10 Signs Someone is Secretly Wealthy

Hey there, real quick before we jump into the episode, listen, if your earnings treadmill hasn't set you free yet, running faster won't either. Listen, hustle without principles just going to burn you out. So here's what I want for you. I want you to join me for my money machine experience. Live it is three free trainings. Deep dive into how to escape the treadmill and build a money machine that actually works for you. All right, grab your spot here by going to moneymachinelive.com and I'll see you in the free training. Ever wonder how some folks can afford to fly first class, but they show up looking like they just rolled out of Costco? Yeah, see, they might actually be wealthier than the guy flashing his Rolex at the valet. See, because here's the twist. Real wealth doesn't scream, it whispers. And today I'm handing you the decoder ring so you can stop chasing someone else's highlight reel and start building real, grounded, freedom based wealth. This is building your money machine, where we help you master your money, eliminate financial stress so you can live a life of choice. Because earning more doesn't make you free. A money machine does. And that freedom, it doesn't start with your next raise or your next paycheck or your next client. It starts the moment your money starts working harder for you than you did for it. All right, and I'm your host, Mel Abraham. And with 30 plus years as a financial expert, an entrepreneur, mentor, and someone who's actually walked the journey himself, I've learned the hard way and the fun way that money without meaning is like a treadmill with a view. You're running but not really getting anywhere. So in this episode, we're diving into 10 subtle and sometimes surprising signs that someone is secretly wealthy. And why should you care? Because if you want to become financially free, you've got to learn how the truly wealthy think, spend, and live. All right, spoiler alert. It's not about the car. Ready to rethink everything you thought about about wealth and what you thought about rich people? Let's do this.

All right. We're going to talk about the 10 signs that someone might be secretly wealthy. And it's not because we need to play detective. It's because we want to find the clues. We want to see the patterns. We want to understand what they did. There's a lot to be learned from those that build the quiet wealth. And so sign number one is they prioritize net worth over net applause. Okay, if you ever notice the loudest People in the room are usually the ones that are trying to prove something. Okay? The ones who actually have something, they rarely feel that they need to. I mean, I look at it, but even with me, I mean, I don't need flashy cars. We live in a nice house. I have a nice car. But it is only because of what it does for us in how we live our lives. We're very private. I'm not here to parade it in front of people. I very rarely put it on social media or anything secretly. Wealthy folks, they don't advertise their wins on social.

You won't see them posting screenshots of their income. Why? Because income is temporary. Ownership is permanent. Plus, I want to be safe. I want to understand, and I want to build, and I don't honestly don't want to be a target. So I once met a guy who. He looked like he borrowed his wardrobe from a thrift store. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. Turns out he owned 38 rental properties. Okay? He had more equity than most people's retirement funds. He had cash flow that was coming in to the tune of $40,000 a month without him doing anything. When I asked him why he doesn't upgrade his lifestyle, he just smiled. He says, I'd rather be rich than look rich. And I think that's such a great perspective to sit back and go, I'd rather live a rich life than parade wealth in front of people. Loud is usually least. Quiet is usually owned. Okay? When we talk about a money machine mindset, we don't measure the success by how much you make. We measure it by how much time you have agency over. Okay, how much you get to live your life by choice. And hopefully we get to the point where you live your life 100% by choice. That's sign number one. Sign number two, they treat cars like toasters. Useful, not flashy. Okay. All right, let's talk about the money pit. On. On four wheels, your car. Now, you might be a car aficionado. You love cars. That's a different game. And you have to be careful with that because you can just collect and collect, and you have a bunch of. Of cars sitting in a garage. Like, I. There is someone in my neighborhood that I know has a warehouse with cars. He has a car fetish. Like, I've seen him with two different Aston Martins, two different Porsches, G wagons. He. He's probably got millions of dollars in cars. Now. I don't know anything about his net worth. I don't know anything about his life. I don't know anything, but that is a lot of money tied up in vehicles, okay? And so I look at it from my perspective. I want my wealth to give me the things that are meaningful in my life. Now, if it happens to be cars, great in our life, it happens to be travel, it happens to be experiences, memories, it happens to be missions and movements and everything, so. So the thing is that you can't judge a person by their car. If someone's driving a seven year old Camry, don't assume they're broke, okay? They just might be smart. There's plenty of people that have the least G wagon and they're sitting in that Starbucks drive through and they're one invoice away from default, okay? So we can't judge by that. But here's the thing that we do know. If your focus on a vehicle is to get you from point A to point B, then let's not use it as a status symbol. With engines. We can have a nice car. But buying a car that is a depreciating asset and financing it over seven years is a sure way to start destroying your wealth, especially in a high interest rate environment. So I look at and say, I want a nice car. I usually buy mine cash and I keep them for seven years. I take care of them, okay? But the average car that you buy loses 60% of its value in the first five years. It's literally like throwing tens of thousands of dollars into a volcano and watching it just melt away. Okay? So I'm going to look at it from that perspective. And many, many wealthy people, they have their cars, they take care of their cars and they drive them for a long time. They pay cash for them, they don't finance them, and they're not rolling in and out of them and they're not buying the cars to impress someone else. They're buying the cars for the joy they bring them and the functionality, okay? And so here's the thing. One of the things that happens is that we don't know where we are on this journey. And so if you're sitting there going, well, where do I actually stand on this wealth building path? I'm going to invite you to go take my Financial Freedom Zone quiz. It takes literally two minutes. It's totally free. It will literally tell you exactly where you are, give you a report, what do you need to do next? So you don't go out and say, oh, I'm going to go get myself a car to impress everyone else. So you go to YourFinancialFreedomQuiz.com to get access to it and go take it. All right, sign number three. They spend money to buy back time. This one is a huge one. Once I figured this out, remember, your freedom will only come when you have the opportunity to separate your earnings from the efforts to earn it. Time is the one thing we don't get more of. The time is the one thing that each and every year, we have the same amount as Warren Buffett. Okay. Elon Musk. Wealthy people know this, and what they do is they start to count their richness, their wealth in time and not dollars. They. They don't spend their time to look successful. They spend their time to create space. They spend their money to give them the space and their time. Hiring a housekeeper.

