I have seen with time and with much experience that many people who are actually rich do not show themselves or rather do not show their wealth to the public. Indeed it’s silent money. Not being mindful of this fact has cost me a lot and I’m not where I’m supposed or dreamed to because I was just ignorant of this fact.
Each time I have money, I felt like more of it was on it’s way coming and the one I have in my hand isn’t going to finish. All the investment I deas I conceived when I had nothing would suddenly vanish from my head. I have read books about financial discipline but each time the money comes it comes with the urge to spend it extravagantly.
If you have had a similar experience about my financial habits then this is why this article is relevant, to reshape our thoughts and characters about wealth building. This is not to suggest that I’m guaranteeing you wealth stability and to become rich but just to educate you about what I felt was necessary for us to learn.
Introduction
What do you think is likely to happen to someone who is rich but spends his money on luxury? Or pursuing fashion? He is likely to attract more competitors because even when he makes an investment he makes it known to the public that he has a particular line of business.
Those who are very rich but want to also remain low-key do not have many competitors and are enjoying more peace of mind.
Recently I was watching an English Premier League match between Nottingham Forest vs Leicester City in which it ended (2:2) draw, the owner of the club (Nottingham Forest) Evangelos Marinakis came out to the pitch at the end of the match and was talking with the head coach Nuno Espírito Santo who was coach at that time and what caught my attention was fact that camera captured his phone and guess what, it was an iPhone 7. It was very surprising to see a multimillionaire using such a lower version of the iPhone when the iPhone 16 pro max was reigning.
The psychology of modest earners who grow rich
When a person has financial discipline, even if he or she is not earning much their savings keeps increasing until they achieve what they set their mind to do. Modest earners who grow rich over time have a psychology that money can only be worked for and that it cannot come by luck. Having this in mind, they plan both their short term goals and long term goals within their means.
They tend to focus mainly on long term goals because their modest earnings may not be enough to achieve their ultimate goal within a short term.
What distinguishes modest earners who have become rich with the poor is that, they invest their money which can be translated as paying themselves then they spend the remainder. But the case is completely different and opposite with poor people because they spend first before thinking of saving the remainder.
These kinds of people also believe that failure in investment is also part of the process and so they treat it as such. When they fail instead of avoiding what they failed in, they evaluate the entire process to pick out what actually led to the failure then they make significant adjustments and give it a trial again.
Another thing that is very unique with modest earners who became rich is that they are not tired of learning. They constantly try to harness every new innovation to maximize their income. They learn any new skill that will preserve their value.
We can tightly summarize that self made millionaires are saving and also investing consistently without ever assuming he has enough investments already. He diversifies his investment to make sure he secured his capital which is primarily his aim for the diversification.
Hidden advantages of financial privacy
There are a lot of benefits that accompany financial privacy. Let me give you an example quickly, if someone has as huge as one Billion Naira (N1,000,000,000.00) in his account and doesn’t make other people know he has such money, would he be rubbed? Will other people feel challenged by his wealth? all of these won’t happen because he has kept his financial records secret. So therefore the advantages of financial privacy are;
1. Ensures Personal and family safety: just like the picture I tried to create through the example I gave earlier, keeping your financial information away from the public actually helps to prevent criminal attacks.
2. Reduces vulnerability of asset seizures: Rich people who are also involved in politics for instance, financial privacy help in preventing retaliations from political opponents.
3. Maintain a competitive advantage: this is very clear, if you disclose secrets about your business to the public, you may attract a lot of competition from other investors who already have worth would compete with you strategically.
The dangers of financial display in social media culture
Social Media has become a source of information, medium of entertainment and communication in the 21st century. People often visit platforms like X (formerly Twitter) or Facebook to either check for global or local trends or sometimes to communicate with friends and oftentimes to watch reels and entertaining videos.
Displaying your financial records on social media will not only put you on the watchlist of the law enforcement agencies but will also give your potential competitors access to your financial records and would be able to save soft copies of such records for future reference.
This act may also encourage reckless financial decisions capable of ruining your financial status. For example, when you post or flaunt your wealth on social media friends and families start calling you to borrow money or seek financial assistance and so on.
This is another interesting write-up that teaches the reader financial modesty and probity in ones dealings and engagements.
More grace to you sir.
Commendable