Let’s look at how the rich get richer. After all, half the battle is staying rich for multiple generations.
Making money is like playing a competitive sport. You train hard all your life for those moments on the battlefield where you win all the spoils or go home empty-handed. You console yourself after a loss for having tried your best, but eventually, you realize the game is rigged.
For the past 12 years, I’ve played USTA league tennis. It’s a great way to stay in shape, meet new folks, and keep the competitive juices firing. Everyone needs to balance mental activity with physical activity if they want to stay healthy.
For the past six years, minus one year off due to the birth of my son and one year off due to the pandemic, I’ve played at the 5.0 level. It’s a treacherous level filled with ex-college players and even ex-pros. Few have a beer gut and everyone has at least one weapon, be it a cannon serve or a heavy topspin forehand.
Battling Against The Odds
Let me use league tennis as an analogy of how the rich get richer. I really enjoyed playing 5.0 level tennis my first year (2015). It felt like I had joined a new fraternity of men I never played with or against before.
I joined a team of newly promoted 5.0s and high-level 4.5s and we relished just playing against high-level players, not concerning ourselves with victory.
During the second year, I no longer had as much fun because the experience wasn’t new anymore. In fact, the experience started getting old because I kept losing. It didn’t feel fair to match up with a 4.5 partner or a borderline 5.0 player like myself and battle against two veteran high level 5.0 opponents over and over again.
After following a 2-3 season with a dismal 1-7 season I thought surely the USTA would bump me down to 4.5, but it did not. The USTA said that because I lost some very close matches with a 4.5 partner against two veteran 5.0 players, those losses actually helped boost my rating.
During the 2018 season at 5.0, I realized there was no hope of ever getting ahead playing on a public park team unless I made some drastic changes. I was getting older, slower, and sustaining more injury.
How the rich get richer in competitive league tennis
- If you are an elite player, you will be recruited by a private club. They will give you a discounted rate, sometimes wave the initiation fee, and certainly fast track your membership. The public teams from public parks will have no chance of ever recruiting you because they have nothing special to offer.
- Once the private club has some elite players, it becomes easier to recruit even more elite players to its team because similar-level players want to play with other similar-level players and create a social network. Meanwhile, public park players either don’t have the money or the connections to join a private club and are stuck playing with whoever joins that year.
- Private club players develop a familiarity with each other’s games because they tend to be long-term members. Having a strong chemistry is huge in doubles. Public park players are always rotating doubles partners because the team is open for anyone to join.
This is how the rich stay rich and keep on getting richer. They have all the competitive advantages already. Then they get even more help by playing with even better connected, wealthier, and more powerful friends.
When you already have a $10+ million net worth and hang out with other $10+ million net worth people, you’re inevitably going to get even richer.
Kept On Battling Against The Odds
In 2019, I was excited to play doubles against an opponent I had lost to 5-7, 6-7 in a two-hour match a couple of years earlier. He had played for UVA, a national collegiate powerhouse. His partner was an ex-Harvard player.
But this year, I partnered with a 54-year-old guy whom I never played with before. Like me, he didn’t play D1 college tennis. And my UVA opponent partnered with not a 5.0 rated player, but a 5.5 rated player who was once ranked 500 in the world!
Talk about a stacked game. We lost 3-6, 1-6.
From these three points, you can see how there is almost no way the middle class, let alone the poor can fairly compete on an even playing field. What is required to get ahead is a tremendous amount of luck and hard work. No surprise.
But besides luck and hard work, let’s look at some other strategies to help you compete against the rich in a rigged system.
How To Compete In A Rigged Game
Now that you know how the rich get richer, let me share some tips on how to compete in a rigged game.
1) Sandbag your abilities.
Sandbagging in recreational sports is commonplace. People purposefully throw games so they don’t get bumped up. By playing at a level below your real ability, you can win more. It’s great to see how far your abilities can take you, but after reaching your peak potential, you may want to swallow your pride and move back down.
One of the keys to getting ahead at work is to consistently over-deliver on expectations. The way to consistently over-deliver is to realistically under-promise what you can deliver. You must act a little dumb to get ahead. This way, you’ll always be able to surprise on the upside.
