239. The 5 Brutal Truths About Money No One Tells You

Welcome back to the Wealth Shift by Ben and Bergs, the Go to playbook for busy investors building real wealth in the digital era. I'm Ben Simpson, high school dropout turned eight figure entrepreneur, investor and founder of Collective Shift, a global crypto research platform with clients around the world. And Aaron Berkhuber, an mba, qualified financially free investor and business leader. The show dives deep into strategies shaping the next generation of wealth builders. Together, we unpack the exact frameworks used by sophisticated investors to grow and protect wealth across crypto, business property and macro markets. With no fluff, hype or jargon. Whether you're managing a $100,000 portfolio or 5 million plus, the wealth shift delivers timeless strategies, investor psychology and actual insights for those serious about playing the long game. This is your playbook for building wealth in the digital era. We release episodes every week breaking down exactly how sophisticated investors are growing and protecting wealth right now. If you like the episodes, please subscribe so you don't miss out on what is next. Berg's the new season the Wealth Shift we want to go straight into the beans, mate. The five brutal truths about money no one tells you. You've read this brilliant book called the Art of Spending Money by Morgan Housel and mate, everyone wants to get rich. But after all the work we've done, we work with every like so many investors, hundreds, thousands of investors and building this company is now eight figures. We've realized money teaches you how and what is not truthful when you didn't have money, right? It's brutal truths that no one prepares you for.

Money only solves your money problems. And it is the beginning of your problems. You think money will solve your problems. You get there and you're like shit.

This didn't work. Better try something else. But there are some universal things that we have learned. We have learned these the hard way in our lives. And here are five things that we want you to know about money that is very important and hopefully you can recognize them when you're on your journey as well and not make the mistakes that we did.

So good. Let's kick it off, mate.

All right, lesson number one. If you're already an unhappy person, it's unlikely that more money will ever fix your money problems. And this, this is highlighted in the book where the core ingredients that really make you happy. People happy generally like friends, family, health, having meaning and fulfillment in your life, a clear mind, these things, a healthy body. These things can't be purchased. They can only be earned. So having more money, if you're Already unhappy and don't have these things. Money is not going to solve these.

Problems for you, mate. Money has only amplified the problems that I have. And probably for the listeners at home, maybe you've been in the situation as you grow more money. I remember the. It was actually reflecting this with my girlfriend a couple of days ago when we grew from, you know, a hundred thousand dollars a month in revenue. The business was at the time, maybe we ramped so quickly to 500,000, 600,000amonth. And it was so overwhelming. It was like the craziest period of time I've ever gone through. And like, you know, we. We hadn't been making that much money every month, ever. And I remember just walking in once to my girlfriend's place. I'd only been with her for six months, and I just don't know what happened. I just burst into tears. Just came in and just lost it. And she's like, what's going on? What's going on? Like, you okay? You okay? I'm like, I don't know. I'm just making so much money.

It was, it was. And it wasn't from like a. You, like, it wasn't even like a euphoric feeling. It was stress. It was actually like, it was amplifying the insecurities, the. The anxiety, the. The. The stress now that, like, we have to deliver on what we're doing. And it was. I remember the feeling of, like, I didn't deserve it. Like, I didn't feel like I was worthy of it. Like I felt I was doing, you know. You know, I shouldn't have been in this position. And I think that's the biggest thing. Wealth doesn't change your character. It exposes it.

Exactly. And it amplifies it.

Yeah.

So that's the thing. Like, before, now, you've got this big bucket of money. You've got your happiness bucket over here, and it's empty because you're tired, you're stressed, you've got way more customers. You got to expand your team. There's all these things you have to do. It is not just having I get this number, it's over here. And I'm instantly happy. You're still the same person. You got the same psychology. You're on the same trajectory. And unless you've actively focused on those things in your life, you're going to be in a world of hurt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think that's like, you know, everyone. You know, a lot of people that listen to this podcast, like executives or even business owners, you start to level up in income brackets and if anything, it just makes you more distant to your friends and family that aren't at that level. And it becomes harder to maintain the relationships that were probably not even that great to begin with. And I, I find that like I, it becomes harder to associate everyday life, you know, and have commonalities with people depending on where you are in your life. And if you're already struggling or you're not happy or whatever, when you get that money, it doesn't make it easier necessarily. Like it can actually make it harder.

Yeah. And the wild thing about this is it's not necessarily the money itself, it's the psychological shift that happens. And when you have more money, you need to change your psychology from your previous one. And then once you've done that and you start executing against that psychology and that plan, that then distances you from people that think differently. An example of this would be like us as entrepreneurs in a very risky space versus someone that works in government. That's very risk averse.

