The New Rules Of Building Wealth In 2026
In this solo presentation, Mel Abraham challenges conventional financial advice and introduces six new rules for building wealth in 2026. He argues that higher income alone often leads to financial fragility (the "income trap"), and that true wealth comes from systems that generate money without constant personal effort. He emphasizes treating health as a core financial asset, planning for a lifespan that may reach 100 years, and recognizing that AI itself isn’t the primary threat—dependency on a single income source is. Abraham also highlights the powerful impact of one’s social circle on economic mobility, urging intentional networking. Finally, he stresses that consistent, "boring" habits—steady saving, investing, and avoiding shortcuts—outperform flashy, high‑risk strategies. Throughout, he backs his points with recent data (e.g., US personal savings rate 3.6% in 2025, longevity projections, AI job displacement estimates) and personal anecdotes, framing wealth creation as a path to greater life choice and freedom rather than mere money accumulation.
Chapters
The new rules for building wealth in 2026. And here's the first one, and it's going to annoy some people. Making more money might be the very thing that's keeping you broke. And it sounds backwards, doesn't it? But the data backs it up. People that are earning more than ever, yet they're saving less than ever. AI is reshaping entire industries, and the financial playbook that most people are following was designed for a world that doesn't exist anymore. And today I'm going to give you 6 rules that replace the old ones, and at least 2 of them I think are going to make you think and rethink everything you thought you knew about 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, that doesn't make you free. A money machine does. And I'm your host, Mel Abraham. And after 30-plus years as a CPA, an entrepreneur, and a money mentor, and someone who's actually walked the journey from financial nothing to financial freedom, broke it and had to rebuild it again. I've seen what works. And it's not about bigger numbers. It's about bigger choices. So if you're ready, let's do this. The new rules for building wealth in 2026. Now, I call this video New Rules because let's be honest with each other for a second. Most of the financial advice floating out around there right now is written for a world that doesn't exist anymore. You know that world that I'm talking about that says go get a good job, stay in that job for 40 years, max out your retirement plan plans, and don't buy lattes and then die. Okay, that was the plan. Now, literally the plan that doesn't work. And people wonder why nobody's excited about it. So today I'm gonna give you 6 rules that actually work in this economy in 2026 with AI eating jobs for breakfast and people, uh, living to 100 and the average American saving less than they spend on, on streaming subscriptions. So I'll tell you right now, a couple of these might kind of catch you off guard, and you're going to hear one that you go, wait a second, I've never even heard anyone talk about that. Good, that's the point. All right, so let's just jump in. Rule number 1. Rule number 1 is what I call the income trap— why, you know, making more money is making you broker, in fact. Okay, here's, it's the first rule and, and fair warning, this one really annoys people when I, when they hear me say this, making more money just is going to keep you broke. And I said it, and that's the challenge. We live in a culture that treats income like it's the finish line. 6 figures, 7 figures, 8 figures. People post their revenue on Instagram like it's a personality trait. And look, I'm not hating on income. We need the income. Income matters. That's the earnings machine as I talk about it. Okay. Income without a system is not wealth. How many people do you know that make tremendous amounts of income? Look at actors, look at athletes, look at some of those public figures, and they have nothing to show for it. They have no freedom, that they're still imprisoned by the earnings treadmill. That's not wealth. That's a hamster wheel with better lighting, better decorations. And here's what the data says. Personal savings, the personal savings rate in the US as of December 2025, straight from the Federal Reserve, is 3.6%. Let me put that in terms that might actually mean something. If you made $100 today, that means you kept $3.60. You know what that buys you? Half a latte. Congratulations. You're building wealth one sip at a time. Okay. Now, before you think, well, that's other people, not me. Let's just look at it. Okay? Bankrate had a study on emergency savings and found that 24% of Americans have zero in emergency savings. Zero. A quarter of the country is literally one flat tire away from financial crisis. And more than half of those are making more than 6 figures. So the challenge we need to understand is that yes, there may be an income issue in your world, but income isn't the only issue. Income isn't the thing that solves the problem. So it's not just a low income problems. Some of the brokest people I've ever worked with have made great money, but they spend all the money. They spend it because they want to create a mirage of looking wealthy— the nice car, the nice