If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?

have you ever asked yourself why am I not rich yet and I will be Rich Forever how M will that be maybe you've been trying maybe you're intelligent well educated and you work hard and then yeah where is it seriously where is it if you find it please let me know because it turns out we're not the only ones asking this question there's extensive academic research into this topic kind of love it really a load of academics smart people focusing their efforts trying to answer the question why the hell am I not rich but it

is a good question isn't it and today I'm going to answer that question for you I'm also going to show you what you can do about it if you so smart how come you ain't rich I want to start by looking at the single biggest determinant of financial success a characteristic we rarely focus on but we really should I got some of my trusty green tape again so this line represents wealth at this end of the line you're the poorest person on the planet at this end you're the richest and each piece of Pastor in

this cup represents some of the world's wealth and what we know is that this group of people down here which represent about 50% of the global population share amongst them as much wealth as about 10 to 20 people up here so these 10 to 20 people have as much money combined as around about the bottom 50% of the global population why are they smarter did they work harder maybe yes but surely past a certain point the influence of those factors diminishes I mean how much smarter can you be people in a way are sort of

like pasta what I mean by that is each shape is different different size different quirks and features to it but they're all you know much of a muchness within a realm of normality if you will 95% of the human population has an IQ between 70 and 130 Albert Einstein's was 16 William James ciders could read the New York Times by 18 months old taught himself eight Languages by the age of eight and attended Harvard at 11 one of the smartest people ever his IQ was believed to be between 250 and 300 like being smarter makes

you richer he should have been absolutely wed but he wasn't he died pretty young and was a recluse at the end of his life I mean it was pretty sad but my point is there are limits to the human potential to human Talent no one is a thousand times smarter than anyone else and no matter what Hustle culture wants us to believe no one can work a million hours more than anyone else but wealth at these levels ignores those limits is Jeff Bas us right here a billion times smarter than whoever's down here no he's

not whether we like to admit it or not humans are all pretty similar and the range of our talents is not broad not to this level anyway so what's dictating success at this level what's really going on here because to be a billionaire there's one thing every billionaire has in common there's something that happened that that made him lucky Alexandre Pino is a world expert in mathematical modeling he wanted to understand how big of an impact skills have on success intelligence knowledge hard work how did they impact wealth because like it or not we tend

to use wealth as a measuring stick for Success so they created this simulation with different people of different levels of skill and personality traits all within a normal human range but you know some people were smarter than others some were harder workers and some had better social skills all skills that you would often associate with being successful then they ran the simulation they ran it over and over and every time the results were the same wealth accumulated at the top 80% of it went to the top 20% of people just like in the real world

but there was no correlation between the traits sometimes it was the hard workers that came out on top sometimes it was the charismatic people there wasn't a personality trait that they could say this is the dominant thing this is the thing that makes people successful well that's a lie actually there was one thing as part of the study they mimicked everyday life they threw random events at the simulations some unlucky events that hurt their wealth and some lucky ones that help them build more wealth overwhelmingly the subjects that won the simulation over and over again

were the lucky ones an averagely talented individual with good luck would be a gifted person with bad luck in Western Society we often prescribe success and failure to skill the Americans would call this rugged individualism we'll say things like it's on you the winner deser deserves their success and the loser it's their fault that they lost this idea that successful people have skills or habits that we don't this leads us to do weird things quite frankly like study the morning routines of billionaires because we think they must be doing something that I'm not but I

hate to break it to you the key to Success is Not 5 minutes of affirmations before sun in your bum hoole every morning I know you've seen that guy but the Mad thing is he's probably richer than all of us I want to stop and say though of course skill is important in how successful you are if you're smart you work harder you will on average go further but there's a limit to this that human limit that we explored before a Swedish study showed that the correlation between intelligence and earnings flat lines above €60,000 a