Yes.

Like we can just, it's just not compatible.

Right.

Yeah.

I think the other thing, like it can, it can get like money for me has made my life better in areas where I can spend on health. You know, you just bought a cold plunge, ice bath, burgs like, you know, I spend money on, you know, sauna, ice bath, gym, chef. These things are like these, they make your life easier and better. But it's not going to fix your broken relationship with your, with your wife or your husband. Right. You know, that's not going to make that any better.

Yep, that's it. And this, this is a great lead into point too. When spending more money does make you happier, it's usually for indirect reasons. Oh, so people think, I'm going to win the lotto or I'm going to sell my company, I'll get $10 million, I'm going to have a Lambo, a big house, whatever. No, that ain't going to make you happy having the big house. You're going to be stressed out. You're going to spend six figures just maintaining it and getting cleaners in. There's going to be staff around all the time on the grounds, you know, everywhere. And all these things are going to stress you out, they're not going to make you happier. And if you think about the happiest times in your life, the classic one is a holiday. Everyone's been on a holiday, everyone's generally happy on holidays. And that joy is. And the best part of that week you're on holidays is not the money that you're spending, it's that you're uninterrupted. It's work free, email free. You don't have a commute time and you're with your family and friends and doing the activities that you want to do. And that is what makes you happy, not the money.

There's a good quote. I've been getting into stoicism and philosophy a little bit more recently. And one is from Seneca. Wealth is the slave of a wise man, the master of a fool.

So good. And this is when. So the way I frame that is. Is this a mausoleum? Is this a noose around my neck?

Yes.

So every time I have to make a trade off, which is a point that's coming up, like, do I do this thing? Am I a slave to my wealth? Do I now have to manage it too much? Do I think about it too much? Does it inform too much of my decision making? Has it changed who I am as a person? And it's like, well, money's supposed to solve all my problems, but it's bringing me these other ones. And you really have to be careful about whether the decisions are intrinsic and you're driving them or it's this external thing, money, that's driving the direction of your life.

Yeah, that was another, like, reframing, you know, I've been thinking about more recently, it's like reframing wealth to like. Yeah. Like you said, is this internally driven because your, you know, wealth and success and money is a byproduct of the results you're creating in whatever you're doing with your, you know, investing, job, business. Or are you driving wealth for external reasons, like, you know, for ego and like, for, for you to show off that wealth. Like, if that is an unfulfilling, you know, you know, spinny wheel of, of. Of death, in a sense of you can never actually win. You, you buy something, you buy the watch, you buy the car. It's great for a week. You know, I was thinking the other day, like, I was looking at my Rolex, like, I remember when I first got it, I look at the Rolex on my arm and I'm like, oh, my God, this thing, like, looked. I'm so pumped. I'm showing it off now. It's just a. This is another watch.

Yep. And wealth is what you don't see, right. How we signal wealth in society is having the fancy car, the fancy watch, the fancy house. And if you sell one of those things, people are like, oh, are you going broke? And it's like, well, no, I just don't value that anymore. I'm just trading it for another asset or I'm getting rid of it. But that's how we show wealth. And a lot of that is just funded by debt. You went to the states recently, you did a whole bunch of marketing courses and all these guys have lambos that they've hired trying to sell courses to people to convince them they're rich and to buy their course and they will also become rich.

It's crazy. Like, you know, the group that I'm a part of was, you know, they were actually. These guys are pretty good. It was actually interview I did on a, on a podcast who was telling me he's had some major, major influences on his podcast as guests. And these guys sell dreams, not information. It's one in particular bought a 2 point something million dollar Bugatti on debt that he couldn't afford. And he's paying $50,000 a month to lease this car that he's got to give back in four months because he doesn't own it and he can't afford to keep it at 30% interest rate to sell the dream of young people becoming how good he is. And I look at that and I knew this stuff happened, but when I really heard it and I follow and see some of these guys online, I'm like, are you kidding? Wow, these guys, it's just a, it's like a course Ponzi. It's like, yeah, you know what I mean?

And, and what's like, if you already have some of the core ingredients of happiness, spending money can be like leverage for a good life. But the opposite is also true. If you don't have those core ingredients and you're focusing on things that are potentially detrimental to you, your health, your relationships. Having more money is going to fuel that. Yeah. And you've got leverage in the opposite direction.