house, the nice life— except behind the scenes, there was no machine, there was no system, there was no freedom. And when they stepped off the treadmill of earnings, there was no earnings. Everything stopped. And so if the income is, is going to stop, then that's really not a system. And that's one of the things that we need to think about is that there was a time in history where you would build a pension plan and a company would take care of you for the rest of your life. But they did away with pension plans. Now we are saddled with it. So the difference when I learned this was when I got hit with a cancer, not once but twice, is I didn't have to panic about money. I started building a money machine because my son drew a picture of me in front of two computer screens with a phone in each ear. When he was 6 years old. That's over 30 years ago. And I had a chance to reevaluate this idea of earn, earn, earn and say, wait a second, if I don't separate my earnings from my efforts to earn it, I will always be imprisoned. But that's what we've been indoctrinated into. And so that's where I look at it and say, more income may be the thing that keeps you broke. And when I say broke, maybe not in the bank account sense of the word, But certainly in the life account sense of the word. So I think this, this rule, we really need to start looking at how do I stop worshiping income and start to see it for what it is. It is a tool. It is not the destination. So that's where we need to look at this and say, let's put it in the right perspective. I'm gonna generate the income. I'm gonna generate the earnings to create the life that I want. And it is only the tool to make that happen. It isn't the end all be-all. That leads me to rule number 2. Rule number 2, your body is your first asset and you're letting it depreciate if you're not careful. Now, this is one that I think surprises a lot of people, but I need you to stay with me on this because it's backed by some serious data, okay? Almost nobody in the finance space is talking about this, but your body is a financial asset and most people are treating it like it's a rental car. Okay, you know what I mean? Here's what I mean. If you've ever rented a car and you do it, you usually don't care. Okay, you might hit, spill the coffee a little bit in there. Eh, it's not my car. And that's how most people treat their health. When they're busy chasing money, they start to think things like, well, I'll sleep when I'm dead. And I've heard so many people say that. Oh, I'll work out next year or next week or tomorrow. I'll deal with the stress later. Except later has a price tag, and it's a big price tag. See, there was a study that was published in 2025 by The Lancet, and this is not some blog post. This is one of the most respected medical journals on the planet. Okay. And they literally found that people at the bottom of the wealth distribution had a mortality rate more than double those at the top. And here's the kicker. It goes both ways. Bad health destroys your ability to earn, and low wealth accelerates bad health. So it's this doom loop if we're not careful. Another study was the Milken Institute found that 50% of people in poor health have no savings at all. And across almost every income level, people in good health were significantly more likely to have money, have wealth, and money saved, not because they were luckier, but because they could actually show up and earn it. Now, I also think that there's something else there. Your ability to take care of yourself, your discipline to do that is the same behaviors that you need to build wealth. And so I think that how you do one thing is how you do everything. And so we start to look at it through, through that set of eyes. So I'll, I'll be honest, I used to be that guy. I was a numbers guy. I would sit behind the desk for almost 14 hours a day, working, working, working, eating convenient food, but convenience kills. Skipping workouts, saying I'll get to it later. And so I started to look at this and say things changed. In fact, I was taking care of myself and still the cancer showed up. And when the cancer showed up, it got me to start to realize something else. It wasn't about me just taking care of myself. It was about me being proactive with my care. To look at and say, how do I become more preventative with my work so I can be vibrant enough to show up in my life? Not just to earn, but to live life richly. To live life and be there to be present for my son, my grandchildren, for my wife, and for the people I get to serve. And here's what I want you to get. Every investment strategy in the world is completely irrelevant if you're not alive and healthy enough to benefit from it. Warren Buffett said, said the most important investment you can make is in yourself. Now, a lot of people think that is books and courses, but it's also in your health. See, your health doesn't support your wealth plan, If it doesn't, man, it is your wealth plan. If we don't have wealth, I don't care how good your portfolio is, it will not outperform a body that quits on you. And so I want you to put this as one of the priorities so you can show up properly. That leads me to rule number 3. Now, rule number 3 is to understand that, hmm, you might live to 100. And the question is, is your money ready