year this relationship this level of being rich right here there is a huge amount of luck involved maybe you were born lucky the Pew Research Center found that children of wealthy parents will go on to earn three times as much as kids from a low earning background or maybe you were born in the right place at the right time the National Bureau of economic research in 2017 concluded that 90% of children born in 1940 are more than their parents whereas today children born in the 80s in my generation 50% of them earn more than their

parents did or what about just those kind of slide Indo moments where your whole life changes I'm in no way Rich you know not the type of wealth that we're discussing before using rice it's pasta but I got fured for 4 weeks and I started a YouTube channel at the exact same moment the UK population got really interested in investing I work really hard I honestly do my ego wants to sit here and go I did this but the truth is I have to acknowledge this no covid no me fast forward three years later I'm

sitting here and at the end of a random video I just mentioned the fact that I'm looking for a video editor a guy watches that sends the link to his friend who then applies for the job and is now my editor the other day he told me that I've changed his life in a message I'm just such a nice guy I'm only messing he deserves the money he has paid he works super hard he's very talented but you know I think about this thing that if his friend hadn't watched all the way to the end

of the video none of that would have mattered he may have been successful in another way later down the line I'm sure he would have but he got that job due to a series of fortunate events that kind of compounded on top of each other over time Pino's work shows us how luck fate right place right time whatever you want to call it is a factor in success especially when we're talking about massive amounts of it I'm going to say again I don't want to play Down the influence of intelligence and hard work and I

also don't want to make it out like the people at the top don't deserve their position that they didn't earn it in some way but I also want to point out that there are plenty of people out there who are probably just as talented working just as hard who ultimately won't get those outcomes smart only gets you so far we need a little bit of luck so UK garage aside let's shift Focus now and ask how can we make ourselves luckier in the context of Building Wealth because it is actually possible to improve our chances

here but just before we do that let's change my editor's life a little bit more shall we with today's video sponsor so my editor has a problem he's working hard making these videos look lovely but this right here is his computer chair I mean look at the state of that today we're going to fix this thanks to see who who have sent us a brand new chair the Doro S100 and also kindly sponsored this video here is in the Box we're going to build it and then we're going to go surprise my editor with his

brand new chair it's going to be like when Oprah gave away all those cars but I'm dishing out ergonomic Furniture there someone who sits in an office chair all day I know how important it is to have a chair that is ergonomic back pain is one of the most common reasons for work absence in the UK and with this bad boy my editor is never going to want to take a day off it has 135° of recline with three lockable positions the back position is also adjustable and so are the arm supports and the best

thing is the Dual Dynamic lumbar support and the seating position moves as well so you can take it to you I'm 6'2 I weigh 100 kg and the chair handles me perfectly you also get these really fancy gloves with it so yeah just going to get it to my editor hello mate I got you a chair all right thanks can you help me get it in yeah sure you always answer the door with your camera out take advantage of the annual promotion by clicking on the link in the description to get an extra six %

off code for the D S100 at a lower price of course you can find even more chair deals on the see who events page which is up to 60% off click the link to view the searo S100 ergonomic chair do you know the answer to these three questions they've been put forward as a test of financial literacy that's now been adopted by more than 20 countries I'm going to reveal the answers in 3 2 1 if you got them all right congratulations if you didn't don't worry about it you're in the right place rational Choice

theory is this idea that people make decisions based on sensible analysis that they weigh up the cost and the benefits of any action that they take and that they come to a decision that's good for them overall but then you hear stats like 30% of 17 to 24 year olds submit to making a video call while driving and around 9% of all drivers do this it's not rational or sensible behavior is it so when it comes to education the idea is that we teach people to think and learn and then they will go out and

make good decisions they will drive their life sensibly if you will but okay then why have fewer than half of all of americ an ever ask themselves how much they need in retirement that was a question posed by this paper published in the National Library of Medicine how is that rational the answer is it's not because the truth is a traditional education is not enough to guarantee good financial decisions or Good Financial outcomes because you can be book smart and money dumb all at the same time a basic grasp of financial Concepts has been shown

