00:06:34of building your own custom website
00:06:35to be able to sell stuff online,
00:06:37using a service like Stan, we have found for our students,
00:06:39is like by far the simplest and quickest and easiest way
00:06:42to get up and running selling stuff on the internet.
00:06:44And they are currently actually running
00:06:45a very cool campaign called a Dare to Dream
00:06:47where they're giving one winner $100,000
00:06:50to quit their job and start their business.
00:06:52So if you're watching this before the 31st of January, 2026,
00:06:54that campaign is still open and you can totally enter to win.
00:06:57So if you would like to join and take the first steps
00:06:59on your journey towards becoming an entrepreneur
00:07:01and meet even reaching financial freedom,
00:07:02head over to daretodream.stan.store
00:07:05or check out the link in the video description.
00:07:06So big thank you to Stan for sponsoring the video
00:07:08and let's get back to it.
00:07:09If you think of the other fields
00:07:10that are like really highly paid finance,
00:07:11why is finance so highly paid?
00:07:12It's because basically everyone working in finance
00:07:14is somewhat directly helping other people make money,
00:07:17which is why working in finance tends to get you rich.
00:07:19But even within finance, like there are certain roles
00:07:21that get paid way more than others.
00:07:22So for example, if you're an algorithmic quantitative trader
00:07:25or something like that,
00:07:26and you're literally writing the algorithms
00:07:27that are making the firm more money,
00:07:29you can make a lot of money
00:07:30because you're very, very close to the revenue.
00:07:32If you're an investment banker and you're front of office,
00:07:34i.e. you're like interfacing with clients
00:07:35and like developing a relationship with clients,
00:07:37those clients are really, really rich people
00:07:39like ultra high net worth individuals or like pension funds
00:07:42or like banks or whatever.
00:07:43And so they are literally giving your firm money
00:07:45as a result of the connection that you have with a client.
00:07:47Therefore, you as the investment banker there
00:07:49are incredibly valuable
00:07:50because you are managing that relationship with a client
00:07:53so that your firm can make more money.
00:07:55But if you are working in HR
00:07:57within the context of a finance job,
00:07:59you're probably less likely to get rich
00:08:00because what you're doing is less directly tied to revenue.
00:08:03Of course, if you're asking for a raise,
00:08:04you're gonna make a case
00:08:05for how it is directly tied to revenue.
00:08:06But if you're working in HR, if you're working in admin,
00:08:08if you're working in customer support,
00:08:10those roles are just sort of generally less well paid
00:08:13compared to the roles that directly touch revenue.
00:08:14Why do people in tech make so much money?
00:08:16The reason people in tech make so much money
00:08:17is because tech companies make a shit ton of money.
00:08:19And the reason tech companies in general make a ton of money
00:08:22is because in general, they help other people make money.
00:08:24But there are tons and tons and tons and tons of tech companies
00:08:27that you have never heard of that are making millions,
00:08:29tens of millions, hundreds of millions,
00:08:30or even billions of dollars every single year
00:08:32by offering B2B business to business services
00:08:34that help other businesses make more money.
00:08:36You as an individual probably have never used Salesforce,
00:08:39but Salesforce is an absolutely enormous company
00:08:41that helps other businesses make money.
00:08:42As consumers, we tend not to know
00:08:44what are all the companies out there
00:08:45that are offering B2B make money type services,
00:08:47but that actually makes up the majority of the economy
00:08:49in most like developed countries.
00:08:51The other example here is that,
00:08:52why do law firm partners make so much money?
00:08:54Why do partners in management consulting firms
00:08:56make so much money?
00:08:57It's not because they're particularly good lawyers
00:08:59or particularly good management consultants.
00:09:00They are not being paid insane amounts of money
00:09:02because they are good at the task of law
00:09:05or at the task of management consulting.
00:09:07They're being paid insane amounts of money
00:09:08because they are bringing in new clients into the business.
