What does “rich” or “wealthy” mean? How much money do you need to be “rich?” What are the various levels of “rich?” Do you even need to be “rich?” 

I’m not Tai Lopez, Grant Cardone, Dan Lok, or anyone like that, nor do I want to be. I don’t teach get–rich systems. I teach long-term masculine happiness, for which a certain amount of money is required, specifically $75,000 per year in location–independent income with zero bad debt, a decent amount of emergency savings and some investments. Without these things it’s going to be extremely difficult for you to be long-term happy as a man in the modern era.  

However, you can clearly see these Alpha Male 2.0 requirements do not include things like making six figures or being a multimillionaire…  

…unless that is something that would honestly make you happy. 

I’m going to address those of you in my audience who want to make (or already make) high six-figure incomes and want to have (or already have) a net worth of $1 million or more. Some of you in my audience, perhaps most of you, don’t want or need this amount of money, which is fine. For you guys, make sure you make at least $75,000 per year location-independent income, pay off your debts, get some money in savings and solid investments, and carry on. You don’t even need to read the rest of this article. 

However! I know there are some of you who are like me in that $75,000 per year in income and a little bit of money in savings just isn’t nearly enough for you to live the life that would make you the happiest. You’d rather make $100,000 a year, $250,000 a year, $800,000 a year, $1.5 million a year, or perhaps even more. You’d like to be worth several million dollars in net worth, or more. That’s fine too. Today’s article is for you. 

The first thing you need to do is to ensure that your desires for this amount of money are truly coming from within you and not from external Societal Programming. You might really want this money, or you might simply be unconsciously reacting to bullshit SP from movies, TV shows, get-rich internet gurus, your social circle (particularly if you went to a really expensive college) and in some rare cases, your parents. 

You need to take a hard, deep, and perhaps painful look inward and ask yourself if you want this money because you really want it and not because you think you “should” want it or because you feel you need to measure up to someone else or a particular group of people.  

When I was young I fell victim to wanting a business that I was supposed to want (a big building with my name on it with a bunch of employees, debt, and infrastructure) instead of a business that would actually make me happy (three Alpha Male 2.0 businesses that are location-independent, high-income, don’t require me to work hard unless I want to, with zero employees and zero infrastructure). Don’t make the mistake I did when I was not very self-aware in my twenties. Make damn sure these desires are truly coming from your internal being and not from external influences. 

Next, you need to determine how much money you want and assign some real numbers to it. This can be done either with net worth figures or income figures. Factoring the different levels of net worth is a little complicated so I’ll do this with income instead.

All of these below descriptions assume you are making money as a self-employed, location-independent Alpha Male 2.0 with zero bad debt and paying very low overall taxes. They also assume you don’t support other humans like small children or a stay-at-home wife.

These descriptions do not apply if you’re the standard corporate slave making a high salary at a corporate job where you’re paying most of your income in taxes, are stuck in a particular city in order to pay your bills and have very little day-to-day freedom. 

$75,000 per year as an Alpha Male 2.0 means you’re not paying very much in taxes, you’re location-independent, and you’re making a decent amount more than the median man in the USA, which is all good. If you live in the Western world you probably live in an average home, drive an average-but-decent car, and you can travel a little but not all the time. If you live in a cheap place like Thailand or Columbia then you live very well with a higher-than-average lifestyle, but still not like a rich guy. 

$100,000 per year as an Alpha Male 2.0 is just like the above guy except you’ve got a lot of extra spending money to use for things like sugar daddy game (but only if you meet both of the two requirements for that), nicer clothes, a nicer car, and so on. You’re also putting a lot more money away into investments (or at least should be!) which is better for your long-term future. 

$150,000 per year as an Alpha Male 2.0 means an average-but-decent house like the above guys, but you can now pretty much buy whatever you want unless your desires are unusual. Any car you want, any clothing or toys you want are pretty much all yours for the taking. You can travel wherever and whenever you want and stay at pretty much any nice hotels you want (within reason) but you can’t fly first class. 

