The Art of Seducing Wealth

By Shaun Montoya

The year I turned 19 I began to dream of working on Wall Street because we were in the midst of a total financial crisis and I began having thoughts on how the country can change its failing economics. The year I turned 23 I broke into my first job on the street and began to study wealth attainment, from rags to riches. I started a blog to begin materializing some of these thoughts into the minds of those of our generation, because part of what I believe is that our immense wealth gap from rich to poor is contributed by an education system that lacks the education of wealth at the bottom and not at the top. 

Rich money, poor money. A lot’s in the mindset.

I’m currently a non-wealthy middle-class 23 year-old Millennial, to say the least, studying the riches in money-making Manhattan on my very own shiny penny.

In fact I went to Wall Street to study and earn wealth, because it’s the only place that “befit my high-minded ambitions”.  I started initially by coming into contact with very wealthy men by cold-calling their offices. To say the least, the rich can be very, very witty when they’re angrily condemning what they believe is your shit job wasting their precious minutes, but believe it or not a select few of them a day actually appreciate an ambitious kid in New York trying to earn their business. Speaking to these gentlemen has helped to realize some poverty-driven mentalities that I’ll get into at some point. But more importantly on the street, I’ve taken myself under the wing of two seasoned self-made millionaire stockbrokers to learn a thing or two about the techniques and habits of being a successful businessman, all while studying for my Series 7 licensing for shit money. I’ve read many books on becoming wealthy, including the driest content of all in my government-sponsored Series 7 study material.

And what I have learned thus far about wealth wasn’t as obvious to me as it might have been for others. I mean, there is literally on average tens of billions of dollars that change hands from one person to another in the U.S. economy every. single. day. It circumvents the country all around us, passing through us like radio waves in search of antennas. And you know who has a rod? The fucking rich people and their rich mindsets, striving to catch signal by any means: through entrepreneurship, through smart investments, through just about any creative means possible. And they’re succeeding only because they understand wealth, just enough so that they believe their income should not be isolated solely by the wages paid by your business owner and his company’s labor budget, but from just about every angle you can possibly conceive of outside of wages.

And by the way, what did public schools teach us all about making money? Along with our parents and their parents long ago, we’ve heard “study hard and get a good job.” You see, no teacher taught us how to make real money, and it’s probably because millionaires don’t teach high school. But to the others in the 1% club, working for wages is not only one of many ways to earn money, but it’s just about the least significant form of income (especially for the 0.1% club). You see there is no antenna of wealth found by earning a fixed dollar amount of your boss’s earnings. In fact, at the very top of a very successful business, the top boss’s income comes as a nice chunk of his or her consumers’ income, which could be millions of people and what money they have, all being seduced by your top boss and his business, funneled into his pockets from all corners of the country, to him and his antennal wallet.

And if it’s a fortune 500 company, it doesn’t just go to one top boss. It might go to several individuals, essentially anyone who has an ownership stake in the business, of whom share a portion of the profits. I mean granted, it may not be as stable as a guaranteed fixed income of $60k a year, but if its a multi-million dollar business, no one is talking about $60k.

What do they call these people again? Oh yeah, shareholders. Ah, the evil shareholders we all hate down here at the bottom. Now why is it we hate rich people again? Is it because we loathe the money they earn that we want a slice of? Actually when I was a young teenager I hated the 1%. It just seemed like it was a buzz among us modest Millennials. I remember thinking that they were greedy spineless psychopaths who sold their souls for another million bucks. Of course, if a million bucks showed up in my pocket that wouldn’t be so bad. But hypocrisy is pretty much fixed in a teenager’s growth path and I was content with the ignorance of integrity. Or maybe I just felt self-entitled for my hard work of doing nothing all day.

