Once You Get Rich, Change These 6 Things Immediately

Getting rich won't solve your problems. In fact, if you're not careful, it'll.

Make them more expensive.

See, most people get money and lose their damn minds. I mean, that's the truth of it. They change the wrong things. They over complicate their finances. They try to impress people they don't even like. Today I'm showing you what actually needs.

To change when your income shows up.

And what you should never change, no matter how wealthy you become. I'm Mel Abraham and I am the host of the building your money machine show. With 30 plus years deep in the game as a CPA, as a money mentor, I've seen what happens when success isn't paired with strategy.

It gets messy and it gets messy fast.

Well, building your money machine is where we help you master your money, eliminate financial stress, and live a life by choice. Because earning more doesn't make you free.

The money machine does. So if you're ready, let's jump in. Let's do this.

Listen, I've seen this happen over and over again. You know, people start building wealth, they start making good money. Things seem to be working. But money doesn't automatically upgrade your life.

The quality of your life.

But what it does do is it gives you a chance, a powerful chance to rewrite your life, to adjust your habits, to build the legacy that you want. But here's where the problem is, okay? If you don't change the right things, then you never get there. You find complexity, you find stress, you find anxiety, you find that you're unfulfilled. And so this is where I want to jump off and jump into this. I want to talk about the six things that you need to change immediately once you get rich. But there's also a handful of things that no matter how rich you are, no matter how much good money you're.

Making, you never change. So let's start with the things to change immediately.

And the first is this.

Your time.

Stop being the janitor of your calendar. See, time is the only thing that.

You can't buy back.

Now, I understood this, but I didn't.

Really understand it then.

The only time I truly understood it was when I got diagnosed with a cancer is because I realized that my days were numbered. Hopefully there's big numbers there, but I realized that there was an end.

It was.

And so I could not add more time to my life. And we tend to look at things and not value time. And that's the thing that we need to think about. You can earn another dollar, you can print another check but once the minute is gone, it's gone. So stop showing up to other people's agendas. Start owning your time. Okay? Listen, Tomorrow morning, before the phone, before the coffee, before the emails, take 15 minutes of silence. No distractions, just you and your thoughts. I do this every single morning. I wake up early, okay? But I do this every single morning where I take a moment of time.

15 to 20 minutes, just for me.

My thoughts in quiet. Then create a 90 minute deep kind of work blocks, sacred blocks that you can't, that aren't gonna, aren't gonna change. These are the most important things that you're gonna do. Treat them like appointments with your future self, okay? This is where you start to do your deep work. In the mornings, once I do that silent work, I go for a walk.

I do my workouts, I do my self care.

It is a non negotiable to do this now. And there's something else here that I think is really important that I just mentioned, but I'm gonna bring it up here, is that walk every day, get your body moving every day. So when you start to look at your time, you now are starting to look at it and say, how do I use my time to build the quality of my life, the quality of the moments, the quality of my health? No phone, no podcast, just clarity in there. And so that first piece, when you start to make good money, is to start buying your time back, being more diligent and more judging about what you're going to, what you're going to use.

Your time for, okay?

Because you're going to find out over time that it's going to open up.

Even more time for you. Okay?

I'll never forget the first time I started to realize that I could afford to not have a packed calendar.

Okay?

My. I had a team that was handling things and I would wake up and I would be overbooked. I would be stressed, but it was someone else. It was like I was this property being pushed out there. And then once I started looking at my time as part of my investment portfolio, I needed returns, not just movement. And that's when things totally opened up. I looked at things and questioned, do.

I need to do this? Should I be doing it?

Should be someone else. Owning your time doesn't just make you more productive, it gives you your life back.

Okay?

And here's the thing, just that's a quick pause here to think about this. If you're serious about designing your life, the life that you actually want, not just one you can afford, then You've got to know what your life costs.

Now, most people have no idea.

And that's exactly why I created the lifestyle cost calculator. It'll show you exactly what it takes to fund the ideal lifestyle with clarity, no guesswork. Now it's totally free. We'll hook it up down below. Just go to melabram.com lifestyle to grab it. But it'll give you an idea of where you are, what it's going to cost you to get there.

So we can get you there.

Now, number two, the second thing that we need to change is your conversations. Upgrade the frequency, not just the friends list. Here's what I mean. Rich doesn't mean elitist. That's not what I mean. But it does mean that your conversations have to evolve and that we will have additional conversations at a different level. Don't get you don't get to the next level by being the smarter, hardest and the most comfortable person in the room. And I'm not saying to ditch your friends. This is now what I'm saying. But start inviting in higher level conversations. You might have additional circles of friends. Now when I started to do this, I literally started to have conversations and create what I call a personal board of directors. And that personal board of directors, they would ask me bigger questions. They would talk about my vision, my mission, my legacy. Not gossip, not complaints, not did you hear about so and so what so and so Posted.

