How to Get Rich in 4 Easy Steps

Can the process of getting rich really be broken down in 4 easy steps?

Yes, it can… and I will show you how.

Similarly to how you can lose weight in 4 easy steps, becoming rich is a straightforward process.

Four easy steps. That’s all it takes. Ready? Let’s kick it!

1) No coupon clipping

You might have read this advice in “frugal living” blogs: clip coupons and you will be able to save so much money that you will retire rich. This is meaningless, as its impact on your finances is negligible.

Having said that, you should definitely save large portions of your income. You just need to focus on the big 3: housing, transportation and food.

2) Avoid bad debt

Unproductive, bad debt is detrimental to an individual’s wealth and financial health. If you borrow money in order to fund purchases for consumerism purposes, you are fighting an uphill battle.

Use debt only to fund activities that will provide a positive cash return, like investing in a successful business.

Stay away from the bad one; otherwise you risk getting trapped in the Rat Race.

3) Get pissed off with life

Not just pissed off, but utterly furious.

Get enraged by the fact that life seems to be a never ending struggle. Get mad by the fact that you have been taught to be poor.

Get livid by the fact that you are trapped in a soul-sucking, dead-end job. Get extremely angry by the fact that you are not living up to your potential.

Commit to doing something about it.

Realize that you are mostly clueless about how money works. Resolve to educate yourself on the subject.

Read books, more books and even more books.

Recognize the fact that your mindset is totally messed up. You need to rewire your brain.

Search on the internet for ways to make a million dollars.

You find a tsunami of scams and frauds. Avoid that shit.

You understand that you have to build a business to really become rich.

Even though you know nothing about business, you decide to give it a shot.

How on earth do you start a business?

Read books, more books and even more books.

You start talking enthusiastically to your friends about business and entrepreneurship, but they change the topic to sports or politics.

Why don’t they understand?

Mental note: “Get new friends. ASAP.”

You notice the people around you; they seem to go through life in a walking daze. You feel lonely and isolated.

Search on Youtube for “successful entrepreneurs”.

You discover this fella called Elon Musk. He seems to have a weird love for rockets.

You dig some more. You find out he is a Billionaire. With a ‘B’.

A whole new world appears. “Where have I been living?”, you wonder.

Reading books and watching videos won’t get you any further, though. Time to get your hands dirty.

You do some market research. You discover a need in the market.

You believe that you can build a software product that can fulfill the need.

It will be an online business, as this weird guy on the internet recommends.

Of course, you know nothing about programming. How difficult can that be?

Search on Youtube for “programming for dummies”.

OK, this is hard.

You plow ahead nonetheless, and after 6 months you have a (barely functioning) product ready.

You launch the product and… nothing happens.

Back to the drawing board.

It seems you need to do some marketing. Who would have thought?

Read articles, more articles and even more articles.

After a few months some traffic trickles in. You check the logs. The app is crashing.

Fixing bugs, doing customer support, writing guest posts, developing new features.

Repeat.

One late night, while fixing yet another bug, you get a notification on your mobile. You check and can’t believe it.

It’s your first sale.

Something changes inside you. This is possible after all.

You get fired up and for the next months your life devolves into an infinite loop of doing the same actions:

Sleep.

Day job.

Business.

Gary Vee videos.

Over and over and over.

Go to sleep. Day job. Work on the business. Watch Gary Vee videos.

Over and over and over.

Revenue starts climbing slowly, then rapidly. It doesn’t make sense to keep your day job. You give your two weeks notice.

Time to conquer.

You are proud of yourself. You have managed to successfully bootstrap the company as an 100% equity owner.

You build a team around you. You are inspiring these people. You are their beacon.

Fortunately, you operate the business in a market with great size.

This means one thing: you can scale!

You go full throttle with the business and start to crash one revenue milestone after another.

You realize that the more value you provide to society, the more money society rewards you with.

That’s a win-win situation!

You structure your life in a way that allows you to kick ass every day.

You are unstoppable.

Months and months pass by, growing the business. It’s never easy, but the initial struggling phase has passed.

One day you get a call from a serious sounding gentleman who says that represents a company that operates in your industry and wants to arrange a meeting with you.

You hesitantly agree to a meeting and immediately look up the company’s name after you hang up the phone.

The company describes itself as a Private Equity firm. WTF is a Private Equity firm?

During the meeting some guys in suits reveal to you that they had been monitoring your company for a while and that they wish to acquire the whole business for an 8x EBITDA amount.

You do some rough calculations in your head.

Holy shit, that’s an 8-figure check!

You try to play cool and tell them that you need to consult your lawyers and your CFO.

You don’t even have a freaking CFO.

You go back to your accountants and tell them to prepare income and cash-flow statements for the past 12 months, as well as projections for the 12 forward ones.

They return with some solid figures. You call the PE guys and set up a follow-up meeting.

You announce that you are posting robust growth numbers and, thus, that you will not sell for less than 10x EBITDA.

The suit guys sour. You negotiate a bit back and forth, and settle for 9x. It’s an odd number, but who cares?

You shake hands with the well-groomed gentlemen and a smile appears in your face.

Peace.

As the PE guys hand you the check, you notice the date. It has been 7 freaking years since you incorporated the business.

You think back of all the sleepless nights, all the weekends you had been working, all the “fires” you had to extinguish, all the bullshit you had to deal with.

You realize that it is all about planning for the long term. After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Building something great takes time. But time is all it takes.

4) No investments in mutual funds

Those things suck for wealth building. You will never get rich investing in these!

And that, folks, is how you get rich in 4 easy steps!

This post was inspired by an amazing article from Aaron Bleyaert: How to Lose Weight in 4 Easy Steps. Check it out!