The video discusses the financial disadvantages many people face due to ingrained beliefs and societal conditioning, emphasizing that such challenges are often not the individual's fault. It argues that from a young age, people are conditioned to obey instructions and equate time with money, which hinders creativity and financial independence. Using examples like Warren Buffett and personal experiences, the speaker highlights the important mindset shift needed for financial success.

The content stresses the importance of reprogramming one's approach to money and work. It advises against the traditional transactional mindset, pointing out the value of solving big problems without a direct exchange expectation. By sharing stories like the plumber's tale, the video illustrates the necessity of decoupling earnings from time, emphasizing that true wealth comes from creating lasting value and not simply completing tasks.

Main takeaways from the video:

Please remember to turn on the CC button to view the subtitles.

Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. ingrained [ɪnˈɡreɪnd] - (adjective) - Deeply embedded or firmly fixed within a person or thing. - Synonyms: (entrenched, established, rooted)

This programming is so ingrained in how we see the world that we never even stop to question it.

2. cratered [ˈkreɪtərd] - (verb) - To fall or collapse into a significant decline; to fail disastrously. - Synonyms: (collapsed, declined, plummeted)

And it wasn't until I cratered my life into rock bottom that I started to wonder, maybe I'm doing something wrong here.

3. prophetic [prəˈfɛtɪk] - (adjective) - Accurately predicting what will happen in the future. - Synonyms: (predictive, visionary, prescient)

Well, Benjamin Graham, he looks at young Warren and he says these prophetic words...

4. magnitude [ˈmæɡnɪˌtjud] - (noun) - The great size or extent of something, often used to express the importance or impact. - Synonyms: (scale, size, degree)

You are paid in proportion to the magnitude of the problems you solve.

5. decouple [diːˈkʌpl] - (verb) - To separate or detach elements that were previously linked. - Synonyms: (disconnect, detach, dissociate)

If you want to get out of the poverty trap, you have to decouple your earning potential from your time.

6. transactional [ˌtrænˈzækʃənl] - (adjective) - Relating to the conduct of business, especially in regards to the fundamental nature of each party trying to maximize their respective outcomes. - Synonyms: (exchange-based, commodified, businesslike)

Stop being so transactional

7. entitled [ɪnˈtaɪtəld] - (adjective) - Believing oneself to be inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment. - Synonyms: (presumptuous, demanding, self-important)

I was entitled. I expected to either be praised or compensated for every little thing that I did.

8. quadratic [kwɒˈdrætɪk] - (adjective) - Relating to the second degree power, often used in connection to growth processes. - Synonyms: (second-order, bi-linear, exponential)

Your work never compounds and thus denies you the opportunity to achieve quadratic growth, which is exactly what you need if you want to build true wealth.

9. compounded [kəmˈpaʊndɪd] - (verb) - To combine or increase by adding additional layers or elements, often leading to growth. - Synonyms: (accumulate, increase, augment)

Your work never compounds and thus denies you the opportunity to achieve quadratic growth.

10. mediocrity [ˌmiːdiˈɒkrɪti] - (noun) - The quality of being average or not very good; mediocrity is a state of being middle-of-the-road. - Synonyms: (ordinariness, average quality, inferiority)

Stop tolerating mediocrity in school.

How I Reprogrammed My Mind to Stop Being Poor

If you are not where you want to be in life financially, it's probably not your fault. People like you and me and the vast majority of this planet's population, we were programmed for poverty ever since the day we were born. And the engineers of our poverty were well intentioned teachers and parents and coaches who didn't even realize that they themselves were brainwashed and programmed for a life of financial discontent.

This programming is so ingrained in how we see the world that we never even stop to question it. It says, Orson Scott Card said, we question all our beliefs except those we truly believe and those we never think to question at all. Well, I know for myself at least, it never even occurred to me that the reason I was poor stemmed from my beliefs that I held so deeply about the way the world works that I had never even thought to question them. And it wasn't until I cratered my life into rock bottom that I started to wonder, maybe I'm doing something wrong here.

Truly, rock bottom can be a blessing because it humbles you pretty damn quick and it opens you to the possibility that maybe you don't have all the answers. And so I went on a search to find better answers so I could start playing the money game a bit better. And in this video, I'm going to share with you what I found. These are the five things you have to stop doing to reprogram your brain for wealth and abundance. These are five things that helped me personally escape the poverty trap.

Number one is to stop waiting to be told what to do. Even if you gave me a hundred billion dollars, I do not believe I could design a better system for pumping out mindless robots than our current educational system. You gotta show up at this time, sit down face to front, raise your hand, wait to be called on, read this chapter, do that report, take this test, and then you can leave.

We have been programmed from our very first day of school to obey instructions, which actually makes a lot of sense when we're very young, because it's important to socialize children so that they can understand and abide by societal norms. This is how we civilize those wild monkey children inside of us all. But the problem is that this training, it never really evolves. It continues on in the same exact way through high school and college. Ultimately, this turns us into good little worker bees who can show up, who can punch a time clock, and we can do as we're told.

