Growing up, I didn’t have the healthiest relationship with money. My parents were successful business owners, but they had to work incredibly hard for it. They gave up a lot of their time and energy to earn a living. The discussions I remember most were about what we couldn’t afford, or the things we wanted but had to wait for.
I learned early on to be very mindful of what I asked for. If we went to a restaurant, I would look for the cheapest item on the menu because I didn’t want to be a financial burden. That scarcity mindset became my default setting.
Worse, I developed a skewed idea of what wealth actually meant. When I saw someone with a beautiful house or an expensive car — especially growing up in Bolivia — I assumed they must be a corrupt politician or involved in something illegal. I believed that honest financial success required bleeding for it. I thought you had to give all your time, your best effort, and all your energy just to survive.
That was the employee mindset: money is something you trade your life for.
The Fear of Investing
Because I viewed money as something scarce and hard-won, the idea of investing terrified me.
When I was at university, I saw peers receiving stocks from their parents as gifts. To me, it looked like gambling. I thought you were just throwing your money into the market and hoping for the best. I assumed that to be a real investor, you had to spend your life studying balance sheets, analyzing business models, and obsessing over the news. I didn’t want to do that, so I decided investing wasn’t for me.
Later, when I was working as a manager, I heard stories that only reinforced my fears. I heard about people who made a fortune and bought sports cars, but I also heard about people who entered the market at the wrong time, lost everything, and spent years working off massive loans. Investing still felt like a dangerous game.
But everything changed when I left my corporate career and started an online business.
The Shift: From Earning to Owning
After I quit my job, my online business eventually started generating income. Because my wife and I didn’t increase our standard of living, that money began to pile up. For the first time in my life, I had a surplus. I realized that if I just left it sitting there, it wasn’t doing anything. I needed to put it to work.
I started with crypto. I was fascinated by Bitcoin because it represented true ownership — something nobody else could take from you. As I invested and learned, I realized something profound: investing isn’t about obsessively studying companies. It’s about understanding markets, and more importantly, understanding your own psychology.
Reading books like Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki was a turning point. His Cashflow Quadrant made me realize that if you want long-term financial growth, you have to become an investor. It isn’t just an option; it is a necessity for financial freedom.
I finally understood that money is not a reward for suffering. Money is a tool.
When you create systems, leverage technology, or put your capital into assets, you decouple your income from your time. It is no longer about how many hours you work. It is about the quality of the problem you are solving, or how well you are putting your money to work. Yes, you will make mistakes. Yes, you might lose some money along the way. But if you put your tools to work and give them time, the returns will come.
How an Investor Actually Makes Decisions
Today, I invest across real estate, crypto, precious metals, and alternative funds. The way I make decisions now is entirely different from how I operated as an employee.
As an investor, I know that the quality of my investments depends directly on the quality of the people I surround myself with. Your network dictates your opportunities. I invest time in building relationships with people I trust, people I like, and people who are already living the life I want to live. Those are the people who bring the right opportunities and the right lessons.
I have completely broken the idea of exchanging time for money. I know that a single, well-thought-out decision is infinitely more valuable than a hundred hours of grinding.
And surprisingly, some of the best decisions aren’t purely logical. This is where intuition comes in. When you have a healthy relationship with money, when you trust your purpose, and when you align your investments with your core values, you develop a sense of knowing. You know when you are doing the right thing. You know when you are surrounded by the right people.
You simply make the investment, give it the time it needs to grow, and trust the process.
If you are still stuck in the employee mindset, the first step isn’t to buy a stock or start a business. The first step is to change how you view money. Stop seeing it as something you have to bleed for, and start seeing it as a tool waiting to be put to work.
If you are ready to start building systems that work for you, the Modern Wealthy programme is the exact resource I wish I had when I began my journey. It teaches the foundational skills of online business and wealth creation. Learn more here.