to improve your wealth health and overall wellbeing one answer to the question of if I'm so smart why am I not rich yet is time the average age of an American a millionaire is 61 compounding wealth takes time the slow route if you will anyone with a little bit of an understanding about how money Works would understand that yet through a lack of basic Financial education most adults fall victim to Lifestyle creep they're too cautious with their savings and they're not engaged with their retirements at all there are intelligent people that will never get rich

because they were never shown the basics of Finance look I know that I'm just preaching to the choir here you're watching Finance content at the end of the day but there is another part to this the fast way of making cash if you will and having a solid understanding of personal finance just simply knowing where you should Park your money to produce a long-term return will allow you to build up the reserves so if and when opportunity comes when luck strikes you're ready before I mentioned a Swedish paper that pointed out the impact of Intelligence

on earnings this idea that it plateaus at around €60,000 the paper that put this idea forward also claimed something else the top 1% of earners are less intelligent than the people below them on the earning scale that finding grabbed headlines all over the world this idea that being too smart is bad for your wallet but there's important detail here that we need to look at and I think really this is a conversation around risk the highest paid jobs in any economy tend to be specialized professionals that require high levels of Education solicitors Finance professionals Engineers

if you're coming out of school and you're deemed to be one of the most intelligent people in your class you're naturally going to be funneled towards one of these career paths as they offer the best prospects on on paper for high earnings you then go on to do years of study you pass all the qualifications that you need and then you get that great income but that income won't put you in the top earners will it for that you would need to be a business owner there's a paradox of sorts here the brightest people get

the best jobs and as such earn less than they might have done because they're less incentivized to take a risk on being self-employed most businesses fail even though started by really smart people if you're earning hundreds of thousands of pounds a year that jump that risk feels massive then if you're earning minimum wage the jump might feel like a necessity and not a risk there's also this point though that there's a lot more averagely intelligent people than there are hyper intelligent people so just by sheer numbers alone you're going to get more businesses run by

people with average IQ than you are really intelligent but back to that original point it's not the fact that people who are intelligent take less risk in fact it's quite the opposite a 2015 brain scan experiment revealed something counterintuitive when participants were put through a driving Sim ulation with amorites researchers discovered that the more intelligent individuals were actually more likely to take risks brain scans showed that these quick decision makers had significantly more white matter the neural Highway that enables rapid decision processing those who took the risk did not hesitate but the researchers also noticed

something else the ones who identified as being skilled drivers took that Gamble and if we come back to the placino study from before the way the lucky events panned out was if a simulation encountered a lucky event event they needed the specific skill set to be able to act on them you have to have the required skills and these have to be learned sadly many failed during this learning process with tragic consequences it takes brains to take risks how could this point around education and risk-taking be stopping smart people from getting wealthy it reminds me

of this quote it goes something like an expert was a fell who was afraid to learn anything new because then he wouldn't be an expert anymore we all get really comfortable in our circle of competence no one wants to push themselves no one wants to step outside of their comfort zone and feel like a beginner again but it's nearly 2025 and if you're looking to do something next year to level yourself up I would encourage you to learn about a topic outside but adjacent to your circle of competence skills stack on top of each other

in compound to produce huge Returns the link between finance and me learning to use a camera and edit might not have been all that clear but now we sit here with this YouTube channel don't we what can learning about AI do for a HR professional what can improving public speaking do for a doctor adjacent skills can transform and impact your current ones I've learned in life that basically all you need to be is 1% better than your peers and you get all of the rewards the promotions the pay Rises whatever The Winner Takes it all

and the difference between pole position and just staying in your current position is often a few percentage points a fraction of a second sometimes yet all the glory goes to the winner take a chance a risk at learning something outside of your sphere of knowledge knowledge become a beginner again it's really fun it's pretty humbling but then bring that into your expert world and watch how skill stacking in that way is a 2 + 2al 10 Activity The Learning never stops Below in the description I put together a list of what I seen as some