But there's two problems with this for you, the individual first, mindless robots only get paid what mindless robots are worth, which isn't very much considering factories, AKA schools around the world, are pumping out new models of robot every single day. The second problem is that mindless robots can only ever do what they're told. And if you have to be told what to do, then you're simply a cog in the machine, which means you are by definition replaceable.

So the very first thing you have to reprogram in your mind to get out of the poverty trap is this. You have very little value to the world if you have to be told what to do. And the most classic example of this is when Warren Buffett went to Benjamin Graham, who was considered the godfather of value investing, and he offered to work for him for free.

Well, Benjamin Graham, he looks at young Warren, this guy who would go on to become the wealthiest person in the world, and he says these prophetic words, he says, you know what, even for free, you're overpriced. And this is because there was no value to Benjamin Graham in this transaction, because he knew he was just going to have to hold Warren's hand and tell him exactly what to do. The value of the education Warren would have received was far more valuable than any work he could possibly do for Ben.

So here's the first subroutine you've got to program into your mind to get out of that poverty trap. It's this. Abundance flows to the people who bring value to the world without having to be told what to do or how to do it. Also, keep in mind that you are paid in proportion to the magnitude of the problems you solve. So go solve big, important problems that the marketplace values and I promise you will start making more money.

But despite making more money, you will never get out of the poverty trap if you don't reprogram. The second belief, that is, you have to stop equating time with value. Let me tell you a story. So once upon a time, there's this plumber, he's hired to go fix a backed up pipe or something. I don't know, I'm not a plumber. Anyways, he shows up and the homeowner tells him that another plumber already took a look at the problem and said, you know what, the pipes are toast. You're going to need to repipe the whole basement. It's going to cost $10,000.

Well, the homeowner, he wants to get a second opinion. So our plumber, you know, he goes down to the basement, he pokes around for five minutes, he's doing his whole pipe whisperer thing, when suddenly he zeros in on the pipe in particular, he pulls out his piping tool, again, not a plumber, and he gives that pipe a whack, and voila. The problem is magically solved. The homeowner is psyched because now he doesn't have to pay $10,000 to replace all the pipes, right? That is, until he gets the bill for $2,000. And he thinks, that's outrageous. You were only down there for five minutes. I want an itemized bill so I can see exactly what I'm paying for.

Plumber says, all right. He takes back the invoice, and he writes on it two lines on line number one, he says, for tapping the pipe, $1. On line number two, he says, for knowing where to tap $1,999. The important takeaway here is that you are not paying the plumber for his time. You're paying him to solve a problem. And how well he solves the problem is a function of his experience and his skill.

Now, listen, the world has programmed us to believe that time is money. We're told to show up, punch a clock, put in the hours, and you collect a paycheck. So this reinforces the belief that what we're being paid for is our time, and therefore, our time is valuable. But it's not. See, your time doesn't have value. It's what you do with that time that has value.

Now, I get it. This sounds painfully obvious, but the truth is, this is actually one of the hardest subroutines to reprogram, because we've been trained all our lives to equate time with value. And it started all the way back in school. Again. See, you don't actually progress from one class to the next in school based on when you master a subject. No, you only end up moving on after some predetermined period of time has passed, which we call a semester. We reward students more for simply putting in the time than we do for their level of mastery. After all, if you get an A or you get a C, both of you graduate, right? This is a really dumb system, but let's just go ahead and put that aside for a second.

If you want to get out of the poverty trap, you want to win the money game, you have to decouple your earning potential from your time. So a salary or a weekly paycheck, it just ain't going to cut it. Now, again, this is a really hard lesson to learn, even for brilliant, brilliant people like Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and one of the wealthiest people in the world. He said this recently. He said, the biggest economic misunderstanding of my childhood was that people get rich from high salaries. The truth is, it is incredibly hard to build true wealth by trading your time for money. And the reason is because you only have so much time to exchange. And this is why Warren Buffett said, if you can't find a way to make money in your sleep, you'll be working until the day you die.

Now, I believe the best way to make money in your sleep is to build a business that produces cash flow and then use that to invest in assets like real estate. If you want to learn more about how I did that, then you can join 21,000 other subscribers of my weekly newsletter.

All right, this brings us to the third thing you have to stop doing to get out of the poverty trap. Stop being so transactional. When we're young, we're positively reinforced for pretty much everything we do. It's like, good job, Julie. You got an A on your test. Here's a gold star and a pat on the head. You're so smart, keep this up, you're going to get on the honor roll, right? Over time, we grow accustomed to getting a nice little pat on the head whenever we do something. Well, now, the problem with this is that we start to get a little entitled and we stop doing things unless there's going to be some sort of reward for that action.