Posted.

But. But things that would stretch me and not let me stay small. And one of the best things that that I do is that I have one friend in particular that we do.

A monthly lunch date.

It's on the calendar. We go to the same place, we meet at the same time, we met at the same place, we even have the same food. But we'll sit there for an hour, two hours, even three hours having conversations about life, love, business, wealth, and what.

We want to do. And we hold each other accountable.

That leads me to number three, upgrade.

Or change your health.

Wealth without wellness is a trap.

You built the machine, but you are the engine. And if the engine breaks down, everything stops.

Walk every single day.

It's simple, but it works. I do four miles every single morning. Okay?

The cool thing is I got 10,000.

Steps in before I even start my day.

Okay, Think about it. How do you take and put your health as a priority? I neglected my health. I didn't really neglect it. I just didn't get checked. I literally didn't see a doctor for seven years and all of a sudden I pop up And I've got cancer, but I was taking care of myself. I thought I was working out, I was eating right, I was doing the right things. See, now I'm extremely proactive about my health. I do things like I just did a whole battery of tests, 121 markers that we went through to make sure that I was dialed in and I'm doing the right thing to sustain myself for longevity. Okay? Then as part of health, spend smart. Hire the right trainer. Get real physical. Pay attention to what your body's been whispering and not ignoring it. Be proactive in it. And then this last piece of it, which is something I'm still working on, is sleep like it's sacred.

Okay? There's no badges for burnout.

There's no awards for. For running on. On fumes.

But.

And this is something that I got to deal with. I. I don't sleep well at night, and I'm working on it and I'm navigating it, and we're doing better. But there are nights that I only get four hours. That will destroy you. That'll destroy me. There's nights, finally, I get seven hours. Okay? But I think that when we start to make decisions around our health, we can upgrade the food we eat. When we're making good money, we have options. Upgrade the food, upgrade the work, upgrade the things, the workouts. Look at what you're doing. Maybe you need to get a chef in every once in a while. Get a food service to help you eat healthier. Convenience. If we start to eat on the run, that convenience, it can destroy our health.

Okay?

You didn't grind this hard to build a future where you're wealthy but totally wrecked.

Okay?

The fourth thing that changes this, your environment.

Build energy, not don't drain it.

See, the space that you're in, your space is speaking to you all day long.

If it's chaotic, you will be to.

Clean the clutter, make room for clarity, give space. Make sure that things are organized in a way that works for you. My organization is very different than my wife's. But think about things like upgrade some of the essentials. The lighting, the environment, the beautification. I've got certain pictures and things on the wall in my studio here that what you see, you open your eyes. It opens you up. You think that it's small, but it's huge to be able to walk into an environment and go.

And feel like you're home. Okay? See, your environment should fuel your ambition, not fight it. Okay?

So do me a favor.

Think about this Open your closet, look at your desk, look at your home office.

Does it look like the life you're trying to live or like a version.

Of you you've outgrown? And if it does, change it, adjust it, allow it.

All right, that leads me to number five.

To change your experiences.

Invest in life, not just luxury. See, money isn't for impressing people you don't know. And I get it. A lot of people are doing it in the Instagrams and all of that stuff, and that's. That's their. Their deal. And I think it's superficial and they're falling prey to that kind of stuff. I don't want you to do that. Because your money isn't to impress people you don't know. It is for building moments that move you. It's to create things that. The moments that matter for the people you love. The richness in your life isn't built in a bank bank account. It is built in your life, in your soul account, by the way you show up and the things you get to do bring people along who matter to you, who make the memories richer. If you're making good money and you have that ability, create the experiences that bring you closer to the people you love. The missions, the movements that matter. Say yes to discomfort that grows you.

Whether it's retreats, whether it's workshops, whether it's real world challenges.

Ask yourself, are there things that I can do that maybe I couldn't do before I had the money I can do now that can allow me to grow, to be a better person?

Okay?

And so this is the game I.

Want you to play now.

Number six is to change your contribution.

Build a legacy, not just a ledger. Okay?

If the only thing you leave behind is money, you miss the mark.

Okay? Choose a cause that shakes your soul and start there.

But here's more importantly. I don't see legacy as something you.

Leave behind when you leave this earthly place.

