- I live in one of the most prestigious
and one of the most expensive buildings in Vancouver.
And just about 10 minutes away from my building
is one of the poorest neighborhoods in Vancouver as well.
Vancouver has some of the richest people living here.
It also has some of the poorest people living here.
And you can see the entire street,
up on that side of Hastings, a lot of homeless people.
It always fascinates me what separates
the rich from the poor and the middle class.
So what's the difference between someone
who is living on the street?
I'm sure everyone's got a story.
But what is the difference with someone like that
versus someone who's making millions
or tens of millions of dollars?
We all have 24 hours a day,
we all have the same opportunity,
for God's sakes we have the same fuckin' city.
Is it education, is it their background,
is it because of luck, is it because of hard work?
No, it's none of those things, it's none of those things.
I believe what truly separates the rich from the poor
and the middle class is one word, leverage.
Leverage.
Rich people use leverage and poor people don't.
Now there are many many forms of leverage.
Let's first define what leverage actually is.
All it means is leverage is
getting something done with less effort.
Just like a lever, right?
You can use a less, a least amount of effort
to lift something very very heavy.
That's all that it means, using leverage.
So there are many many forms of leverage.
I'm gonna give you just a few of those.
The first form of leverage is OPT, other people's time.
Rich people know how to use OPT, other people's time.
Example, a CEO hiring employees,
he's leveraging other people's time
to perform certain tasks for the organization.
Example for me, I have people
coming to my home and mow my lawn,
I'm using other people's time to help me do tasks.
It may not be something I enjoy to do,
it may not be something that is worthwhile for me to do
just because my hourly rate is much much higher.
Also have someone who comes to my house regularly
to do cleaning, that's other people's time.
So that's the first form of leverage, other people's time.
The second form of leverage is other people's knowledge.
Other people's knowledge,
because as a person, you can only do so much.
You can only learn so much, you can only know so much.
To grow with the, if you want to grow your income,
rich people you notice, they have a lot of advisors
around them in all areas of their lives.
Example, I just had a meeting a few days ago
with all my two accountants, my tax strategist,
my financial planner, my insurance person,
have this board meeting talking about
how we're gonna fold their money,
how we can minimize taxes and what are some of the things
that we need to do to take cash out from the company
maybe go into another company.
We're looking to do all of that.
It's not just on me to think of all this shit out,
it's we surround ourself with people that are smarter,
that have specific knowledge.
No different than running my business
if I need someone to help with, let's say,
with YouTube or with Facebook or with Instagram
or whatever it is, doesn't matter.
That I bring in the best of best,
I hire them maybe sometimes as a project manager,
sometimes as a consultant, independent consultant.
But I am paying them for their knowledge.
So I'm leveraging other people's knowledge.
People who have been there and done that,
versus poor people, you notice they don't read books,
they don't hire people, they are rugged individualists.
They take on everything on their own.
You know what, you want something done,
you do it yourself, right?
That's a poor person mentality.
So that's the second form of leverage.
The third form of leverage is other people's money.
Rich people are very very good of
utilizing and leveraging OPM, other people's money.
They buy a piece of property, they put a down payment,
they borrow from the bank to buy an investment,
a developer right here, you see that?
Developing right now.
There's a financial institution,
sometimes multiple financial institutions,
loaning money for that particular project.
An entrepreneur maybe they're going through a
first round of funding, they are raising capital
from investors, that's other people's money.
Rich people, we don't use our own money.
Only poor people use their own money.
Rich people, we don't use our own money.
Only poor people use their own money.
There's an infinite amount of money
out there that's floating around.
But people don't know how to multiply, how to use it.
Money goes to people who knows how to multiply.
And that's why it's easy, it's easy for rich people.
Not only do they have a track record,
but it's once they know how to multiply,
it's easy for them to attract more money to make more money.
And that's why you do see the rich do get richer.
You can bitch about it.
You can say how come it's not me, poor little me.
Or you can say, you know what,
this is how the game gets played.
What are the rules of the game?
What are you can learn?
So that's number three, third form of leverage,
other people's money.
And the fourth form of leverage is
other people's relationships.
Wealth comes from relationships.
And rich people, we are very good
at leveraging relationships.
Example, there's an important person I need to meet.
Maybe I don't know that person,
and would ask my friend, hey can you make an introduction?
Can we do some business together?
I'll give you an other example,
let's say you have an offer, you have a product, a service
that you're promoting and you want to leverage
other people's relationships, OPR,
you would maybe do a potential joint venture
with someone else who already has an existing customer base.
That customer base trusts and believes
in that particular person.
You can have that person, the influencer,
and throws your product, your program, your service
and there you're leverage the relations he has built
for years with his customer base.
And there, if he promoted your more than happy
to give him a commission,
in our world it's called the philly commission.
That's leveraging other people's relationships.
So all these are different forms of leverage.
I'll give you one more, also technology.
Rich people also leverage technology,
automation, software, right?
All these tools that's out there,
that can, AI nowadays, that could help you
to be more efficient, more effective that we also utilize.
So technology, I believe it's a huge part of leverage.
Even your cell phone, right?
The smartphone that you have,
the different apps that you have
is all those, many forms of leverage.
So think about it, it doesn't matter what business.
It doesn't matter what industry,
it doesn't matter what investment they do.
What it boils down to,
you study and you look at every single rich person,
they are masters of leverage,
in some way, shape, or form.
The more you know how to utilize that,
the more successful you'll be.
And the more you know how to utilize the leverage
the more successful you'll be
and the wealthier you'll be.
I'm gonna leave you with one quote by John D. Rockefeller.
"I'd rather have 1% effort of 100 people,
"versus 100% of my whole effort."
Think about it.