Yes. Why? Think about people that increase their lifestyle too fast, like lifestyle creep and they can't afford it. Like you said, that's the noose around the neck. That's the wealth. Being a slave. Sorry, mastering you. The is, is, you know, being at a point where you're paying for things that you can't afford because you want to be at that level. And you know, personally, like when I remember I didn't have a lot of money coming up, like, yeah, like, you know, I did things and spent money that you probably didn't have because you wanted to kind of keep up with society and you end up realizing, like, wait, hold on a minute, like, I can't afford this. You know, I can't be at this level. And I see people, you know, my age that are buying houses and trying to, you know, play out the great Australian dream or, you know, American dream and buying property that they can't afford because they want to have a home. And now they're, they're a slave to their, their loans for 30 years.

Like, and this brings us perfectly into point three. Never focus on what money can do for you without a clear understanding of the cost of acquiring more of it.

So, and the classic way to frame this is everyone is jealous of what you have. No one is jealous of how you got it. And in the words of Ronnie Coleman, everybody want to be a bodybuilder, but don't nobody want to lift or heavy ass weights. And that is so, so true. Everyone will see your stuff on Instagram, Ben. You're flying around, you're driving Tesla, you're doing everything. No one sees the 12, 13, 14 hour days, relentlessly, seven days a week that have gone into this. And they don't actually see what you're doing in the background where you're still working crazy hours. You're running from meeting to meeting to podcast to the next thing to your things. They only see the things that you have. Yeah.

And, and also people only see where you're at right now. They don't know or remember or see what you've been through to get here. We did this exercise with our team, you know, just the other day, because we have so many like new employees at Collective Shift, and, you know, a lot of them haven't, you know, haven't been around for a long time. And we went right back to two or three years ago at the bottom of like the absolute pits of the business. And when things were the hardest they've been, we had to lay off half the team. You know, everyone took pay cuts. I didn't take a salary for, for a long time. And we were just like bashing our head up against the wall, eating peanut butter off the floor. You know, it was just, it was brutal.

And maybe you were. I kept mine in a jar.

It was brutal. And I think the, yeah, the pain that you go through, people don't see the grass is always greener. I've got, you know, I know a guy that, you know, I won't obviously say his name, but, you know, his business is doing tens of millions in revenue and, you know, he's barely barely able to get you know, 5%, 10% profit margins. Like, you're turning over tens of millions of dollars and you're making, you know, you know, a million bucks or 2 million bucks. Like, that's extremely, extremely difficult. The pain and suffering and the employees and the stress and what happens if something goes wrong? And like, all these things and you see on the outside this great, amazing business, but on the inside, you know, not the same.

Yeah. When you've experienced it, you see how the source is made. It's a completely different story, but people only see the outcome. That's like, Ben, you're an overnight success. It's like, mate, how many years you've been doing this?

For a long time. Really? Eight years. Yeah, eight years, exactly.

Right. And this is for. In your lives as well. Like, what are you willing to sacrifice? So if you want the Lamborghini, let's say it costs $400,000, how many years will you have to work? How many years? Let's say four years, 100 grand a year, because you're very high income earning, be able to save 100 grand a year. What are you sacrificing? The time with your family, the extra projects, the travel, the mental health is going to wear down your body. What are you really sacrificing to be in that car? And is that car worth it? And think about when you're in a situation, like you're at work, you're an executive, and you see other people kind of, you know, getting all of these things, like, oh, well, maybe I want that for my life too. And for the situation you're in, it might make sense where you're like, I'm stressed, I'm at work. I deserve to enjoy my life. I'm going to buy the bloody, you know, Land Cruiser, whatever it is, Prado, and I'm going to buy the big Caravan. I'm going to go traveling, I'm going to do all this. But what are you actually sacrificing? How much more do you have to work? Are these the things you actually want? How often are you going to be able to use them? How often are you going to get leave? And then also look out for what Ben mentioned before, hedonistic adaptation, where what are you optimizing for? Is it happiness and freedom? Because if you are, you don't want more debt, right? You want that freedom. So an example for me would be that I want the Lamborghini, okay? I've got some money. I could go buy that tomorrow, but I don't, because I. I would much rather have that amount of money of future freedom in my time, which might be three years worth of living expenses where I don't have to work. I can chase my curiosity, I can do projects I want to do and just live my life. And no one tell me what to do. Rather than have a car sitting in my driveway that I'm probably to stress me out, I'm not going to enjoy a month from now. Yeah, I'd rather just hire the car for a little bit, get that out the way, go to a track day and have that huge amount of freedom in my life where I control my future time.