00:09:11I.e. they are helping their firm make more money.
00:09:14Like if you wanna make partner in a law firm,
00:09:16you generally have to come with a book of business.
00:09:18Like you've been doing networking
00:09:19and playing golf with people over the decades.
00:09:21So now you have this enormous list of people
00:09:23who are also high up executives at different companies.
00:09:26And the idea is you're gonna try and bring them as clients
00:09:28into your law firm.
00:09:29This is why law firms and consulting firms don't like it
00:09:31when a partner leaves,
00:09:32because generally when a partner leaves,
00:09:34they're not supposed to,
00:09:35but often they'll take their personal relationships with them,
00:09:38which can directly result in the firm losing money,
00:09:40which is why they're willing to pay insane amounts of money,
00:09:42millions of dollars a year,
00:09:43including like profit share and equity in the whole shebang,
00:09:46just to retain people
00:09:47who come with existing books of business.
00:09:49So even in that world where you're a lawyer or a banker,
00:09:51a management consultant,
00:09:52when you make partner
00:09:53or when you're on route to making partner,
00:09:55it is actually your ability
00:09:56to help your business make more money
00:09:58that causes you to get rich,
00:09:59not your ability to do the work that you are trained for.
00:10:02It's literally your ability to be a sales person
00:10:04and to bring money into the business.
00:10:05Oh, and quick thing,
00:10:06if you're trying to figure out a way of tying
00:10:08whatever you're doing for your job or your career
00:10:09or your business to revenue,
00:10:10me and my team have actually trained a custom GPT
00:10:13based on this video
00:10:14that will help you do this completely for free.
00:10:16And there'll be a link down below in the video description
00:10:17if you wanna check it out.
00:10:18Now at this point, you might be thinking,
00:10:19but like, what about the doctors?
00:10:20What about the teachers?
00:10:21What about the social workers?
00:10:22Their work isn't directly tied to revenue.
00:10:24So what's up with that?
00:10:24And in that case, you would be absolutely right.
00:10:26And that is why most doctors and teachers and social workers
00:10:28find it very difficult to get rich.
00:10:30I don't like this any more than you do.
00:10:31I think this is a bad system,
00:10:32but unfortunately it is the capitalist system that we live in
00:10:35that your value to the market
00:10:37is not necessarily the same as your value to society.
00:10:40Teachers and social workers and doctors
00:10:41obviously add a lot of value to society,
00:10:43but because they don't directly help someone else get rich,
00:10:46they are unlikely to make a lot of money.
00:10:49And in fact, if you look at the doctors that do get rich,
00:10:51it tends to be doctors in the US,
00:10:52which is a private healthcare system.
00:10:54It tends to be the doctors who are the business owners,
00:10:55so the ones who own the clinics or who own the hospitals
00:10:57rather than the ones who work in the hospitals,
00:10:59i.e. they are helping the business make more money
00:11:01through insurance and billing and stuff,
00:11:02or they have a very, very specialized skillset
00:11:04that customers in the American healthcare system
00:11:07are willing to pay a lot of money for.
00:11:08For example, if you're a really amazing neurosurgeon,
00:11:11the reason you get paid a lot of money
00:11:13is not because you add loads of value to society
00:11:15as a neurosurgeon.
00:11:16It's because you add a lot of money
00:11:18to the hospital's top line and bottom line
00:11:20as a result of them being able to bill out your services
00:11:22as a neurosurgeon.
00:11:23Unfortunately, in this game of capitalism that we're in,
00:11:26the people getting rich
00:11:27are the ones helping other people get rich.
00:11:29The point I'm making in this video,
00:11:30I'm not saying that you should play on easy mode
00:11:32or on hard mode.
00:11:33What I'm saying is that if you want to play on easy mode,
00:11:35you gotta recognize that you gotta tie whatever you're doing
00:11:36to revenue generation in some kind of way.
00:11:38So I'm not saying you should stop being a teacher
00:11:40or stopping a social worker or stopping a doctor,
00:11:42but if you wanna get rich on easy mode,
00:11:44you might be thinking, okay,
00:11:45how can I shift from public school teacher
