6 Things Rich People Need to Stop Saying

“If I Can Do It, So Can You!”

What They Think They’re Saying:

“This is the land of opportunity, where anyone can make it! Instead of complaining, just go out there and get rich!”

What We Hear:

“If everyone at my country club makes good money, it can’t be that hard!”

This is such an impossibly strange idea that I’m not sure if the people saying it actually believe it.

But … I guess our entire philosophy about money kind of revolves around this premise — that there is no poor or working class, but only people who have chosen to not buckle down to the task of getting rich (and thus deserve whatever salary, insecurity or poor work conditions they get). So there should be no talk about improving the lives of the non-rich, since any of them can simply choose to elevate themselves out of that group, right?

Seriously, now. How much time do you really have to spend off your goddamned yacht to see that this isn’t true? You don’t even need to leave the dock — there’s a guy standing right there who you pay to fix your boat’s engine. You know that 1) you absolutely need guys like him and 2) he will never get rich doing what he does. He could be great at his job, he might be the Michael Jordan of mechanics, he might work 100 hours a week — it doesn’t matter. Sure, if that one guy somehow also has the head for management and finance and the networking skills, he could maybe open his own chain of yacht repair shops. But they can’t all do that.