When I was a young buck, I used to travel like a maniac for work. I was based in Manhattan and had to cover clients in Florida, Bahamas, Iowa, Texas, Colorado, and California. Then there were the necessary quarterly or semi-annual pilgrimages to Hong Kong to kiss the ring. When you’ve got a corporate card with unlimited credit, you feel a little better about taking red-eyes to your 8am meetings. But after a while, the novelty wears off and all you want to do is take the Chairman’s Flight (fly in the middle of the work day).

Travel miles and credit card rewards points was my combination of choice because not only would I gain more points flying more miles, I would then gain rewards points for every dollar I spent on the ticket, hotels, food, and entertainment. For example, I’d earn 16,100 points for flying to Hong Kong from New York City roundtrip + 5,000 points for the cost of the business class ticket + 2,500 points for seven nights in a hotel + 1,000 points for food + 500 points for entertainment. The total rewards points accumulated would therefore equal ~25,000 for a one week business trip to Asia.

I used to have a Delta Skymiles credit card, an American Airlines credit card, and an AMEX corporate card as part of my arsenal of spending tools. After racking up 130,000 travel miles one year and accumulating roughly 180,000 credit card rewards points, I realized that having three travel credit cards was inefficient so I consolidated to just two. (See: What Is The Ideal Number Of Credit Cards One Should Have?)

I was so proud of my 130,000 travel miles that I actually included that stat in a line item on my resume in my 20s. I know, a rookie move. In retrospect, I don’t know how impressive the stat was since I’ve heard of people travel 300,000 – 500,000 miles a year, which I find absolutely amazing. But those folks were either executives who constantly flew first or business class internationally, or worked in the airlines industry.

The only way someone can truly get rich is through equity. Think about all the billionaires in the world. Almost all of their net worth comes from their equity stakes in huge businesses such as Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Berkshire Hathaway. The only people who are going to get rich making a salary are perhaps investment bankers, hedge fund managers, strategy consultants, doctors, and big lawyers. But even those guys aren’t going to crush it with their six figure salaries unless they become partners in their respective firms or practices.

Every once in a while I go jogging along the mansions in Pacific Heights on Broadway and Lyon St in San Francisco. I specifically choose this area because it’s inspirational to see beautiful homes. All of the homes are valued between $10-$25 million dollars. And guess what? Every single one of the owners is an entrepreneur.

There’s the Getty family (Getty Oil), the Ellison family (Oracle), the Haas family (Levi’s), and the Sachs family (Yammer), to name a few of the owners who are clustered in these few blocks of extreme wealth. Even if I made a million dollars a year, I’ll still never be able to afford a $20 million dollar home. Just the property tax alone costs $220,000 a year.

Ownership is the key to building outsized wealth. And ownership is one of the main reasons why I’ve chosen to pursue entrepreneurship. It is truly a fantastic feeling to build something out of nothing and create an asset that is potentially worth a great deal. Even if someone offered $2 million for Financial Samurai, I’m not sure I’d sell my baby. Only really evil people sell babies right? Besides, the government would get half. (Related: How Much Do I Have To Make As An Entrepreneur To Replace My Day Job Income?)

And just like that, I’m no longer in the 800+ credit score club full of beautiful people. As part of my mortgage application process, the bank had to pull my credit score. The big white envelope in the mail with the results reminded me of my college acceptance letter way back in 1994. When I opened it, I was disappointed to discover my credit score dropped to 790 from 805.

Since September, 2013 when I first broke the 800 credit score mark when I applied for my Discover It credit card for travel and double the rewards points, I’ve done nothing different. Every single mortgage, utility, and credit card bill has been paid in full without fail. Actually, that’s not true. I was a week late on one credit card payment because I was traveling. I gave them a ring and they dropped the late fee and said no problem. (See: How Does A Late Credit Card Payment Affect My Credit Score)

So I wonder, what could have hurt my credit score in just six short months. Perhaps you, too, have seen a decline in your credit score without any apparent reason. Let’s think things through.