for that? This one connects kind of directly to understanding what happens is that this becomes a big financial risk that nobody is really planning for or talking about. Now, you might live to 100, you might live to 90. My mom lived to 90. And what a lot of people think about, think about the traditional retirement. Traditional retirement, you are gonna retire at 60, 65, and they assumed a 30-day, 30-year journey after that. So 90, 95. But what happens when longevity continues to go on? Okay. Or in a situation like my wife is 12 years younger than me, I'm thinking in terms of my life, but also her life. And she's 12 years younger than me. And then my children, you know, my son and, and my grandchildren. And so I think we need to think about how are we creating wealth? Crafting money in a way that is sustainable for a longer term. Okay. Because the data that we see, like JPMorgan's research using Social Security Administration data, they say there's already a 19% chance that one member of a married couple, assuming healthy non-smokers, will make it to 100. One in five. Okay, 1 in 5. Think about what it's going to be like to have a population that is now living into their hundreds and what the financial burden or strain is to make that, make that happen. And so I think we need to start planning and building a machine that is for a lifespan that is longer. So 91% of people are building a financial plan. For a road trip and packing enough gas to only get halfway there. Brilliant. But we're not going to get the full road trip in. So let me make this real for you. JPMorgan modeled a 65-year-old couple that were spending, say, $750,000 a year. Now, I don't know how real that is, but we'll break it down for you because that's a lot of money. But at normal life expectancy to age 90, they would need about $20.5 million to fund that. Now, if they stretched that from age 90 to 100, just 10 years, that $20.5 million would go up to $28 million, another $7.5 million more just for that extra 10 years of being alive. Now, your numbers are going to be different. Even if we cut a zero off of it and now we're, we're dealing with $75,000 a year and, and $2.5 million and and $750,000 more, it's still a lot more money than we anticipate for the fact that we're living longer. So the principle is the same no matter what the numbers are, that whatever you think you need, add probably 30% more. See, this is why the retirement concept, I think, is kind of broke. See, the old model assumed that you would work till 55, 60 years old, maybe 65, and then you'd have this nice 15-year vacation before, you know, you expire. But if retirement's going to last 30, 35, 40 years, that's not a vacation. That's a whole second act. And your money needs to fund that whole entire show, the whole thing from beginning to end. It's like planning a dinner party for 10 people and 25 show up, except the dinner party in this case is your life and the food is your savings and your wealth. So if you don't want to be eating crackers by year 22, we've got to do it right. So rule number 3, plan your money to outlive you. See, retirement isn't the finish line anymore. It's the starting line for a whole new chapter. And we need to build and have the resources to write the whole chapter to make it happen. Now, that leads me to rule number 4. And this one's a big one that I think we need to talk about. It's the elephant in the room. And that is this: AI isn't the threat. Dependency is. Okay? Like I said, I think it's the elephant, the gorilla, the 800-pound robot in the room. Artificial intelligence. And everyone's talking about it. And the impact of it. And in fact, the World Economic Forum estimates that 85 million jobs will be displaced by AI in 2026. And here we are in 2026. Larry Fink, who's the CEO of BlackRock, and whatever you think of that organization, their largest asset manager on Earth, he stood up at Davos and basically said this, if AI does to white-collar jobs what globalization did to blue-collar jobs, we have a serious problem. And I think that we need to take this in and really understand the impact of it. And then NVIDIA CEO recently said something that I think we really need to tattoo on every person's forehead. And that is this: you're not going to lose your job to AI. You're gonna lose your job to someone who uses AI. And so I think that it's really important to understand those words that, that the job loss isn't to AI, it's to someone who uses AI. AI is a productivity tool right now, a valuable one. It's something I'm digging into. I'm trying to understand how to bring it in, how to use it to build wealth, investing, to do the things. But not to replace the things, not to replace my thinking, not to replace my judgment, not to replace this, my ability to do this with you. Okay? But here's where everyone's getting this conversation wrong because everyone's asking, will AI take my job? And I actually think that's the wrong question to ask. See, the right question to ask is this: am I so dependent on one income source that if it disappears, I'm done. Okay? Because that's the real risk. Not AI itself. Dependency. If you've got one employer, okay, if you've got one paycheck, one skill, one skill set, one source of income, and you're, you're doing that, you're literally walking across a tightrope