Wealth is what you don't see

Money has many ironies. Here’s an important one: Wealth is what you don’t see.

We tend to judge wealth by what we see, because that’s the information we have in front of us. We can’t see people’s bank accounts or brokerage statements. So we rely on outward appearances to gauge financial success. Cars, homes, instagram photos.

Wealth is the nice cars not purchased. The diamonds not bought. The watches not worn. Wealth is financial assets that haven’t yet converted into stuff that you see.

That’s not how we think about wealth, because you can’t contextualise what you can’t see.

When most people say they want to be millionaire, what they might actually mean is I’d like to spent a million dollars. And that is literally opposite of being a millionaire.