I see legacy as created in the moments you live. So ask yourself, in this moment, am I giving it everything I can? Am I making a difference in the person's life? And it could simply be the barista or the cashier, and it could be something simple like, I'm proud of you.

You look nice today. How are you doing?

See, legacy aren't necessarily the big things. They're the small things stacked up together where we make moments actually matter. Take the time to know that maybe you're successful and maybe I have the ability to mentor other people, to guide them to do the things that Help them mentor someone that's five steps behind you. Give away the roadmap that you had to build alone.

Ask yourself, if I disappeared tomorrow, who's better off because I was here? See, legacy isn't about fame. It's about fingerprints on people, on values, on futures you help shape. Those are the six things I would change immediately. And here's the five things I don't ever want you to touch.

No matter how rich you get, no matter how much money you're making. Number one, your core values. Money should amplify your integrity, not water it down. Don't get rich. You don't get rich and then forget.

How to look yourself in the mirror.

Your values matter and it. And if you do what we do in the money machine blueprint and what I teach, your actual spending, your investing, is in alignment with the values. It's to expand the values and bring them to life. The second thing you don't touch is your people. The crew that showed up early for you. Don't ghost those folks, those that clapped for you when you were still grinding. Those that, that were there for you, those that actually believed in you, the ones that gave you the chance. See, I don't believe in this whole idea of, oh, they're self made. They're not. I'm not self made. I'm made by, by bigger things. I'm made by people like you. I'm made by the people that were in my corner that fought for me, that kicked me, kicked me in the butt when I needed, that helped me out when I was down. Keep them close.

Honor the roots, keep them in place. Number three, don't ever change your curiosity. Stay teachable, stay humble, stay a student.

Because the next level of you requires.

A new version of you. And that new version. There's new questions to get you there. So stay curious in the journey. And then number four, your gratitude. If a simple sunrise made you feel rich when you were broke, don't let wealth make you numb to that.

Now I see sunrises and sunsets on.

The beach every day and I try.

To slow down, take it in, take.

A picture and bring it in.

Because it's just as much a beauty and miracle to me when I didn't.

Have money and when I do, and.

We tend to forget the gratitude, the.

Little things, the simple thank yous and the simple things that we take for granted. Don't ever change that. Be grateful for every little thing and express it. And then number five, your wealth strategy. Keep it simple, keep it smart.

This one I had to Throw in here, because I see it all the time. And they. They sit back and they go, oh, I'm. I've got wealth. Now. What do I do? What do I change? I go, wait a second. What got you here is working. Why are we changing it? And. But for some reason, people think that when they start to have wealth, they have to start chasing exotic investments or trendy advice. No, the same things that built my portfolio at six figures, built it at seven, built it at eight. Multiple eight figures. What got you here still works. Stay boring, stay consistent. That's where freedom lies. When you start to get exotic, you start to get complicated. When you get complicated, you create friction and risk in your portfolio. And that.

That creates loss.

All right, now, those are the six things I would change immediately.

The five things I would never change.

Now, before we wrap, let's have some real talk. You know, if you're wondering where you actually are on this journey to financial freedom, like, what phase you're in and what to focus on next, don't guess. Take the Financial Freedom Zone quiz, okay? It'll give you clarity and allow you to know where you stand and what to do to next. Okay? And so we'll hook it up for you here so you can get access to it and do it for free.

Now, here's the deal. Making money is easy.

Living rich, that's the hard part.

The uncommon part, the part most people never get right. But you, you're not most people, okay?

If you upgrade what matters now, Your.

Time, your energy, your health, your thinking.

And protect the parts of you that.

Make it all worth it, then you won't just be wealthy. You'll be rich. You'll be dangerous. Free, Clear, impactful, Intentional.

Alive.

So here's your move.

Schedule that 15 minute morning silence. Take that walk, open the drawer and clean it out. Text that person who's been in your.

Corner from day one.

Start living like you mean it. You didn't come this far just to accumulate, achieve, and accomplish. You came this far to evolve.

And evolve you will. That's why you're here.

So I hope that this helps. I hope that you'll take this to heart and look at it through a different lens and now know what needs.

To change immediately and what never changes. Ever.

All right, if you found this helpful, do me a favor. Make sure that you give me a thumbs up.

And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to the channel. Subscribe.

It helps me, it helps YouTube, and.

It makes me feel good at the same time. All right?

Till I get a chance to see another episode or on your path to financial freedom.

Or maybe out there while I'm out speaking. Always, always strive to live a life that outlives you. See you in the next one. Cheers.

For now.