with no net underneath you. AI, that didn't create that problem. That problem has been there since the pension plans kind of went by way of the dodo bird. Okay? Once we got rid of pension plans, the dependency on a single source of income has always been a risk. AI just made it visible to you. And so, that's the thing that I think we need to deal with. Now, at the same time, AI is also creating wealth at a speed we've never seen before. In 2025 alone, there were more billionaires under 30 made than any point in history. Almost 13, I think there were. Most of them from AI. Some of them went from zero to billions in a matter of months. See, that's not a bubble. That's a paradigm shift. So the move here isn't to fight AI. The move is to diversify how you earn. Okay, think about it from this perspective. If your financial life was a table, how many legs does it have? One. Okay, that one salary, your salary. See, that table's falling over the second someone bumps into it. Even if you have two legs, it's still wobbly. You want 3, 4, 5 legs. Okay, you want multiple streams of income. It is no longer a luxury, it is a requirement. Something that, that allows you to earn. Okay. And some of them may require you to be there to effort to earn, but others that don't. The whole idea of the money machine. Okay. And this is not some exotic strategy. 69% of millionaires in a study said that their primary path to wealth was simply saving and investing consistently from Multiple income streams. Okay, not some moonshot, not the crypto moonshot, not some meme stock moonshot, not some day trading, but just building a system of multiple streams of income over time. So this rule, rule number 4, is this: AI isn't the enemy, dependency is. And the future is going to belong to those people who can earn from more than one place and who can build at least one and hopefully more streams of income that work even when they don't. All right. That leads me to rule number 5. Rule number 5, your circle is your secret portfolio. This one I've been waiting to share because I genuinely think that it might be the most underrated wealth rule that it, that exists. Okay. The people you hang out with are silently shaping your net worth. They're shaping your wealth. And I don't mean some motivational poster in a dentist's office kind of thing. I mean, when you look at the research on this, Harvard's Opportunity Insights Project talked about this and they went and did an economic mobility study led by a guy by the name of Raj Chetty. Okay? And they found one of the single strongest predictors of someone's move up economically isn't their education. It isn't their IQ. It isn't even their starting income. It's the percentage of friends who are in higher economic brackets than they are. That draw that is elevating them, that is pushing them to be more, that is giving them a role model, that's giving them some way to go. They call this economic connectedness, okay? And it predicts this upward mobility better than almost any other variable. So you got to look at it. Now, I'm not saying to strip clean of the friends and the people you hang out with, but I am saying that maybe we need to start supplementing who we're hanging out with, who we're eating lunch with, okay? Because it's statistically— you look at who you eat lunch with, which statistically matters more than where you went to school. Okay? And that should stop you in your tracks because it means that the social circle isn't just a feel-good thing. It's a financial instrument. And if you think about this real-world version, uh, example is I know a woman, smart, successful, crushing it in her coaching business, making good money, but she was surrounded by people who treated spending like it was a sport. Every weekend there was a new dinner, a new trip, a treat yourself moment. She was playing along because that's what the group did. It was a culture. It was the way she lived. And we didn't change her income. We just changed her environment slightly. She kept doing that, but not as frequently. And she started to spend time with people who talked about building assets instead of buying stuff. People who got excited about index funds and building a rich life. Not a just a big bank account and not worried about just bottle service. Okay. All of a sudden her investing and savings rates tripled. Same income, different circle, but a totally different outcome. Okay. And here's the thing that, that makes this tricky. Nobody wants to admit this. Okay. But it sounds like I'm saying ditch your friends and I'm not saying that. I am saying, be honest about which relationships you're pulling towards your life that are bringing close to you and you're anchoring your life to. And that's not cold, that's just clarity. I have people in my life that are very close to me. I have other people that aren't as close and I adjust based on what's going on. I wanna make sure that there is an appropriate kind of access or relationship. Okay? So here's where, where this rule comes in. I think you gotta audit your circle of friends. And just like you audit your finances, because your network isn't just social capital, it's actual capital, and it compounds in both directions. All right, rule number 6: boring wins. And that might be the most exciting news you're going to hear the