00:11:48to something like corporate training,
00:11:50where could you use your skills of teaching on the side,
00:11:53on the weekends, as a side hustle, as a business,
00:11:55to help corporations make more money
00:11:56by training their staff in something that makes them money?
00:11:59For example, I have a bunch of friends
00:12:00who run businesses in sales training.
00:12:01They teach other people how to be better salespeople
00:12:04and therefore make money for the business.
00:12:05Those guys are making tons of money.
00:12:06And I wanna share another few examples
00:12:07just to drive this point home.
00:12:08So I was having a chat with one of my team members, Dan.
00:12:11Dan is the guy on my team who is in charge of my website.
00:12:13And Dan wanted to start a side hustle
00:12:15where he's like help, you know,
00:12:17he's trying to make money on the side.
00:12:18And I'm like, great,
00:12:19I'm all for my team starting side hustles.
00:12:21And Dan was struggling because he was like,
00:12:22do I sell website design or do I sell like SEO audits
00:12:25or do I sell like web development for WordPress themes
00:12:27or any of that kind of stuff?
00:12:28I was like, well, no, Dan, like, why do I hire you?
00:12:31And he was like, well, you hire me because, you know,
00:12:33I manage your website.
00:12:34And I was like, okay, but like why do I want you
00:12:36to manage my website?
00:12:37And he was like, I don't know,
00:12:39'cause you know, you want your website to be good.
00:12:41And I was like, no, Dan, the reason I hire you
00:12:43is not because you are managing my website,
00:12:45it's because you're helping me make more money.
00:12:46So how do we tie what you do
00:12:48to how you help me make more money?
00:12:50And eventually what we landed on with Dan was that like Dan,
00:12:52my website guy helps me make more money
00:12:54because he optimizes the conversion rates on our sales pages
00:12:57so that customers are more likely to buy my courses
00:12:59and programs and stuff.
00:13:00And so now that Dan knows this, he recognizes,
00:13:02oh, wait a minute,
00:13:03his skill set is not in designing websites, it is,
00:13:06but his skill set is really in helping businesses
00:13:08make more money through conversion rate optimization
00:13:11on their websites.
00:13:12And as soon as Dan was able to articulate that
00:13:14and tie what he's doing to the measurable increase
00:13:17in revenue for a business,
00:13:18he was able to land like a $15,000 side hustle client,
00:13:21which he'd never been able to do before
00:13:22because he was always selling web design
00:13:23or web development or SEO audits.
00:13:25Just packaging a thing around helping someone make money
00:13:28helps you play business on easy mode,
00:13:30but choosing to package it,
00:13:31not around helping someone make money or save money
00:13:33is choosing to play business in hard mode.
00:13:36All right, so principle number two
00:13:38is to sell to people who actually have money.
00:13:40Now this sounds stupidly obvious
00:13:42and yet a lot of people ignore this,
00:13:44especially beginners to the world of business
00:13:45or to the world of trying to make money.
00:13:46So if, for example, you're selling something for $50
00:13:48to someone earning 40,000 a year,
00:13:50you are fighting against their rent and their groceries
00:13:53and their kids' school fees
00:13:54and their crippling sense of financial anxiety
00:13:56where every single purchase is an emotional battle
00:13:58and every sale is a fight that you are fighting,
00:14:00feeling as if you're fighting with the customer
00:14:02to convince them to part with their money.
00:14:04And that's playing on hard mode
00:14:05and it can be really exhausting.
00:14:06But compare that now to selling a $50,000 service
00:14:09to a business that's making five million a year.
00:14:11They don't really care about 50 grand.
00:14:12They care about the ROI.
00:14:13So if your service helps them make 200,000
00:14:15because it's, I don't know, improving some aspect
00:14:17of their sales or marketing or fulfillment
00:14:19or like product process,
00:14:21and you send them the invoice for $50,000,
00:14:23they'll probably just like wire you the money immediately
00:14:25and reply with money sent, thanks.
00:14:27And this is why in general, if you're trying to get rich,
00:14:29selling to businesses, i.e. B2B, business to business,
00:14:32is dramatically easier than B2C, business to consumer,