But a million bucks doesn’t just show up in one’s pocket, no matter how entitled you may feel to it. That’s why courageous men and women begin businesses, to take a stake in potential profits if they worked hard, and because working hard under someone else’s business didn’t always pay dividends without a mix of brown-nosing office politics and years of patience and diligence. Thus, they become shareholders of their own hard work with their name on it, and what’s even more is that they become shareholders of other businesses with the excess cash they store. What I mean is that they buy stock (shareholder interest) in other companies, collecting dividends and increasing their cash pile, and really all they did was save some cash and buy a stake in the company.  They then go on to engage in an array of different businesses, actively or passively, and increase their wealth because at some point or another, in their journey outside of the 9-5 grind, they learned how to make money.

Here’s what it boils down to from here: in a $16 trillion a year economy, $43 billion of those dollars circulate around us in this country each and every single day on average. Wealth is represented by greenbacks, but wealth isn’t the nicely sewn paper dollars in your wallet, it is a multi-dimensional power that liberates your ability to engage in the world freely, and it exists all around us. It is as light is, available to a lower class of people of whose eyes are closed shut. Wealth is not money, it is nothing more or less than a special capacity at which you are able to engage with the world. As your wealth increases, so your capacity. As your capacity increases, so your wealth. And riches are shy and timid, and they are only seduced by the boldest and aggressive of those among us.

So here’s what money advice I wish to offer in short (as I’m actually now legally licensed to (capable of) giving investment advice): Get out of debt completely above all. Live off 90 percent of your income. Pay yourself the other 10 percent without fail. Grow your money, and then put your money to work for you. Invest your savings in mutual funds and hold it. Come to me for help. Watch your money grow and learn what’s happening to it. Then invest in stocks, or bonds, or real estate, or options, or anything that befits your profile. Come to me for help. Go out into the wind and accomplish your dreams. Start a business. Start a charity. Stick your hand out into the world and stop some of the world’s cash flow dead in it’s tracks. Be bold. Don’t live your life working for someone else, have others work for you. Have money work for you. Take a goddamn risk because if you don’t, you force yourself into relying on the rich above you to pay for your life, and the incompetent government below you to catch you if they fail. 

Money isn’t everything to life, but freedom most certainly is.

Poor Millennial Rich Millennial

Good news! The economy is proving… well that’s what they’re saying anyway.

The numbers surely support it, except that really it’s the rich who are behind all those pretty numbers. And by that I mean that the wealthy population is benefitting largely from the spur in economic growth, and the poor and the kind of poor, well not so much.

I suppose it makes sense though, given the logical standpoint that those who are the most economically active are benefitting the most from the spur in economic activity… it almost seems silly to think otherwise, and it is. I mean, if your name is Tim Cook and you’re the CEO of Apple, the economy is doing great for all you know. You’re sitting on a boatload of corporate cash, shipping a chunk of it over to Chinese factories to manufacture new products, teaming up with large corporations to establish a new payment software system, all while taking in even more cash from the 20 million people who just bought your new iPhones over the past several weeks. I mean, the supply chain for Apple alone creates a ton of economic activity both domestically and internationally, creating value measured by Apple’s large cash position.

But a middle class youngster like myself… not so much economic activity created. In fact, many in poor economic conditions are riding out the financial drought waiting for Apple and thousands of other large corporations to expand widely enough to create new job opportunities. Sitting. Waiting. Wishing. Blaming the government while waiting for their checks. Blaming the rich while waiting for their checks.

But what if life was meant for more, for active participation in human creation; for meaningful contributions to service society better? What if the economy, in reality, had less to do with making ends meet and more to do with monetizing our values, our creations, and serving others? What if the rich weren’t rich because they are greedy, but because they’re brilliantly valuable? Even the investors, who tied their boatloads of money into companies like Apple, or Ford, or pharmaceutical companies, or government debt, or mortgages, or student loans? If we remembered what investments do for the economy, then wouldn’t it be more difficult to blame the greedy rich for their money, those of whom actually own a stake in financing the creation of my iPhone, or of creating my car, or of the research for my medicine, or of the construction of our public roads, or of my NYC apartment, or of my entire schooling? One could even argue that money is more democratic than our political system, given that the supply of money is directed to where it is demanded most.