Yeah, yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. I, I think about now like having money is more about where can I reinvest that capital to get a higher roi? Where can I use my money efficiently to grow wealth? Creates wealth.

Simon Beard, the Culture Kings founder, talks about who, who sold it for $600 million, talks about for 10 years. You know, he just built a war chest. He never took anything out of the business. He just kept building that war chest and just keep reinvesting, compounding, doubling down for years before he took anything out of the business. And that's what created such a massive company. When you take money out and this way, how I think about if I go out and buy a Lamborghini, well, the ROI that Lamborghini is not, is negative. Like, it's essentially, it's losing money. It's depreciating. Right. Versus growing it by investing back in the business or going and, you know, doing a, a course or paying like, you know, I'm a part of a lot of groups where, you know, I can go and learn from the one in, in the US it's close to 5,000, you know, dollars a month that I have a part of this group. But the ROI of that, I could 100% allocate hundreds of thousands of dollars now to return on that investment where something like a car or, you know, a watch is, is, you know, nowhere near it.

Exactly. I always think about the, the roi. So what's, what's the cost here? So an example be I bought an ice bath. $6,000. A lot of money. And I get that because I can use it every day. It puts me in a better mood, reduces my inflammation. I sleep better, I'm less cranky at my wife and my childhood, and it just returns so much more than the money that I put in. Another one is getting a cleaner. My wife and I fight like cats and dogs because we hated cleaning. Who's Cleaning up this shit. Who's vacuuming? Who's doing this? I'm very allergic to dust. It's like spend. Spend like 150 bucks and get a cleaner in. And we come back, we go out for lunch while the cleaners are here. We come back and it is the best 150 we have ever spent. And that 150, you can't even get a dinner for that these days. And that is the hugest increase in life. So just be aware of where you're spending your money and the opportunity cost there. And also what you said about building the war chest, Ben, when no one can hold your balls and no one can fuck with you when you got fuck you money, and that's as little as six months of living expenses. You really need to think about that and think about the future. If you have kids, okay, do you want to be working in your, you know, 50s and 60s, like have to work and work really hard for your retirement, or do you want to start investing, have more time off then while you're still able to go on holidays, spend time with your children, or even when your children are older, let's say your kid gets a job and the boss is an absolute asshole to them. Now you've got the freedom where you don't have to say, oh, I'm sorry, suck it up. You need that money, you've got to pay for your mortgage. You could say, go find another job and I will help you out for that little period of time. It just gives you those options. And when you think in that way, like, if I'm like, oh, you know, I want to help out my child in the future in like, you know, 10, 15 years when they're older, or do I want that Lamborghini today? It's like, it's not even a choice.

Totally agree. And I think for those listening at home that are, you know, specifically in the space for crypto in particular, you know, the way I think about it is that, you know, it's not. It's not protected that capital until, one, it's in Bitcoin, or two, you've taken profits. So many people listening and including myself round trip because we took too much risk and we didn't protect it. You need to protect your wealth. Once you build it, you need to protect it. Arguably, protecting it sometimes is harder than building it. Anyone can buy crypto, anyone can make money, but unless you sell it, unless you protect it, that's the hard thing. And that's where really people need to. To your point, Bergs, you know, start to think about what happens if it all turns to shit tomorrow. Are you ready?

Yep. Making money's a lot easier than keeping it, that's for sure. Now onto point 4. So much of a good life is about what didn't happen. So this is the illnesses you avoided, the unaffordable lifestyle that you locked yourself into, the mistakes you didn't make, the regrets you don't have. So just within our company, we have a notion document called Damn Good Decisions. Because people only look at the decisions they make where they took action on it and then there was an outcome. That outcome was either negative or positive. They don't go, hey, we talked about this and we didn't go down this path and we stopped the company from blowing up, that is a huge thing. You need to think about what didn't happen. And when you see the classic thing here is when you see someone else's life and you're just like, oh, they're rich, they've got this, I've got that, I want their life. You can't just have the rich part. You've got to have every aspect of their life. What are their relationships like? Are they ill? You know, do they, you know, are they anxious all the time, whatever it may be. And just that one aspect, money. If you got 99 of your life right and you don't haven't quite sorted out your money part, your life is amazing because you need to think about the things that didn't happen and be super appreciative and just quickly. An example for me is I wake up in the morning, I no longer have chronic illnesses that I used to have. I'm not in heat, big amounts of pain, my brain works, my arms and legs work. I can go outside, I can look up at the sun, I can have a coffee, I can pat my dog, I can. I'm not in hospital. A couple of mates have had cancer, a few of them have died. And I'm only 42 and I'm thankful every single day about the things that didn't happen. Yes.