Gardener, all of those things, you know. Yeah. Can I go clean the house? Not as good. Okay. Just so we're clear, can I go do the artwork? Yes. Not as good. Okay. But I don't enjoy it. And those couple of hours, you know, a week, I can use those to bring more richness into my life, to build more wealth, to do the other things. And so the wealthy know that time is actually the greatest currency they have. And so they. They focus on how to control and get agency over their time beyond the dollars. And there's this spectrum that I. That I talk about. Where you start in this journey where you're. You start where you're trading your hours for dollars. Whether it's a job or a solopreneur or a freelancer, you trade your hours for dollars. Then that comes a shift. A shift where you start to look and say, wait a second. I. I want to get my time back. So now you shift and say, I'm going to use the dollars to trade it back for time. But then there's the big shift that you make, is that now you're buying your time back, but you're building your wealth. And we make one more shift, and that's when you trade your dollars for more dollars. That's where we want to go. But the bottom line is that the wealthy, if you watch them, they value their time more than their money. Okay, sign number four. They're quiet about their wins, but they're certainly loud about their gratitude. Okay? They're not pounding their chest. If you've ever met someone who just radiates calm, they're not trying to prove anything to you or anyone else, and you literally will instantly. That's usually wealth talking. Okay? Not because they're rich in dollars, though they probably are. But because they're rich in perspective. A guy once told me, I'm poor compared to my friends, y'. All. He was worth a hundred million dollars. His friends were billionaires. Perspective activated. Okay, here's the thing. When we start to look at our lives through a purpose driven identity, wealthy people will look at who they are, not their bank accounts to define them. And so the bank accounts are just a funding mechanism. And so this is one of the reasons that in my book Building youg Money Machine, or in my work in the Money Machine Blueprint, we start with figuring out what the vision for your life is and what the why in your life is. Because when we're purpose driven, we get perspective and we start to make different, different choices. And so we get loud about generosity and gratitude and giving and movements and missions. And when I say loud, we make that the focal point. Not that we're expecting accolades or anything like that. Okay. A lot of people don't realize that. I have my own nonprofit that deals with abuse and violence against women and children. And it's a big thing for me, and I want to make sure that I am driving some of that. And so those are the things that I think the wealthy do now. Sign number five. They're frugal with wants, but they're fast with needs. Here's a fun contradiction. Wealthy folks will agonize over a $40 phone charger, but they won't blink at investing 40,000 in an investment or business opportunity. Why? Because they know how to separate a want from a win. Okay. I've spent two weeks comparing laptops. Meanwhile, I joined a mastermind in five minutes. Okay? The $30 decisions. Got hours of research. The $20,000 decisions, I just knew it was a line. We look at things through a process of understanding ROI and what's the right thing. So we tend to. To look at things on the want spectrum. Say, do I really want it? Do I really need it? Does it really make sense? Okay, and we'll pause consumption spending and move on creation spending first. Okay? And that kind of clarity can help you manage your cash flow. Because when you have that clarity, you're not spending on consumables because it might be a momentary pleasure. You're looking at it through the eyes of what can this build for me? And when you slow down, you. You can look at it through that perspective because that comes from knowing where you are and knowing your path to financial freedom and understanding the plan you have in place. Okay? And when you do that, you can make the choices that move you Forward. Now, if you're not sure where you're at, that's exactly why I built the Financial Freedom Zone quiz. It'll get you a clear path, a clear report based on where you are and what your next steps are. Okay, so whether you're starting or you're scaling or you're in that, go to your financial freedom quiz dot com. Take the quiz. It's two minutes, it's free. It'll give you where you are on the journey and what your next steps are. All right, sign number six. They mastered the art of the pots. All right. Delayed gratification isn't just about skipping the dessert. It's about skipping distractions that drain your destiny. All right, I'll say it again. It's about skipping the distractions that drain your destiny. See, a wealthy friend of mine once waited 90 days before buying a $15,000 watch. Now, I asked him why. He said, well, if I still want it in 90 days, it's real. Everything else is just impulse. See, the tendency, especially in the kind of environment and world we live in with the social media, the comparison and everyone parading their facades of this perfect life is to impulse buy. Impulse buy. It's one of the reasons that I will tell people to put in maybe not a 90 day wait, but on big purchases, probably so. But I want, you know, a 48 hour, 72 hour wait period and see if you still have that desire. What I'm trying to do is eliminate the emotional spending impulse and then evaluate and say if I still want, look, I will buy some very expensive stuff, but I will think about it and I will allow the emotions to dissipate so I can make a logical, reasoned decision and one that is aligned with