of the most high value skills that you can learn in 2025 and Beyond intelligent people love to be experts your challenge though is to become a Perpetual beginner intelligence isn't about having all of the answers all of the time it's about being brave enough to ask new questions to take calculated risks to learn new skills and to embrace the discomfort of not knowing because in that space of vulnerability that's where true growth happens 12 months ago someone posted this on Deep Thoughts subreddit many intelligent people with doubts and uncertainties are overlooked in favor of less

intelligent people who seem sure of themselves I'm going to speak about being a YouTuber here not because I think it's the Pinnacle of success quite the opposite but because it's where my perspective comes from first of all and I think there are some parallels to other areas of life so first things first the people on YouTube who are successful in any given Niche pick any Niche are almost never the best at what they do they're just simply the ones who had the confidence to pick up a camera and slap whatever they made on the internet

have you heard of the Dunning Krueger effect this idea that when you start a skill you see rapid Improvement in your ability at the beginning as you go from knowing nothing to something and then this leads to overconfidence eventually you reach a point where you realize hold on there's a lot more to this than I thought and your confidence in your own ability declines even know you know more than you did when you were confident in yourself if I made a video today that looked like the ones I made when I first started this channel

I wouldn't post it I shudder every time I see them the quality is so bad but those videos were successful people still watch them today but what I see as acceptable has raised to the point where now I often hold myself back if I make more content I earn more money but I make a whole video and then I scrap it because I don't think it's right wasting a week's worth of effort on my part and all the money I spend on editing it and stuff I once made a video where I needed a Matthew

mccon voice over thing you know as you doing Finance content the reason is if you use a clip from the Oscars they copyright strike you and take all the money the video earns so I paid this impersonator on Fiverr to do some voice over for me but it just it just wasn't quite right so in the end I just used a clip from the Oscars anyway and nothing for the video again that took about a week to make well that was a waste of money yeah thanks for that Matt DJ Lu and MC n are

going to do pretty well out of this video as well maybe you can relate perfectionism imposter syndrome that feeling that your work isn't good enough or an addiction to bad Baseline bad bad badine whatever it is all of these are traits that register higher the further up the expertise scale you go a PhD in economics can feel less certain about the future of digital currencies than a 19-year-old lad who just listened to an hourlong podcast on the topic the blind confidence of that young lad could lead him to throw a load of money into a

meme token get lucky and become a millionaire instantly everyone then studies the strategies of this genius kid in the PHD Finance professional goes hold on there's a few flaws to his strategy here and the feedback will be well if you're so smart why aren't you rich there are so many elements to this question so many bits that we could talk about this whole intelligence and wealth thing could have spoken about this for hours honestly I mean I probably have by the time this is done but I don't think I've done the topic justice but let's

not think about that too much otherwise this thing will never see the light of day let's just focus on the Practical steps luck is a huge factor in success but it's those with the skills to grab a lucky event when it happens that benefit financial literacy is the first skill it improves life outcomes and allows you to pounce on opportunity when it presents itself I've created a playlist I'll link it below that's just a collection of my videos that I think talk about the basics of Finance then beyond that you need to continually improve and

update your skill set the best thing is a little bit of a new skill can really help your expert skill a little bit of an understanding of AI can really benefit your HR expertise say finally understand that self-doubt impostor syndrome perfectionism these are common in people who consider themselves experts and when you find yourself having those negative thought patterns try and remind yourself that a lack of confidence can be a sign of higher competence the more I know the more I realize I need to know I've got a chat list that I put together of

things that you can do in the comments steps that you can follow to try and get past perfectionism and those negative thought processes when they start creeping in it's all shared on my website financial interest again I'll link everything below for you there is a final Factor though that I want to discuss a really simple one you need to care about being rich some people just don't care about becoming wealthy so they won't that's probably you know the right way to be to be honest but on the basis that you click this video maybe you

do so watch this video next where I show you that you're probably richer than you think you are [Music]