More importantly, what if the supply of money was directed right into your hands, given you had the potential to provide an immeasurable value to society? In fact, there is an entire pocket of funds from venture capitalists, waiting for investment opportunities into small businesses and start up companies, especially for middle class folks who have amazing ideas within a passionate vision, but lack the funds to finance its chance to create real economic value in the world. Moreover, there is a way to raise the capital yourself given you emulate the habits of the rich, especially in terms of spending and saving, and investing your own savings as they grow. Certain principles (which you can read from authors such as Robert Kiyosaki, Stephen Covey, George Samuel Clason). Life can be of much more significance trying and even failing (with resilience) in several business ventures in your 20’s than being cut a small portion of the money reaped by the wealthy executive who signs your paycheck until you’re 65.

The Millennial generation is not a security-oriented generation. It is a passionate generation of visionaries comprised of individuals who just need the proper faith in his or her own value, coupled with the right mentality to exercise successful principles. And that mentality need not be a mentality governed by poverty or fear thereof. Being successful is a mentality. Being rich is a product of being successful. And many of the self-made wealthiest visionaries in the world today were rich even when they had no money because they had a rich mentality. Invest instead of spend. Dream instead of everything else. Connect. Read. Learn. Take a leap of faith. If we want the system to change, if we want to narrow the wealth gap, let’s change the poor instead of the rich.

“Poverty needs no plan. It needs no one to aid it, because it is bold and ruthless. Riches are shy and timid. They have to be ‘attracted.'” -Napoleon Hill

Money is the Root of All Philanthropy

In his article on entrepreneur.com titled 8 Slow, Difficult Steps to Become a Millionaire, Dharmesh Shah describes one of the steps as to:

“Stop thinking about making a million dollars and start thinking about serving a million people.”

When it comes to money, there are three kinds of people:

1. those who love and live for money,
2. those who don’t have or care for money,
3. those who believe money is the root of all evil.

The big irony is that intrinsically, money is an illusionary worthless commodity only backed by the desire of billions of people to attain it. In capitalism, it is a necessary means for survival, and therefore, even those who despise the very essence of money are inevitably a slave to it’s attainment.

But what is money?

Of course, a dollar used to be nothing more than just a receipt of gold from the bank who held your reserves for you. It was simply easier to just trade bank notes that guaranteed gold reserves. Can you imagine lugging pounds of gold every time you wanted to make a sizeable transaction? Of course, there is no more gold backing these pieces of paper and there are trillions of worthless dollars floating around in an arguably arbitrary amount.

But even if you think money is an illusionary product designed by the greedy ‘ol capitalists, what if it also isn’t? With the right set of lenses, money could be viewed as nothing more than a measurement of how much you contribute to society. I mean, just take a look at what it means to earn money: you exchange labor to produce some form of value in some way in exchange for dollars. Even if you serve food at some corporate fast food restaurant, the only reason you are able to earn money is because you are aiding in providing some form of service to the public community. Just think about it in terms of barter. If you could fish, you might be able to trade some fish for some firewood. If you were the only person who knew how to fish, you’d probably be golden to the community and could trade for more firewood if needed. But instead of thinking about trade in terms of how much will it serve you, think about how much value you provide to the community by having the skill of fishing. You may not want to charge a ton of firewood for your fish, even if you economically could if you so wanted to. You may choose to help your community by distributing your value in good faith in some form of philanthropy. But in this barter example, firewood may serve as a benchmark for how much value you produce to your community, just as paper dollars do in the 21st century.

Put another way, think about money in terms of how many people you help. Most self-made successful entrepreneurs became rich solely because they helped many people in some form or another. By this perspective, try eliminating the stigma attached to the greed associated with earning money in order to provide us with more meaningful context. Money only means monetized value, and value comes in many forms, such as gold, firewood, or simply the value of helping others. When you are able to translate your value into money, view it as a measurement of how much you contribute to society. That is the essence of what wealth is–your assets, the intangible ones too that can only be found in the good of your spirit. You may choose to live life only translating your timed labor into money, or you may live life more meaningfully by translating your desire to help others into its monetary equivalent, and use your gained value for better service to humanity. Being an entrepreneur does not only serve as a means to answer the question of “how do I get rich”. Getting rich is a byproduct of what you truly contribute to the world. If you have a passion, monetize it so that the world may benefit from people who provide meaningful contributions, and not just from rich capitalists who lack the same passion as you do.