00:14:35because businesses buy with spreadsheets and logic
00:14:37and they have money to spend,
00:14:39whereas consumers tend to buy with feelings.
00:14:41And again, this is one of those
00:14:42like really counterintuitive things about business,
00:14:44which is that, you know,
00:14:45let's say you're trying to make $100,000.
00:14:46It's a lot easier to make 100 grand
00:14:48selling 10 things for 10 grand
00:14:50compared to selling 10,000 things for $10, right?
00:14:53And this is what we tell our students
00:14:54in the Lifestyle Business Academy
00:14:55that if you wanna get rich on easy mode,
00:14:57like if you wanna pick an easy business to start,
00:14:59easier than the alternatives,
00:15:01you generally wanna sell something
00:15:03between $2,000 and $20,000,
00:15:05because that means you need relatively few customers
00:15:07to make a viable business out of it.
00:15:08And if at all possible,
00:15:10you want the outcome of whatever you are selling
00:15:12to be essentially, I help you make more money.
00:15:14So for example, we've got Adam, who's one of our students,
00:15:16who's like, I think his offer is something like,
00:15:18I help seven-figure online course creators
00:15:20boost their sales by 30%
00:15:21through optimizing their sales function.
00:15:23That's basically, I help rich people make more money.
00:15:26And that is a lot easier to sell
00:15:28than I help corporate professionals find their purpose,
00:15:30or I help people overcome their anxiety,
00:15:33or I help people overcome imposter syndrome
00:15:35or things like that.
00:15:36Wherever possible, we wanna sell to people with money
00:15:38and we wanna tie whatever we are selling
00:15:40to helping them make more of it.
00:15:41This is business on easy mode compared to the alternative,
00:15:44which is just a lot harder to do.
00:15:46Principle number three is you wanna set your pricing
00:15:49based on value rather than on time.
00:15:52And the idea here is that when you charge by the hour,
00:15:54you are literally capping your income
00:15:55by the number of hours you are physically able to work.
00:15:58And also you are creating a weird incentive structure
00:16:01where you are incentivized to be slower rather than quicker.
00:16:04And the only reason people tend to think this way
00:16:05is because probably the first couple of jobs
00:16:07that you had when you were a kid,
00:16:08you were paid hourly for them.
00:16:09And probably in the job you have right now,
00:16:11you have an annual salary,
00:16:12but you can calculate kind of like your hourly rate
00:16:14because you've gotta be at work from nine till six
00:16:16or whatever the thing might be.
00:16:17And so if you're trying to get rich on easy mode,
00:16:19the thing again that we wanna figure out is what is the value
00:16:22that our service or our product or our business is offering
00:16:25and how can I quantify this value?
00:16:27Because if what you do will help your client
00:16:29make an extra $100,000,
00:16:30then it would be a bit dumb
00:16:31for you to charge only $500 for it.
00:16:33And there is a good rule of thumb here
00:16:34if you are thinking of starting a business.
00:16:35It's a rule of thumb, it's not a rule of law,
00:16:37but as a general rule of thumb,
00:16:38you wanna charge about 1/10 of the value
00:16:40that you helped create.
00:16:41So if whatever you are doing,
00:16:43your service or your product or whatever,
00:16:44will help someone make an extra $100,000,
00:16:47then you would charge $10,000
00:16:48'cause they would feel like they're getting a bargain
00:16:50because obviously paying 10 grand
00:16:51to be able to make 100 grand is an amazing deal for them.
00:16:54And then you will feel like you're getting rich
00:16:55and so everyone wins.
00:16:57Principle number four is to build skills
00:17:00that sit close to the money.
00:17:01And the idea here and the unfortunate truth
00:17:04is that not all skills are equally valuable
00:17:06in the marketplace.
00:17:07Some skills are nice to have skills
00:17:09and other skills are print money type skills.
00:17:11So for example, learning the skill of sales
00:17:13is a very high income skill
00:17:15because it sits very, very, very close to the revenue.
00:17:17Because if you can bring in revenue
00:17:19for the business that you work for,
00:17:21then you are way more likely to make money or commission
00:17:23or be able to start a business off the back of that.
00:17:25Similarly, a lot of things within marketing,