The same phenomenon happens when a publicly traded company reports quarterly earnings. After 20 consecutive quarters of beating analyst estimates, analysts are either complete dumb asses, the company is just truly amazing, or the company has mastered the art of sandbagging.
Sandbagging is important because stocks get crushed, especially growth stocks, when they miss analyst estimate. Conversely, stocks tend to outperform when they beat.
2) Directly ask for help.
One of the most insightful commentaries that have come out of an Asian Coalition suing Harvard for racial discrimination is what an Ivy league university admissions officer revealed. She said, and I paraphrase, “Out of all my years working at XYZ university, not once did I get an e-mail or a phone call from a special connection advocating for a potential Asian applicant. Whereas I was always fielding favors for other applicant races.“
In other words, stop believing that meritocracy alone gets you to the promised land! Swallow your pride and be bold enough to ask someone important who you’ve worked with for help and a favor. Self-advocate. Sell to others why you are worth fighting for. Don’t be so modest. If you don’t call in the favors, you are at a huge disadvantage to anybody who does.
Find a balance between offense (active self-promotion) and defense (letting your merit speak for itself).
Take Financial Samurai for example. Oftentimes I believe my content is good enough to get recognized by larger outlets, so I don’t bother promoting my work. Yet, I’m frequently passed over because the white journalists that dominate the personal finance media tend to only reach out to fellow white bloggers. People just tend to help people who look more similar to themselves.
Instead, I need to pitch my work because I’m one of the few who actually has a financial background writing about personal finance. Yet, so much about online growth is marketing.
Related: Three White Tenants, One Asian Landlord
3) Befriend the unicorns.
While applying to a pre-school for my son, I learned that there were spots for only four non-sibling kids out of 300+ applicants. In other words, my boy has less than a 1% chance of getting in. We have zero expectations. But, we can improve our chances by going to fundraising events, befriending board members, trustees and so forth.
The rich aren’t evil people. Just like everybody else, they want what’s best for themselves and their children. Make an effort to get to know them by asking for introductions, be proactive about meeting up, and say yes to social events, especially ones that are for good causes. No matter what your socioeconomic background, someone is connected somehow to someone who might be able to help.
Seldom do people ask for help outside their circles. Make it a point to try and help that someone first before asking for anything. I found the best way to befriend rich and powerful people is by sharing a common interest. In my case, that interest is tennis.
Unfortunately for my son and for us, we got rejected/waitlisted from 6 out of the 7 preschools we applied to. Just as well as we wouldn’t have sent him during the 2020/2021 school year anyway due to the pandemic.
4) Blaze your own trail.
Sometimes the game is so stacked against you that you have no choice but to take all the risk by doing your own thing. I knew that my chances of getting promoted to Managing Director were slim working out of a satellite office. Hence, I decided to leave work and go straight to the top as the CEO of my own company. Succeed or fail, it would be all my doing.
If you are from humble beginnings, one of the greatest gifts you have is that you don’t have much to lose. Why do you think there are so many immigrant success stories in America?
If you already come from a wealthy family, there’s too much downside to doing anything other than becoming a doctor, financier, lawyer, techie, or consultant working for someone else. Then again, once your family is super rich, you can really shoot for the moon.
On a professional level, there’s nothing that gives me greater happiness that growing Financial Samurai from nothing. To be able to generate enough online income to comfortably take care of my family of four in expensive San Francisco makes me proud!
Now I’ve got a book deal from Penguin Random House to publish a book in 2022. As someone who subscribers to the Legacy Retirement Philosophy, I’m thrilled to be able to make my family proud.
5) Marry into wealth.
You can either work hard for your money, or you can marry into wealth. I used to think this was an utterly BS strategy, but now that I’m older, I see the merits of finding companionship with someone who can provide all the comforts in the world. It can get very tiring being a sole income provider.
If you can’t afford to attend a rich private school for undergrad or your MBA, then the next best thing is to hang around in the same circles as the wealthy. Finding love is a numbers game. The more you can put yourself in a situation to meet a wealthy person, the higher your chance of finding a wealthy lifelong partner.