Capitalism Among Millennials

Among the main functions of this blog is to channel a platform of political ideas to a generation of future leaders among us as Millennials.

I am a macro economics junkie fixated with an empowering faith in human economic choices as a force of governance. I believe capitalism to be an economic system aggregating individual human choices in order to efficiently allocate scarce resources. I highlight that this definition empowers and emphasizes the significance of individual choices and decisions of which dictate a feedback system of rewards and consequences that affect our next decisions. This, in my humble opinion, most closely resembles the principles of life in this universe.

I grew up, along with a large portion of my generation, believing that capitalism was a broken system that serves the wealthiest group of individuals at the expense of the large majority beneath them. It is now my belief, as a 23 year old, that capitalism serves the wealthy the best solely because the wealthy understand the system in such a way that the middle class does not. As a result, I believe that lower classes have become the servants of the system as employees of wealthy capitalists, and overly dependent on the resources (such as jobs) that the wealthiest groups provide. I do not believe in the “trickle down” approach of economics as much as I believe in the capacity to create wealth to be available to all individuals, namely through avenues outside of a company check through entrepreneurship and investments. I believe in the power to employ innovation and creativity through a risk-reward system as a means of living, versus what conventional values advocate for in higher schooling and secured corporate positions with benefits.

Above all, I believe that the Millennial Generation will benefit on plenty discussion over our economic and value systems.

As my previous post indicated, I have a strong sense of optimism with regards to the future of humanity namely because of the collective unconventional identity of Millennials. I understand the pessimistic views regarding our generation, especially among Millennials themselves, as certain research supports a growing sense of narcissism and entitlement among our generation (Twenge). I’m not a sociologist nor am I an expert in studying generations. But there certainly is research suggesting an insurmountable capacity to breakaway from the status quo in large effect, be it for the better or worse. Pew Research suggests Millennials are “detached from institutions and networked with friends,” to which I would say is an important statement when considering my belief that Millennials have the capacity to rewrite the rules of traditional politics and values by engaging in a collective effort, even if engaging collectively means just to contribute among peers to the spreading of viral videos and other forms of activism for awareness.

If we have the capacity as a generation to create change as a collective power for better or for worse, then posts and blogs and other forms of conversation are extremely vital in engaging the community to a platform of differing ideas, values and ways of thinking.

Before us is a failing economic value system propped up by unsound federal policies that may not survive in it’s current form by the time we enter midlife. To emphasize, I do not believe this is a failure of capitalism. I believe it is a failure of economic values. I, like many Millennials, believe that the convention of working hard from 9-5 p.m. on a fixed salary will attain you the “American dream” is a hoax. My beef is not that our society overvalues money, but that wealth isn’t valued enough by the commoner. I believe that as a middle class, we can effect meaningful change by engaging in our own business opportunities based on business that is important and significant to us individually. If money is not the motive, be it a motive that is effective to you which will provide motivation to, for example, start a fashion blog, or a nonprofit business providing for the homeless, or selling your art on eBay or Etsy. Start small. Grow it. Read about it. Learn. Live. Compete. Make the world a better place. Capitalism allows us to create meaning to the world as a means to live. Our mindset as a generation just isn’t geared enough to think that way. Engage yourselves for the responsibility over change, because whether we want to or not, change will come among us with a chance to leave a legacy as a generation.

The Millennial Revolution

The world is changing right before our eyes, and we have an opportunity to rewrite the rules.

Modern research on the Millennial Generation has generated extremely interesting expectations regarding the paradigm shift in the structure of American society, with promising leadership as the generation emerges into positions of power.

