﻿One of the best part time jobs I had while I was in college was being a valet.
You got to drive the cool cars. And with all the extra tips, I was making close to twice the
minimum wage. Also, you got free exercise from all the running. Who needs a gym membership,
right? After parking so many BMWs and Mercedes, I got to wondering. Man, how are these guys so rich?
They must be overflowing with money to be able to drive these cars. I was only a naive 19 year old,
so it wasn’t until years later I realized the irony behind many of these “supposedly” rich
individuals. At the time, I thought that being wealthy was what I saw on the surface. But life
has taught me that oftentimes, real wealth is what we don’t see. Hi, if you are new to the channel,
my name is Tae from Financial Tortoise - a channel dedicated to helping the Sandwich Generation reach
Financial Security. In this video, I want to talk to you about wealth that we think we see.
And the real wealth that we can’t see. Because it’s actually invisible. When I was 19 years old
waiting at the valet station for my next customer, I honestly believed that every person
that drove up in a luxury car was rich. I mean, they sure looked the part. Most were decked out
with designer wear clothes I could never afford. Heading over to the fancy restaurants I had never
stepped foot in. And most importantly, they gave the best tips. Not knowing much about the world
of personal finance and real wealth at the time. I made a judgement call based on what was in front
of me at the time. I couldn’t see their investment accounts or their checking accounts. So I assumed
they just had a lot of money if they could afford all these nice things. They sured looked
financially successful in appearance. However, as I got older and learned some harsh lessons about
money, I can only laugh at my naiveness. I’ve made so many money mistakes in my twenties because
of my wrong assumptions about wealth. I seriously believed that being rich was about having nice
things. Maybe it was my pent up frustration at not being able to afford these things when
I was younger. Or my parents' expectation that I needed to look successful after all the sacrifice
they made in immigrating to the United States. Who really knows, but the fact was that I bought into
the myth that rich outward appearance represented financial success. Who cared what our bank account
said or what an investment was. Being rich was being able to valet my car, wear an armani suit,
dine at the finest restaurants and give big tips like a super cool guy. But I learned after some
harsh lessons that true wealth is actually what we don’t see. Wealth is built when we don’t buy
the expensive 7 series BMW. Or the Armani suit. Or dine at the fine Michelin restaurant. Only when we
have the self control to limit our purchases and invest that saved money, do we have any
chance of building real wealth. It’s ironic isn’t it? In our modern capitalistic society,
we equate someone’s real wealth with the image of what we believe is wealth. Just look at people's
fancy cars and big homes. Our natural intuition, brainwashed by modern media, makes us intuitively
believe that he or she has a lot of money. Michael Jackson, The King of Pop who lived in a
multimillion dollar ranch, was sadly broke and in a staggering amount of debt when he died in 2009.
After all the money he made and the toys he had, who would have thought he was actually broke.
How about Nicholas Cage. Do you cringe at all the recent roles he has taken on. Well the
reason he’s starting in all these direct to video movies is because he needs to pay off his debt.
Once the darling of Hollywood, now desperate for money, he doesn’t care what role he takes on as
long as it pays. We’ll never understand why, but Nicholas once owned 15 homes. Ranging from a $25
million waterfront in Newport Beach to a $15.7 million countryside estate in Rhode Island.
Our primitive brains make us believe how wealthy Michael Jackson or Nicholas Cage
was. But when we unveil the curtain, we see that they weren’t wealthy at all.
Instead, they were actually worse off than most of us, given all their millions of dollars of
debt. Contrast that with an individual like Sylvia Bloom. If you’ve never heard of her,
it’s because she didn’t want you to. She was a simple legal secretary from Brooklyn,
who worked for the same law firm for 67 years. Unknown to everyone, she quietly amassed a fortune
and in her will, she left more than $8 million for college scholarships. Despite her wealth,
she lived in a modest rent-controlled apartment, took the subway to work and practiced frugality
in her lifestyle. I mean, she could have lived on Park Avenue if she wanted to. But instead,
she built her wealth quietly and invisible to others over her 96 year life. If you're
enjoying this video so far and you want to learn more about personal finance and navigating life
as a sandwich generation, I would appreciate it if you subscribe and hit the like button,
because that would really help out the channel. As Sylvia Bloom’s example shows,
real sustainable wealth is almost invisible because it is actually money not spent. It’s
money that’s growing someone’s net worth by being invested in appreciating assets. And most often,
you can’t see this. Robert Kiyosaki is famous for writing a best selling book titled Rich Dad,
Poor Dad. The basic premise of the book is that, in order to become wealthy you should
spend money on purchasing assets. Not liabilities. Assets are anything that grows your net worth.
It could be an investment in the stock market. Real estate or a business. Liabilities are
anything that takes money from your pockets. Pretty much all expenses. There are basic
expenses that we all have in order to survive, but when too much liabilities prevent us from putting
our money into appreciating assets, we aren’t getting any wealthier. Robert talks about how
his friend’s dad, the “rich dad,” didn’t look rich on surface, yet because he didn’t spend money on
looking rich, rather spent his money on purchasing assets. In his case, real estate and businesses,
he eventually became wealthy. The only way to build wealth is not to spend the money you have.
Especially on things that you think will make you look wealthy. I’m not saying there aren’t wealthy
people who don’t spend a lot of money on things. But even in those cases, those things that they
purchased aren’t growing their net worth. We could probably all agree that out of all wealthy people,
Warren Buffett is probably one individual who could afford to buy real nice things.
Think of a private jet. And it wouldn’t really impact his wealth that much. But he dragged his
feet in purchasing it because he couldn’t justify it financially. When he did finally get one,
he named it “The Indefensible” because based on his wealth building habit, he could not defend his
purchase in any way. Wealth is built when people choose not to buy the overly expensive home,
rather they buy the home they can afford. It is built when people choose not to buy that car to
impress people, rather a car to take him or her from point A to B. And it is built when
people watch awesome personal finance videos like this, rather than mindlessly watching cat videos.
People are good at learning through imitation. Ever since we were kids, we learned by watching
others. We learned how to brush our teeth by watching our parents do it. Our own kids learn
every day by watching our behaviors. Oh man. That actually scares me to death But because
real wealth is actually invisible and it's hard to differentiate between the real wealthy and those
who look wealthy, we have to be extra careful when it comes to who we listen to and who we imitate.
Next time you see someone that you want to imitate or learn from, ask yourself the question.
Would a really wealthy person, who wants to save money to purchase appreciating assets,
behave like that? The world is filled with people who may look quite modest on surface, but are
actually real wealthy. And also with people who may look like they have everything on surface,
but are only one paycheck from bankruptcy. Let’s be wise about who we take lessons from and don’t
be like me, taking money lessons from rich looking guys at the valet. Thank you guys for watching.
Please let me know in the comments below what you think about this video and my take on visible vs.
invisible wealth. I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you found value from this video, please hit the
like button, leave a comment and subscribe to the channel so that you don't miss out on any
of my other upcoming videos. I firmly believe that being part of the Sandwich Generation doesn't have
to mean financial stress. With careful planning and preparation, we can thrive during this stage
of life. Help me spread the knowledge. Thank you again and I'll see you in my next video.