3 Money Lessons from Rich People I learned the Hard Way

The article below may contain affiliate links from which I may receive some compensation at no extra cost to you. These commissions help keep the site going and can help you on your financial journey. Please read my Disclosure for more info.

Last Updated on August 9, 2021 by Tyler Clark

Ever found yourself dreaming about getting rich?

Do you ever wonder who lives in that big house in the fancy neighborhood? Well, so did I and as a personal trainer, I went right into lots of those houses and this is what I found..

I often had clients in these crazy neighborhoods and would be going inside these amazing homes and seeing what was inside.

It was kind of a fun part of the job.

You walk in and go holy crow, that must be an expensive plant!

Many of my clients had really nice furnishings including plants, furniture and entertainment centers in their homes.

My dad was a realtor so I’d grown up with an appreciation for a well built home too. These homes were way beyond that. They were off the chart.

I think I could write this blog on the homes I saw over the years alone but of course, it’s not just about the homes, it’s about the people inside them.

Here’s What You Find When You Go In

I’ll never forget one home in particular.

It was a Tudor style and it was huge. It had been built tastefully and was set in amongst the trees of the property. It had a fairytale quality to it when you looked at it from the street.

I also remember that it was on an incredible piece of land. The backyard must have stretched 200 feet deep. Another thing that struck me was how perfectly level the back lawn was. I don’t know how you get that amount of ground plumb level but, I’d imagine it’s not done by the local lawncare people.

All in all, this was a seriously beautiful home.

This house belonged to a great client of mine and it was one of the first times I saw what you could do with real wealth first hand.

It’s Right in Front of You Every Day

As the years went by, these situations continued to pile up. Massive houses stretching for half of the block. Homes with many, many bedrooms and bathrooms and the odd horse stable in the backyard.

I also saw lavish apartments with maintenance fees that were regularly higher than an average person’s rent. These residences were sometimes rivaled only by the high end cars in the driveway.

Naturally, I  began to wonder how these people had managed to reach these crazy levels of financial freedom.

So What’s a Trainer to Do?

1. Get Some Awareness Fast

Ever think that one day, you’re gonna make it? People tell you to work hard, keep your head down and push to the finish line and you’ll make it!

But will you? What’s “making it?” And what the heck is that beautiful floor made of? I had a lot of questions.

Did making it mean a decent home or one of these homes? There seemed to be a whole lot of different levels of making it.

If a trainer wanted to make it, maybe they could learn something along the way. Maybe they could pick up a tip or a secret or perhaps it would just rub off?

They say the people around you and your environment have a big effect on you right? By that rational, shouldn’t most trainers be wealthy?

It can get you thinking: “I’m working hard, I’m training these successful people, I’m gonna make it too!”

2. But Alas, It’s All Smoke & Gym Mirrors.

Though it feels close to you as a trainer, the reality is that it’s not. You’re in that fancy gym or that incredible home but, it’s not yours. You talk with successful people every day but are you doing what what they do to achieve success? Not really.

I was a very “successful” trainer but that’s not what my clients were doing to become wealthy.

Success as a trainer is of course a very different thing than becoming a millionaire.

As the years went on, I realized trainers had quite a few things against them when it came to making big money.

• Trainers for the most part are health conscious. My clients skipped meals and lost sleep working towards their millions.
• Fitness consultants are mostly in a dollars-for-hours job. They only kill what they book and a lot of those hours are “off-hours” meaning 5-9am, 12-1pm and 5-9pm. Long hours for average money. Not really a million dollar recipe.
• Personal trainers are “Capped Consultants”. This is a term I coined after a few years in the industry. I’ll do an article on it soon.

3. Make a Change if You Want to Get Rich

After awhile, I knew that if I ever wanted to become wealthy, it wasn’t going to work the way I was doing it. Something had to change. There were only so many bookings I could do in a day and as mentioned, the hours are often quite spread out. This didn’t bother me, I’ve never been obsessed with money but none the less, I was aware of my reality.

The reality was that there were many differences between my clients and I.

My clients were often in fields that seemingly paid a lot more. I was in a luxury service that paid well but they were on a whole other level. They of course had scalable businesses where they weren’t the product or didn’t directly provide the services. They also all had platforms from which to run and grow their businesses. If I wanted to follow them, I had to make a lot of changes to my business.

How to Make a Change

If you’re a trainer or a similar type of consultant, you might start by getting online, starting your platform and growing it. It’s not rocket science and we’ve all heard about this process by now. The key to it is that you want to build something that stands alone beyond yourself.

What can you build that can become bigger than you? That was what my clients were doing. They weren’t building one-person shows like I had done. They were building slightly larger, more scalable businesses that could grow.

Change is Now Easier then Ever

With the advent of the internet, you can actually do what my clients have done so many times. There’s huge potential to develop a small online business and grow it into a genuine platform.

I still feel that a lot of people don’t know the potential of the online business space but trust me, it’s ever improving.

Today, you can start developing an online platform in your spare time at a very low cost.

These are big advantages that many of my clients didn’t have when they started their businesses.

So what can you learn from working for wealthy people?

First you can learn that the financial payoffs are big. They have some really nice homes and cars and above all, they have great financial security.

Second, you learn that they’re consistently approaching business by way of creating some form of platform. They use this platform to conduct business from and build it up. They build it in a way that other people can help run it and grow far beyond what one person could do.

The last thing I learned is that nobody is stopping you from changing. The market my clients and I operate in is the same market. It’s a free market. Whether online or abroad, you can start and join in at any time and build whatever you want.

My clients had built their businesses and I had built mine. What are you going to build?

Best of Wealth,

Tyler.