$250,000 per year as an Alpha Male 2.0 means you’re making $20,000 per month before taxes. It’s at this level where you can actually start living somewhere nice, like a big fancy house or amazing apartment with a cherished view (though not in an overly expensive, top-tier city like New York or Hong Kong; if you live there you’re still living in a small apartment). At this point you’re putting serious money away every month into your investments (or again, at least you should be) and your long-term future is very bright. 

$500,000 per year as an Alpha Male 2.0 means you’re actually in the upper class now. You’re living pretty much anywhere you want and can do pretty much whatever you want with your money. You can drive around in limousines if you want, stay at any hotel in the world, even fly first class on occasion as long as you don’t go too crazy (remember that first class/business class tickets from the USA to Asia can easily cost over $10,000 for one person). The only thing you can’t do is buy a yacht or a private jet, but pretty much any other financial fantasy you have at this point can be met at the $500,000 per year income level as an Alpha Male 2.0. 

$800,000 per year as an Alpha Male 2.0 is when you start to leave the world of money and enter into the world of finance. Much of your time and focus here is spent managing your investments, businesses, and financial empire. Unless you were very stupid as you built your infrastructure, you probably don’t even need to work anymore at this level since you’ve got so much savings, investments, residual income, and/or low-work income. You’re probably not really motivated by money or income like you were before, and instead are more motivated by things like making a difference in people’s lives, giving back (charity), increasing market share, or going up against other guys in your industry (friendly competition). The lifestyle here isn’t much different than the $500,000 per year level except that you can have multiple nice homes all over the world instead of just one. 

$1 million per year or more as an Alpha Male 2.0 is just like the above except now, if you really want, you can do crazy rich-guy stuff like buy (or lease) things like a yacht, a private jet, million-dollar cars, and so on. Most guys at this level (and even some of the lower levels) don’t really think about money as an expense anymore, at least in their personal lives (in their businesses it’s still a factor). As above, their focus is not on money so much as other things in their lives like business growth, personal growth, charity, family, legacy, and so on. 

Once you pick a monetary goal (that you know is coming from YOU and not externally), the final item you need to determine, and the most important of them all, is how hard you’re willing to work and how much you’re willing to sacrifice to accomplish that goal.  

It’s easy for guys to get excited and say they want a six-figure income and will do “whatever it takes,” but as soon as they realize they’ll have to do things like work 60 hours a week for several years straight with virtually no vacations, cut way back on sex and women, cut way back on their cherished hobbies, cut way back on spending hours at the gym, can’t have a girlfriend, can’t get a wife, and can’t have any kids for a long time… well, then things usually change. 

Those of you who know my history know that I was raised in a financially strapped family when I was little and being poor made me extremely angry and uncomfortable when I was young. I made a solid pact with myself at age 18 that I would not live my life like that, and I set a ten-year goal to make $100,000 per year by age 28 without having to go to college. I was fucking serious, and I busted my ass in my twenties and sacrificed a lot. But it worked and I hit my goal one year early at age 27.  

I spent quite a while at the $100,000 per year level until I realized that wasn’t enough to truly make me long-term happy (and I knew this need was coming from within me, not SP). I converted from beta male to Alpha Male 2.0 when I was 35 and set a new, higher income goal. (Not gonna tell you what that was. If you want to know why, read this.) Again, I got really serious and busted my ass. I hit that goal quite a while back, and once again I’m in a new socio-economic level. 

The point is that I didn’t whine or make excuses about how much extra work high income takes. And I didn’t set a bunch of high goals and then back out once I realized how much work and focus was required. It takes a lot of work. You need to want it bad. Otherwise just stick with the $75,000 per year goal and take it easy once you get there. 

I have some things planned for 2020 for those of you who want not only the Alpha Male 2.0 lifestyle, but the high–income Alpha 2.0 lifestyle. More on this soon.

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