How do you build wealth when you weren’t born with it?

How do you build wealth if you didn’t come from money? It’s something my clients ask me a lot, and something I’ve asked myself. Because honestly, I didn’t come from money, and it’s been a long road to get to where I am today.

When I was 25, I remember my roommate celebrating her birthday. Her parents gifted her bedsheets, cookware, and other house items. I was astonished she was getting these kinds of gifts and being celebrated even as late in life as 25!

I remember thinking “man, how much further in life would I be if I was gifted the basics in life?”

Because I did not come from money. In fact, the furthest from it.

Even though I had two working parents growing up, they always stressed about money. We lived paycheck to paycheck. There was very little if anything left for me and my 5 siblings (I have 10 in total but lived grew up with 5).

My earliest years were very volatile, to say the least. I experienced hunger–deep hunger. I experienced homelessness and pain. For a long time I battled with the kind of loneliness that can only come from being neglected and unloved by your parents.

In fact, from an early age I thought I’d be dead by 30.

Unlike my peers, I thought there was nothing for me after high school. So I didn’t take my SATs and I didn’t apply to college my senior year.

By the time I graduated from a learning center in high school, I had already been working near full-time to afford rent. Life already felt too hard.

But eventually, I found a pathway toward a vocation, and interestingly enough, it was accounting. 

In my late 20s, I decided to get serious about building wealth. So I went the traditional route at first, and met with financial advisers. But it was a rocky start, to say the least.

In fact, the first financial adviser I met with actually told me “unless you have at least $500 a month to invest there’s really no point.”

That one comment delayed my taking action for nearly 2 years. 

I had no idea how to get out of living paycheck to paycheck, never mind finding an extra $500 a month!

After years of stalling out on investing because I believed it was an all or nothing effort, I decided I was ready, no matter what anyone said.

So I took the following 8 years, and DEDICATED them to finding a way to make it happen. Even if I was starting from ZERO.

The next step was learning all I could about investing. Naturally, this led me to a lot of books about money mindset. 

Now all those “self-help millionaire mindset” books I read did help. But where I really started to see change was when I decided to start action.

So here’s what I did…

First, I took inventory of everything I had. Then I goals for everything I wanted. I stretched my imagination on what was possible (not sticking to my fixed mindset about what wasn’t possible). Then I took responsibly for my finances.

Now, I am in the space I’ve always wanted to be in, and it has inspired me to help others achieve the same for themselves!

Everything I teach now uses the tools I learned. I’ve adapted all these tools to my own needs, and they helped me achieve my goal of not living paycheck to paycheck. This is what my clients learn, too, and it’s made a huge difference for all of them.

Honestly, I find it a little funny that I have chosen to live a life dedicated to help people build wealth. It almost feels as if this life plan was mapped out for me and I just followed the breadcrumbs, and amazing things began to happen.

So this begs the question I asked at the beginning…

How do you build wealth when you don’t come from money?

There is no one way to become wealthy. There are a million ways to make a million dollars. But I will share with you specific tools and exercises that helped me shift my entire financial future.

1. You HAVE to believe wealth is an option for you. It took me so long to believe it was for everyone else BUT me. I made big mindset shifts using Money Mantras to re-map my brain whenever a negative or “limiting” Money thought came into my head. I also wrote down every day how I’d spend a million dollars. It was so difficult not to give it to charity, or add in taxes to meet the max. But I kept practicing. Now spending a million dollars is so very simple!
2. You HAVE to be a voice for your money. You have to speak up. You have to ask for that raise, increase your prices, call your debtors, or collect on loans owed to you. I remember before asking for raises at my job. I’d be shaking and felt like I wanted to vomit. It was such a stressor for me. But I learned that you don’t get paid more if you work harder. You get compensated for what you negotiate.
3. You HAVE to monitor your spending. Having enough money isn’t enough. My entire career since I was 21, I’ve been poring over books and filing taxes. I’ve seen people make a million dollars and spend a million and a half. So just ‘having the money” won’t solve poor money habits. You never ever grow out of needing a budget. As you build more cash flow the system becomes more automated. But you still need to lead your money through setting goals, tracking milestones, and balance your spending frequently. You can only do this through creating a budget (setting boundaries) and monitoring spending against those goals.
4. You HAVE to take action. You have to start somewhere. I started with saving just $20 a month. That was enough to inspire me to start learning and practicing.

I STILL use these tools. I build upon them every day, and I’ll never grow out of them.

They took me from living with no savings, no retirement, and 30K in debt to owning a rental property, a primary home, land, a funded retirement, no debt (except my mortgages), and savings.

Now, I teach everything I’ve learned to my wonderful clients, and there’s something for everyone, no matter where you are right now.

My courses fit any budget, that is by design. I always tell my clients “I work in money, I’m not here to make you go broke, I’m here to help you build wealth.”

So it’s all about taking the next best step from where you are NOW. Then rinse and repeat! 🙌

What is your next best step, Friend?