00:17:27if you can directly tie them to the amount of revenue
00:17:29that the business creates as a result of that skill,
00:17:31again, it's a lot easier for you to earn more in that career
00:17:34or charge more if you're a business in that particular domain.
00:17:37But then there are skills that are also like a few steps
00:17:39removed from directly making money.
00:17:40So for example, graphic design.
00:17:42Graphic design and making stuff look pretty
00:17:44is a nice to have skill.
00:17:46And unless you are tying it to, I don't know,
00:17:47creating advertisements and stuff
00:17:49that directly increase revenue or things like that,
00:17:51it's difficult for graphic designers to make a lot of money.
00:17:54Similarly, writing as a skill.
00:17:55Creative writing, analytical writing, content writing,
00:17:59these things tend to be less well-paid,
00:18:02but the best paid writers tend to be the copywriters,
00:18:05i.e. the people that are literally writing the sales pages
00:18:07that help convince customers to part with our cash.
00:18:09So it's really more of a marketing function
00:18:10rather than a kind of writing function.
00:18:11And so basically whatever the skill is, whatever you do,
00:18:13the harder it is for your employer or your client
00:18:16to draw a line between what you do
00:18:18and how much money you make them,
00:18:19the harder it'll be for you to make a lot of money
00:18:21in that particular space.
00:18:23So with all that said, here is the uncomfortable truth
00:18:25that I wish someone had told me years ago.
00:18:27You're probably already helping someone make more money.
00:18:30That is literally what a job is.
00:18:31Your employer hired you because you help their business
00:18:34generate more value than they pay you.
00:18:36That is the deal.
00:18:37That is the entire arrangement for everything
00:18:40other than roles that are funded by the state.
00:18:42For example, doctors working in the UK's
00:18:44National Health Service
00:18:45where it's a lot less of a clear correlation.
00:18:47And so this gap between what you create and what you capture,
00:18:50that is the profit margin for the business.
00:18:52And for most people, that gap is higher than you would think.
00:18:54And so there's a few different things you can do here.
00:18:55Number one, you can like increase the amount of value
00:18:58that you actually add to the business.
00:19:00And so then be able to say to them like,
00:19:01"Hey man, I'm adding so much value to the business
00:19:04"quantified by XYZ.
00:19:05"Therefore, I'd like a raise of like some percentage of that."
00:19:08And so that's generally an easy sell for an employer.
00:19:10Alternatively, maybe you're already creating a lot of value
00:19:12for the employer or the client or whatever.
00:19:14And you just need to make the connection
00:19:16between what you do and how they make money.
00:19:18You just need to make that connection more clear.
00:19:20Like just making things more visible
00:19:21and making the visibility of what you do
00:19:24more directly tied to ROI, like return on investment.
00:19:26And so the key message of this video is that getting rich
00:19:28in all these contexts isn't really about working harder.
00:19:32The people I know who are doctors, who are social workers,
00:19:34who are teachers are working a lot harder
00:19:36than friends of mine who work in finance
00:19:38or like have businesses that help companies make more money.
00:19:43But it's like in the capitalist world that we live in,
00:19:45like we said, market value is not the same as societal value.
00:19:48And so if you wanna get rich on easy mode,
00:19:50you try and find a way to help other people make more money.
00:19:53And every other method is kind of trying
00:19:55to get rich on hard mode.
00:19:56Now, yes, you could sort of get rich through having a job,
00:19:59but it is way easier to get rich
00:20:01by actually having your own business.
00:20:03And if you are wondering what sort of business
00:20:05you should start, what's the easiest, most profitable business
00:20:08for a beginner to start this year,
00:20:09I have a video over here that kind of breaks down my thesis
00:20:12on what business I think you should start.
00:20:13If you are, for example, a corporate professional
00:20:15and you're looking to start your first business.
00:20:16and that will be right over there.
00:20:18Thank you so much for watching
00:20:19and I'll see you in the next video.
00:20:20Bye bye.