my values and my vision for my life. Okay? And so sign number six is. Hey, they'll pause before they make the purchase, okay? I don't let people force me into. Well, the sale's going away, okay? This is your last chance. All that is marketing speak. It's manipulative marketing speak. And I don't let that drive my financial decisions. Sign number seven. They live in modest homes by choice. Now, modest is relative, okay? Most people will stretch their budget to keep up. Now, we live in a beautiful home. It's not cheap, okay? But it's not some 10,000 square foot mansion because it's like my wife, me and my two dogs. What would we do with 10,000 square foot? I mean, I would get lost. She would have to. We'd have to put a LoJack tracker on me to Find me, okay? There's just no reason for it. And to buy huge homes just to have them or multiple homes to have them doesn't make sense. Just because you qualify for a million dollar mortgage doesn't mean you should take a million dollar mortgage. I had a couple that qualified for that million dollar mortgage, but they bought a $400,000 home. They paid it off fast. They used the difference to make more investments, to do the things that actually brought them joy. And they lived in a wonderful house because of where they were. 400,000 at that time went a long way. The house should give you peace, not pressure. And too often we over buy our home and we become house rich, cash poor, stressed to the max. And then it affects our relationships, our health, and then our financial future. Be careful about this, okay? A lot of love. Now I see others that have huge homes. Now, I don't know their financial situation. Maybe it is modest in their eyes, but I look at it and say, kind of like the car, it's functional. We live in a nice home on the beach. We love it. We've got plenty of square footage, all right, for us. Sign number eight. They quietly use financial strategies you've never heard of. Okay? Now, I'm not talking about esoteric things. They're things that maybe we just don't talk about more regularly. Trusts, Roth conversions, infinite banking, all that kind of stuff. Now, some of it I don't like, some of it I do like. To most people, it's finance gobbledygook. To wealthy people, it's everyday conversations. I had a friend that I talked to just recently about, about the idea of probate and how to avoid probate fees on the passing of assets and how to pass wealth down tax free and everything. And he says, where did you learn this? Okay, I'm a cpa, but where did I learn it? Books, mentors, mistakes, education programs. But what this really is about is making the financial strategy part of a regular conversation, okay? That you use the knowledge that you're. You're building a knowledge base, the financial literacy, so the wealth will hustle harder than you do for the wealth. That's the game, okay? Sign number nine. Their calendar feels like a menu, not a to do list. See, the wealthy, their days are designed. My days are designed, my weeks are designed. My initial thought is no. The bottom line is this. At the very beginning, you gotta. If someone wants my time, they have to make a compelling argument for me to give a slice of my life to them, okay? And I say no a lot. I Block the time. This is the same thing with author. They know that they block the time. They protect their energy. I protect my time with my wife. I protect my time with my dogs every morning. I protect my workout time, my self care time. I protect all of it because that is defining one, the quality of my life, the richness in my life. That's also defining, okay, my ability to do the things that actually move the needle in my life. You know, I had one. One friend told me, Thursday, I do whatever I want on Thursdays. Now I look at that and I go, that's not laziness. That's ownership. That's life by design. If your calendar is filled with obligations over and over again, I don't care how much you have in the bank account, your life is being leased. I know that that's straight, that's direct, and that might be, you know, in the face, but it's true. Because at the end of the day, we have the slices of life to live. But if those slices are given up constantly to obligations, then where's our living? Because now we're doing it for other people. Now, mind you, I totally get it. I'm not. I'm not tone deaf to the fact that, hey, you got to start somewhere. And, you know, I got a boss and I got a job. Yeah, I did that too. But the idea about building financial freedom is to move from a life of demands to a life of choice over time. That's the desire, that's the goal. And these are the signs that the secret wealthy are truly wealthy. They have a calendar that isn't a to do list. Okay, sign number 10. They give generously, but never for the credit. This is huge. There was a guy here. He unfortunately just passed away from a rare form of cancer. And he was young. He was young, but I didn't know anything. He was just such a nice man. We would see him when we walk, walk our dogs. And he had a dog and. And we just had these great conversations. I knew nothing about him, you know, but then I find out once he passed away that he was so generous. He was so giving, and quietly so, to one of the medical clinics here. In fact, the one that I did all of my surgeries and everything out at UCI, that they honored him and that they. They gave awards for him, and they named a building after him and they. Scholarships and all that stuff because of his generosity. In fact, even at death, he gave a big donation to it. But it wasn't because he was parading and saying, look at me. True generosity. It doesn't need applause. It actually doesn't even need money to do it. Because being generous of time, of effort, of knowledge is huge. But wealthy.