Yeah. I think if you look back and you look at the decisions that, you know your life in the past and you know.

Listeners, that you probably think about those certain decisions that you made that you don't always have the right information. And as investors, one of the biggest things that I always say in crypto especially is the reason we can make so much money in crypto is because of the volatility and the pain that you need to go through to get the Upside. And those decisions you make when you should have bought something, everyone's got the friend, everyone's got a story. Oh, I heard about crypto. I heard about bitcoin back in 2013. I heard about Ethereum early. But I didn't make the decision, I didn't make that call. You know, and it's the, it's those things that you have to take and make action and make a decision to create the outcome you want. And inaction, you know, equals regrets. And I think hard, I always come back to the thing we've spoken about for selling books. Hard decision, what is it?

Hard choice. Easy life. Easy choices. Hard life. And you're right, the cost of indecision is higher than making a wrong decision.

Great. That hope. Hope is not a strategy. Folks at home holding those old coins, you're just waiting for it. Hope is not a strategy. Make the call.

Exactly. Take some action and get on with your life. Move towards your goals. And finally brings us to number five, looking back, whether you lived a good life will likely have little to do with how much money you made or spent. And as you move on with in your life and you earn or have more money or spend more money, you realize it doesn't paramatter honestly, like when you look back and this, if you're chasing money, are you on your seventh marriage, your seventh divorce, how are you really doing? And the way to look at this is two ways. One, one is the 80 year old test. So when you're 80 years old and you look back on your life, what are the things you wanted to accomplish and the things you'll have the least regrets and go after that. So for me, I was working in health and I just finished my mba. I had all these skills I was consulting with Ben and I would have regretted if I just stayed in health and stayed stagnant and not given it a go with collective shift. And there was a high 90% chance that collective shift would just blow up. But we worked at it and worked at it and it has been successful. And I could not go to my grave without trying that. Where I knew bitcoin was going to be a thing, crypto is going to be a thing. I can have an opportunity to work in this space, put my skills on show and also generate some wealth. So that was for me. And then the other framing of this is money is not going to factor into who you want to show up at your funeral or your eulogy or what it says on your tombstone. It is not going to say amazing businessman made $5 million.

On your tombstone it's going to say.

Loving father, husband, wife, whatever, next thing. And those are the things that truly matter, not how much money you made or spent in your life.

Yeah, that's a. Some great point, Bugs. And like, the. Some of the stuff, like, you know, the reading recently on the stoicism side is around, you know, detaching yourself from wealth. And it's about the character that you are and the way you show up and who you are for other people and, you know, the person you want to be. And detaching yourself from money is so important to drive and make decisions based on, you know, who you want to show up as. And, you know, for me, I think the most fulfilling things that I have done or I'm doing in life has not been launching the new product or, you know, getting the new ad strategy up. It's buying my parents a house as an example right now, or, you know, giving mom and dad money to go on a holiday with or, you know, sponsoring my sister's basketball team. Like, you know, those are the things that matter. Those are the things that really make you feel good and, you know, you're doing something well.

Exactly. And it comes back to what is your internal benchmark? Like, what are the things that drive you and make you happy? Because it's not going to be a number on a screen. It's what you can do with those things. And when you mentioned stoicism, it's the perfect framing where, you know, with stoicism, you don't have to live like a monk and, you know, reject all these things. You can enjoy money, you can enjoy having a richer life. But stoics would say recognize it for what it is and recognize it for how you actually got the money. Because any fool can just spend money if they have it, and then also if it went away, that you would still be okay and just as happy as you are today. And if you master those things, you'll be in an amazing position.

Love it. I want to end there. That's a great way to finish Bergs, the first episode of the new season of Ben and Bergs. The Wealth Shift, folks.

Season two.

Season two, baby. If you enjoyed this episode, we are coming out. Each and every week we release new episodes breaking down exactly how sophisticated investors are growing and protecting their wealth right now. If you want to receive these episodes, Please subscribe on YouTube or follow us on your favorite podcasting app. If you if you want to see exactly how smart, busy investors are also growing their crypto portfolios without wasting hours on charts, influencers or guesswork. Click the link below in the description. We've got a free training on the proven seven step system trusted by high performing executives and business owners around the world that are growing their crypto each and every day. That's in the link and description below. Completely free. Check it out. Otherwise we'll see on the next episode.

Burks thanks Championship.