Key Takeaway

The fastest path to wealth is helping other people or businesses make money rather than selling products or services directly to consumers, as businesses have larger budgets and make purchasing decisions based on ROI rather than emotion.

Highlights

Getting rich on 'easy mode' means helping other people make money, rather than selling directly to consumers who face financial constraints

The economy functions as a pyramid where money flows upward - most Fortune 100 companies help businesses make money rather than serving consumers

Tie your work directly to revenue generation to maximize earning potential - sales roles and client-facing positions command higher salaries because their impact is measurable

Selling B2B (business-to-business) services is dramatically easier than B2C because businesses buy with logic and have budgets, while consumers buy with emotion

Price based on value created rather than time spent - charge approximately 1/10 of the value you help generate

Skills that sit close to revenue generation (sales, marketing, copywriting) are more valuable than nice-to-have skills (graphic design, creative writing)

Your employer already profits from the gap between the value you create and what they pay you - understanding this relationship helps you negotiate raises or start your own business

Timeline

Introduction: Hard Mode vs Easy Mode in Capitalism

The video opens by establishing two fundamental approaches to wealth creation: hard mode and easy mode. Hard mode involves romanticized pursuits like being a struggling artist, selling handmade candles at farmer's markets, or crafting tote bags on Etsy - essentially trying to convince consumers to spend their limited post-tax income on non-essential items. This approach means competing against rent, student loans, and financial anxiety where every dollar spent is taken from someone's future. Easy mode, by contrast, follows one simple rule: help other people make money. The video promises to first prove this thesis, then provide four actionable principles that apply whether you have a job, side hustle, or are starting a business.

The Economic Pyramid: How Money Flows Upward

This section explains how the economy functions as a pyramid scheme where value is generated at the bottom but captured at the top. When starting a business, most people begin by selling to consumers at the pyramid's bottom, where money is tightest and people live paycheck to paycheck. The video uses Amazon as a prime example - while consumers know Amazon for cheap retail products that barely broke even, the company makes most profits through Amazon Web Services (AWS), which sells cloud infrastructure to businesses like Netflix and Disney Plus. Approximately 70% of Fortune 100 companies operate on the principle of helping other businesses make money. Google and Meta earn billions not from search engines or social media platforms themselves, but from advertising that helps other businesses generate revenue, with some companies spending hundreds of millions annually on these platforms.

Banks, Tech, and Professional Services: Following the Money

The analysis continues with examples from banking, technology, and professional services sectors. Banks like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs don't profit primarily from individual savings accounts with $1,000 or $10,000 deposits, but from facilitating high-value transactions for businesses. The tech industry generates enormous wealth not from consumer-facing products but from B2B (business-to-business) services, with countless unknown companies earning millions or billions by helping other businesses operate more efficiently. Companies like Salesforce, which most individuals have never used, generate massive revenues by helping businesses make money. Law firm and consulting firm partners earn millions not because they're exceptional lawyers or consultants, but because they bring in clients through their 'book of business' - personal relationships that generate revenue for their firms.

Principle 1: Tie Your Work Directly to Revenue

The first principle emphasizes conducting a 'revenue audit' to understand how your job helps your employer make money and putting a number on it. Customer support roles, for example, aren't about answering emails - they're about preventing customer churn and revenue retention. Sales positions command high pay and commissions because salespeople can directly demonstrate they brought in specific revenue amounts. Most people ask for raises based on hard work or inflation, but this works against capitalism's current - instead, demonstrate the quantifiable value you've generated and will continue generating. The video introduces a sponsor, Stan, as a platform for creators and solopreneurs to sell digital products, courses, and services online, mentioning their 'Dare to Dream' campaign offering $100,000 to help someone quit their job and start a business.

Finance, Tech, and Professional Services Pay Structures

This section examines why certain industries and roles command higher salaries. Finance pays well because everyone works to help others make money, but within finance, algorithmic traders and front-office investment bankers who directly interface with wealthy clients earn the most because they're closest to revenue generation. HR and administrative roles in finance pay less because they're further from direct revenue impact. Tech companies generate enormous wealth, but the highest-paid employees work on products or services that help other businesses make money. Law and consulting partners earn millions not for their technical skills, but because they bring new clients and revenue to their firms - when partners leave, they often take client relationships and revenue with them, which explains why firms pay so much to retain them. The video includes a free custom GPT tool to help viewers tie their work to revenue generation.