For instance, I remember taking English 101 in college. And on the very first day of class, the professor, he not only gives us a syllabus with all the required reading for the semester, but he also gives us a list of recommended additional reading. Another student raises her hand and asks, hey, is there going to be any bonus points if we read these books or what? Professor says, no. And that moment is so vivid in my memory because I recall thinking, then what's the point in reading them?

I was so fixated on the grade that it never occurred to me that the reason I was in school was to actually learn something. See, for me, in my 20s, everything was a transaction. And I carried this mindset forward into my work. My thesis was simple. If you want more out of me, you'll have to put more in. I was entitled. I expected to either be praised or compensated for every little thing that I did. As a result, I created a very linear relationship between my work and my pay. I never went above and beyond. I did exactly as much as I thought was fair in exchange for how much I was getting paid.

In the end, this mindset held me back. And it's the reason I got passed over for countless promotions, not to mention just got fired from so many jobs. I had to learn this lesson the hard way, that if you extract equity for every little thing that you do, your work never compounds and thus denies you the opportunity to achieve quadratic growth, which is exactly what you need if you want to build true wealth.

So the easiest way to do this is by simply stretching the time horizon upon which you expect to be compensated. For instance, the minimum wage employee expects to be compensated at the end of each week, whereas the entrepreneur needs to be prepared to work for years before they get compensated. Case in point, my partner and I launched Invictus capital back in 2019, and we didn't take a single dime out of the company in the form of a salary or an owner distribution until 2023. That's four years of putting in the work before we were finally compensated for our efforts.

If you want to reprogram your mind for abundance and not poverty, then you need to stop treating everything as a this for that, stop being so transactional, and trust that great work never actually goes to waste. It might just take a while to reap the fruits of your labor, but I promise, when those fruits finally bloom, you'll have far more than if you were constantly stripping that tree as you went.

All right, now, speaking of doing great work, the next thing that you have to stop doing if you want to break out of the poverty trap is stop tolerating mediocrity in school. Again, it didn't matter if you got an A or a C, because in the end, C's get degrees. In this game, excellence and mediocrity are rewarded equally, which just reinforces the lesson that you will move forward in life so long as you put in the time and you hit the minimum standard. And this begs the question, why put in the extra time and energy creating something amazing when the prize for getting a 98% is the same as for getting a 72?

Well, here's why. Because in real life, where making money is concerned, being excellent at what you do is a decisive advantage. Unfortunately, that's not the lesson most people leave school with, and as a result, they never learn how to produce truly extraordinary work. Instead, they're just putting in the time and going through the motions, and then they're left confused why they're not getting ahead.

In life, you can't expect ordinary actions to yield extraordinary results. If you do what everybody else does, you will only get what everybody else gets. And the truth is, everybody else ain't getting all that much. If. If you want to get ahead in the money game, never forget these immortal words from Will Durant. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. So remember, how you do anything is how you do everything. And the people most consistently winning the money game understand that if something is worth doing, it's worth doing well.

All right. This leads us to our fifth and final thing that we have to stop doing if we want to break out of the poverty trap. That is stop taking money advice from poor people. Now, you've probably heard it said a thousand times before that your network is your net worth. And this is true, but not for the reason most people think. See, most people think the value of their network is based on what that network can do for them, on what opportunities that network can provide. And sure, if your family is good friends with the dean at Harvard, then that probably doesn't hurt your chances for sneaking past admissions. But that is not the true value of your network.

The true value of the people you surround yourself with is in their ability to challenge you to think differently, to set loftier goals, and to provide a standard against which you can measure your own actions. If you're the smartest person in the room, you need to get into different rooms, because every room eventually reverts to the mean. This means that if you're the smartest, most hardworking and ambitious person in the room, you're slowly going to get pulled down. You're going to get sucked down to the level of all the people you surround yourself with. On the other hand, if you're the dumbest, the laziest and least driven person in the room, you can't help but get pulled up to a higher level.

The brutal truth is this. If you hang out with 5 alcoholics, you will probably become the 6. If you hang out with 5 millionaires, you will probably become the 6. Unfortunately, when you're young, you don't really have a choice about who you hang out with, right? You're more or less stuck with your family and your classmates.

And because, like we've already established, most people have been programmed for poverty, this means most of what you've learned about money is coming to you from poor people. Now, as a good general rule for life do not take fitness advice from unhealthy people, don't take relationship advice from single 19 year olds, and don't take financial advice from poor people.

But this, in a nutshell, is how the poverty programming trap perpetuates itself. One poor person passes along well intentioned yet completely wrong advice to the next generation of poor people. Listen, you will never get out of the poverty trap until you break this cycle and learn a different way of thinking about money.

Now if you are ready to reprogram your mind for wealth and abundance, then the very next video you should check out is called this Theory of Investing Changed My Life which should be popping up on the screen here at any moment now.

Motivation, Education, Finance, Self-Improvement, Mindset, Growth, Anthony Vicino