whole time. Okay, here's what I mean. It's the last rule, but I saved it for the end because I think this is the one that people need to hear the most, especially in 2026 when we see everything moving at light speed, TikTok and crypto and all that stuff. Boring wins. Yeah, I know it's not exactly the sexy bumper sticker that you would think, but I want— if my wealth creation gives me an adrenaline rush, something's wrong. Okay, 79% of American millionaires received no inheritance. None. Zero from grandma. And they built wealth. They became millionaires first generation. Okay. Meaning that they did it themselves. Now, typically it takes about 32 years, not 32 days, not 32 weeks, 32 years of showing up, saving, investing, doing the same thing over and over again, the boring stuff and avoiding stupid. So 94% of millionaires live below their means. 88% of them have college degrees, but 62% of them went to public state universities. So it isn't Ivy League, it isn't Silicon Valley. It is your neighbor next door who drives the Honda Accord, maxes out her 401(k), and is quietly stacking $2 million away while everyone else is trying to look rich. She becomes the real baller. She's the one that you need to be like. Okay? Now, this is not something that the financial media wants to tell you because invest consistently for 3 decades and then you're a millionaire, that doesn't sell. But you say, well, if you buy this one crypto or this one asset and you're a millionaire by Thursday, that sells. Okay, that gets the clicks, but that's not wealth building. That's gambling with a Wi-Fi connection. All right, so here's the deal. I'm going to be 65 next year, and I've been through 4 recessions. I've been through the S&L crisis. I've been through the dot-com bust. I've been through the housing collapse, 9/11, the pandemic. You You know, cancer twice, I've learned it. And the people who win aren't the smartest and the flashiest. They're the most consistent. They didn't panic. They didn't chase. They didn't let their emotions run away with them. They just kept feeding and building the machine. Think of it like going to the gym. Nobody gets in shape from one workout. Nobody. But you do 30 minutes, 5 days a week for a year, and you're a different human. Well, it works exactly the same way. It's not about the big moves, it's about the boring reps. So stop looking for a shortcut. The shortcut is consistency. The most boring strategy in the world— save, invest, repeat, and don't touch it— has created more millionaires than every hot tip out there combined. All right, so let me bring this home to you, okay? I want to shift the energy here for a second because I think it actually matters. These 6 rules. They're not really about money. And I know that sounds weird coming from a money guy, but hear me out. They're about choice. The choice to wake up and not check your bank account. The choice to not worry about what the money looks like and your heart is racing because of the choice that your kids' recital is where you're going to go instead of feeling chained to the desk. The choice to get sick, God forbid, and not have your entire life crumble because the income stopped. See, a long time ago, my son drew that picture. I mean, Jeremy drew that picture of me sitting in front of the desk with the two computer screens and the two phones. But he wasn't in the picture. He wasn't in his own family drawing because Dad was there, but Dad wasn't there. He wasn't present. I wasn't present. And I stared at that drawing and something broke inside of me. And I realized I was building a career when I should have been building a life. I was earning a living, but I wasn't living. That drawing is why I do everything I do now. It's why I built the system, is why I teach this stuff. Not so you can have more money, but so you can have more presence. More mornings where you're not rushed, more dinners where you're not distracted, more years because you took care of your health, planned for longevity, and built something that lasts. Okay? It's not about the money. It never was about the money. It was about the life money makes possible for you. And when you build it right, man, that's crazy and it's good. So, the new rules one more time. 1, stop worshiping income. Build something that works without you. 2, your health is a financial asset. Stop treating it like an afterthought. 3, plan for 100. Your money needs to outlive you. 4, AI isn't the threat. Dependency on a single income is. 5, your circle shapes your net worth. Curate it with purpose, on purpose. And 6, boring wins. Consistency beats every hack, every shortcut, and every hot tip. All right, so let me know what you think. I hope that you found this valuable. I'll hold you to take these rules. And put them into your life for here and beyond because they are the new rules of wealth in 2026 and beyond. I'm so happy you're here. Let me know what you think. Which one of the rules kind of hit you? Which one of the things really mattered? What are you going to do next? Comment or DM me. I love having the conversations with you all. All right. Until I get a chance to see you out there on the road as I'm speaking or soaring to your financial freedom. All right, always, always strive to live a life that outlives you. See you in the next one. Cheers for now.
