Wealth Building Lessons of 2024

We became millionaires at 31/32 as a PA-C and construction manager.

Our net worth gains in 2024 were much greater than our annual income, because our money was out earning more money for us.

Here are the top 10 lessons I learned in 2024 about building wealth:

(I didn’t even believe #7 was true a few years ago...)

1. Results are based on compounded efforts. If we saw gains this year, it wasn’t because of what we did this year. It was the cumulative efforts of the last 6 years of aggressive investing. Basically, the candy came out of the piñata. It wasn’t because we hit the piñata once in 2024. It was because we hit it over and over again every year leading up to this one.
2. Mistakes are part of the journey. If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough. The biggest hurdle isn’t actually the objective loss you sustain from any mistake, it’s the potential for falling into a mindset that doesn’t serve you as a result.
3. Skills compound like money. Nothing is more valuable that your ability to earn money, and your ability to make that money earn money for you. Invest consistently (both financially and with your time) in learning to maximize both of those levers.
4. Nothing motivates me more than creating generational wealth. There is a limit to the joy I can create from building assets for myself, but there is no limit to the joy I can generate dreaming up ways to improve the lives of my children and future grandchildren.
5. Complexity will find you. You don’t have to seek it. Early in my wealth building journey I prematurely looked for complexity because it felt “cool”. Success breeds complexity. You don’t have to look for it – just keep grinding and wait.
6. The fastest path to unlocking financial abundance is through charitable contribution. Want to be reminded how unbelievably blessed you are? Find 10 people who have it infinitely harder than you. Your money problems will instantly seem incredibly small.
7. Liquidity matters. While the tax benefits of utilizing tax-advantaged retirement accounts can’t be ignored, the value of liquidity can’t be ignored either. Find a way to use both strategies. Avoid being “retirement rich, cash poor”. This expression doesn’t mean hoard cash in savings accounts. It means invest in places you can get access to the money.
8. You get your standards. If you use language to identify yourself like “good at money” or “a wealth builder”, your brain goes about the business of making sure you’re congruent with that. Want to level up your standards? Put people in your circle far outpacing you. If you’re the wealthiest person you know, you’re your own ceiling.
9. A budget is a drop in the hat compared to an automating wealth building system. I’ve met plenty of people “on a budget” who stay broke forever, but not one wealthy person stuck in a scarcity mindset about money. Ensure your budget is a cashflow system that allows for wealth building, and not the thing that traps you into limiting beliefs about never having enough.
10. Having written, objective goals with your partner is the only way to maximize success. Our goals for 2025 make every year’s goals up until now look small. We could coast financially at this point, but neither of us has a desire to do that. If you didn’t get where you wanted in 2024, I’m guessing you didn’t a) start the year with written goals and b) review them daily. It’s hard to ignore the written goals you look at every morning. 2025 is a new opportunity. Don’t waste it.