Let’s take a look at Millennials with regard to their placement in history. Millennials were born roughly between the years 1982-2004 (Strauss-Howe’s definition). Since the rising of Millennials into the age of young adulthood, the world has undergone global wars across several groups of countries and financial meltdowns of the world’s richest societies. An age of crises is the world that the Millennial generation perceives coming into adulthood–and more importantly, what research suggests, defines the identity of this generation, especially as future leaders in positions of power across the nation.

But let’s step back and look at the generation currently in power today, at the leaders who are strongly influencing the decisions of the nation with regards to its politics and its culture. The Baby Boom Generation dates roughly between the birth years of 1943-1960 (Strauss-Howe). Baby Boomers were born right at the end of World War II and the Great Depression–a previous period of global crisis regarding war and financial calamity. During the 1940’s and 1950’s, the United States underwent a booming economy and strong cultural and community values, giving birth to a generation called the Baby Boomers (due to the high rate at which children were being born during this period).

It’s important to understand that the Baby Boom Generation was born just late enough to not remember the world of crisis that many of their parents led the nation out of. They were born during an American “high” of strong institutional life and American community at the beginning of the new post-war era. The traditional values present during the 1940s and 1950s were ultimately rejected by the children of this era, as Baby Boomers came of age into young adulthood, shifting the culture away from the community and into individualism and spirituality during the Consciousness Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. The Baby Boomers came into power with leadership roles (largely as business executives and politicians) during the 1990s and 2000s, leading the country into another period of world wide wars and financial crises, similar to the 1930s and 1940s that they have no recollection of.

Today, as Baby Boomers transition out of power into retirement, Millennials are transitioning out of childhood and into young adulthood, dominating popular culture and preparing themselves to become future leaders (while Generation X comes into power, with leaders such as Barack Obama). A Millennial generation old enough to grow up into society in the midst of crises might produce a fundamentally different leadership approach than any other living generation, simply due to its placement in history and how it has defined the generation. A paradigm shift of perspective from older generations to a Millennial state of mind may in large part be due to an environment of failing structures of governance, creating a quality of distrust and strong and aggressive activism and innovation.

The GI Generation (also known as the Greatest Generation, born 1901-1924) also grew into society during a period of crisis as young adults during the Great Depression and World War II. As the generation grew into positions of power, the world became restructured through a growth in new institutions (e.g. United Nations, world banks) and a new wave of fresh values that would shape global politics for an entire era. The GI’s were war and political heroes, and rewrote the rules of global governance. As the number of people alive during the crises of the 1930s and 1940s are decreasing everyday (among the Silent Generation), so too are the memories and lessons of global crisis aversion.

Neil Howe, an economist and historian of whose work is the basis for this post, is a leader in studying generations relative to their placement in history. Howe has outlined parallels in qualities from the Millennial generation to other generations born during pre-crisis eras, such as the GI Generation and the Republican Generation (of which the United States’ founding fathers were apart of). These types of generations “age into political power…as aggressive advocates of economic prosperity and public optimism…with principle endowments in the domain of community, affluence, and technology” (read more here).

If you are apart of the Millennial Generation such as I am, take a look around you at your peers. Millennials are on the forefront of the digital era and technology’s increasing emergence into the economy. Social media is often a channel for aggressive activism among our peers. Political views and awareness are strong and passionate among us. A new genre of news outlets through blogs and freelance writers, generally by older Milliennials,  include pieces written in a fundamentally different approach than the conventional practice of delivering news and opinion. Millennial business models look fundamentally different than conventional successes. Society’s values are shifting towards a tolerant stance in social and cultural issues such as same-sex marriage and social equality. The atmosphere of the country is in a transition back from individualism towards the community again (with a different culture than the 1940-50s), with examples such as social media playing an important role in consolidating the Millennial community’s interaction. Take a close look at the values and principles you see expressed over the internet: these are the future leaders of the world, and as the country of current and emerging leaders (predominantly from Generation X) try to manage our current crises through damage control, it may likely be the Millennial Generation who rewrites the rules of society as it transitions into positions of power, especially in government, over the next 20-30 years.