We know that wealthier people buy groceries at Wholefoods instead of at Safeway. Wealthier people tend to shop at Nieman Marcus than at JC Penny’s. They go to the opera, the ballet, and to galas.
They tend to play golf. Here in San Francisco, you might want to just hang around at one of the many Facebook, Google, and Apple shuttle stops to start up a random conversation about how to generate more fake news revenue.
It feels amazing building your own wealth. But all the people I know who married into wealth don’t seem to mind flying private one bit.
Recognize All That’s Unfair In This World And Proceed
Do I wish I was 6’6″ with a 145 mph serve? Only when I’m playing tennis. Otherwise, sitting in a car or on a long flight would be a PITA. I’m happy with my 5’10” frame, but recognize in order to compete effectively, I’ve got to train harder and eat better than someone with more physical advantages.
As the world gets richer, you will encounter more scenarios where your peers have had everything given to them. It’s not their fault. Parents can’t help but want the world for their kids. You can either get extremely jealous about their good fortune, or you can learn to accept reality, befriend them, and see if you can create some magic together.
Work on your merits, but don’t be embarrassed to ask for help from those who can.
Related: The Top 1% Net Worth Levels By Age Group
Stay On Top Of Your Wealth Like The Rich
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Invest In Real Estate Like The Rich
The rich diversify their investments into real estate. Real estate is a tangible asset that is less volatile, provides utility, and generates income. Stocks are fine, but stock yields are low and stocks are much more volatile. The -32% decline in March 2020 was the latest example. However, real estate held steady and appreciated in value then.
The rich have real estate empires for cash flow and capital appreciation. Further, the rich buy real assets to leave to their children to manage and earn. Every single rich person I know has an enormous real estate portfolio for a reason. Real estate is a proven way to build real wealth.
Take a look at my two favorite real estate crowdfunding platforms. Both are free to sign up and explore.
Fundrise: A way for accredited and non-accredited investors to diversify into real estate through private eFunds. Fundrise has been around since 2012 and has consistently generated steady returns, no matter what the stock market is doing.
CrowdStreet: A way for accredited investors to invest in individual real estate opportunities mostly in 18-hour cities. 18-hour cities are secondary cities with lower valuations, higher rental yields, and potentially higher growth due to job growth and demographic trends.
I’ve personally invested $810,000 in real estate crowdfunding across 18 projects to take advantage of lower valuations in the heartland of America. My real estate investments account for roughly 50% of my current passive income of ~$300,000.
If you have no real qualities, like to be part of a group and money and status is important to you, this is probably a good article. Otherwise, it reads like selling your soul and giving up your honour to be with people you probably do not really like and spending money on things that do not really give you happiness. I am of the opinion that time is still the most valuable asset on earth. Do not waste it on things that are not worth it.
Great read, Sam. I enjoyed reading about your tennis experience and how the good players are all skimmed by the competitive clubs.
That dynamic is rather common across many areas of life. The good are resorted into a higher class where they compete against and socialize with ever-increasing levels of competition to build their skills and relationships. This increased competition only elevates their game/studies/skills to a higher level and meanwhile, the middling-to-poor performers remain behind to fend for themselves.
Take schooling for instance. The brightest students tend to leave their public schools or less-competitive private schools for spots in academically-recognized charters or more-prestigious private schools. They then go on to the most hallowed universities by improving their skills, or, as you suggest, knowing the right people. The earlier you can get into those circles, and the longer you can stay, the better off you are as the social network effects compound. This social capital gives you access to numerous advantages others have to work hard for and provides a barrier of entry of sorts. Simply stated, their social capital elevates them to a higher tier where they can surround themselves with the best.
While that sounds disheartening, there is certainly room to join. Ingenuity goes a long way. Some of those folks were certainly born into higher tiers as you suggest, but sometimes making your own way provides its own benefits and access. At some point, everyone who has “made it” has had to work at it or have someone before them work to get them to where they are now. It’s very doubtful that the majority just fell into success. Much more likely is that they asked for help, were born into it, or worked hard to get where they are. And once you’re there, you’re not done. There’s a lot of maintenance involved to keep you where you are. Nathaniel Hawthorne observed American dynamism best when he wrote, “Families are always rising and falling in America.”