The Doctors, Teachers, and Social Workers Paradox

This segment addresses an uncomfortable truth about capitalism: market value doesn't equal societal value. Doctors, teachers, and social workers add immense societal value but struggle to get rich because their work doesn't directly help someone else get wealthy. Doctors who do become wealthy typically work in private healthcare systems like the US, own their practices or hospitals, or have highly specialized skills that command premium billing rates - it's their ability to generate revenue for healthcare businesses, not their societal contribution, that determines their wealth. The video doesn't advocate abandoning these professions but suggests transitioning skills to revenue-generating contexts, such as public school teachers moving to corporate training where they help businesses make money by improving employee skills. An example illustrates how Dan, a team member, transformed from selling website design to selling conversion rate optimization, landing a $15,000 client by focusing on helping businesses increase revenue rather than just managing websites.

Principle 2: Sell to People Who Actually Have Money

The second principle highlights the dramatic difference between selling to consumers versus businesses. Selling a $50 product to someone earning $40,000 annually means fighting against rent, groceries, school fees, and financial anxiety, making every purchase an emotional battle. In contrast, selling a $50,000 service to a business making $5 million yearly is straightforward - they focus on ROI (return on investment), and if your service helps them make $200,000, they'll wire payment immediately without emotional hesitation. B2B sales are dramatically easier than B2C because businesses buy with spreadsheets and logic while having money to spend, whereas consumers buy with feelings. Counterintuitively, making $100,000 by selling 10 items at $10,000 each is easier than selling 10,000 items at $10 each. The Lifestyle Business Academy teaches students to target the $2,000-$20,000 price range because it requires relatively few customers for viability. An example student, Adam, successfully offers to help seven-figure course creators boost sales by 30% through optimizing sales functions - a clear 'help rich people make more money' proposition that's easier to sell than abstract offerings like helping people find purpose or overcome anxiety.

Principle 3: Price Based on Value, Not Time

The third principle challenges the hourly pricing model that caps income by available working hours and creates perverse incentives to work slower. This mindset typically stems from early hourly jobs or salary structures where people calculate their hourly rate based on work hours. To get rich on easy mode, focus on the value your service or product provides and quantify that value. If your work helps a client make an extra $100,000, charging only $500 would be foolish. The rule of thumb presented is to charge approximately 1/10 of the value you help create - so if you help someone make $100,000, charge $10,000. This creates a win-win situation: the client feels they're getting an excellent deal (paying $10,000 to make $100,000), and you feel you're being fairly compensated. This value-based pricing model disconnects your income from time spent and aligns your interests with your client's success, making it much easier to command premium rates and build wealth.

Principle 4: Build Skills That Sit Close to Money

The fourth principle acknowledges that not all skills are equally valuable in the marketplace - some are 'nice to have' while others are 'print money' skills. Sales is a high-income skill because it sits extremely close to revenue generation; if you can bring in revenue for a business, you'll earn more through salary, commissions, or by starting your own business. Marketing skills that can be directly tied to revenue generation command higher compensation. However, skills several steps removed from making money, like graphic design or general writing, tend to be less well-paid unless connected to revenue-generating activities. The best-paid writers are copywriters who write sales pages that convince customers to buy - this is more a marketing function than a writing function. The fundamental principle is that the harder it is for an employer or client to draw a direct line between what you do and how much money you make them, the harder it will be to earn substantial income in that space.

Conclusion: Understanding Your Value and Next Steps

The conclusion presents the uncomfortable truth that most people are already helping someone make money - that's literally what employment is. Employers hire because you help generate more value than they pay you; the gap between what you create and what you capture is the business's profit margin, which is typically larger than people think. You can increase your earnings by either creating more measurable value for the business and negotiating for a percentage of that increase, or by making the existing value you create more visible and clearly tied to ROI. The video emphasizes that getting rich isn't about working harder - doctors, social workers, and teachers work harder than many finance professionals or business owners, but market value differs from societal value in capitalism. The easiest path to wealth is finding ways to help other people make money; all other methods constitute 'hard mode.' The video concludes by noting that while you can get rich through employment, it's far easier through business ownership, and directs viewers to another video about the most profitable businesses for beginners to start.

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