Wealthy people, they give from overflow. Not for likes, not for logos, but because it's the thing that enriches them. There was a happiness study done by Harvard. They. They studied 4,000 millionaires to understand what made them happy. In the top reasons for what made them happy, none of it had to do with the money they had.

But the top one, one of the top ones in the top five was how they made the money they have. The purpose behind it was more important than the money behind it. I know someone who literally paid for a single mom's rent for six months. She never found out who did it. I knew. But that's legacy. That's purpose. That's the ability to take care of someone, take care of it, get behind a purpose. Why do we do this? Why am I doing this? Because I want you to live into the movements, the missions, and the things that matter to you. Okay? Money isn't for stacking. It's for stewarding. It's for using it for great things.

By living a life of choice. All right? These are the 10 signs that the quiet wealthy have. And if you see people that are doing this, they might just be wealthy. Look at them. Use these in your life. How can you bring them into your life? Because if you saw yourself in a few of these signs, amazing, you're on the path. If you didn't, perfect, now you know what to shift, okay? Because wealth, it doesn't shout, it builds, it multiplies, it frees. Okay? All right, listen, before you scroll away, before you do anything, do me a favor. Take the next right step. And the next right step is to figure out where are you on this financial freedom journey. Go take the Financial Freedom Zone quiz, okay? It'll tell you exactly where you are and what your next steps are. Okay? But remember this. You don't need another income stream. You need a system. You need a process. You need a money machine. We need to get you to separate your earnings from the efforts to earn it so you can live a life of choice. A freedom based life. All right? That's what we're here to do. All right? If there's anything I can do for you, make sure that you post it. Let me know. Let me know what you thought of this. Let me know which one of these 10 kind of hit you, which ones you have, which ones you need to work on. All right? We'll make it happen. And until I get a chance to see you on another episode or on your journey, your path to financial freedom. Okay. Always, always strive to live a life that outlives you. Oh, before we go, make sure that you subscribe and share this out. All right, See you in the next one. Thank you for listening to the affluent entrepreneurship with me, your host, Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com group and I'll see you there.

And that's it for this episode of Building your money machine, where we help you learn how to master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life of choice. If you found this valuable or helpful to you, here's what I'd love for you to do. If you do me a favor, go to Apple, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this podcast and rate and review the show. It helps us tremendously to keep us at the top of the list so we can continue to get this information and this message out to people. Because I truly believe that financial freedom is your birthright, and I want to help each and every one of you claim it. Thanks so much.