MY FIRST MILLION · EXTRACTED
10 Years of Money Wisdom in Under 28 Minutes
7 condensed principles from Sam and Shaan's decade of learning — on investing, spending, earning, and avoiding the traps that keep smart people poor.
Preview · 3 of 7 tactics
"We've spent 10 years studying rich people. The patterns are embarrassingly consistent. Most people just don't want to hear them."
Sam and Shaan condense a decade of conversations, research, and personal experience into their most distilled financial wisdom. No guests — just the two of them working through what they actually believe about money, wealth-building, and the mistakes they see founders and smart people make over and over.
Your Biggest Financial Decision Is Who You Marry
Sam brings this up first because it's the most impactful and least talked about. A financially aligned partner means shared savings rates, shared risk tolerance, no lifestyle inflation fights, and no one pulling in the opposite direction during hard financial periods. A misaligned partner quietly caps your ceiling. He's seen founders build great businesses and still end up broke because of divorce and lifestyle mismatch. 'The spreadsheet doesn't lie. Who you marry is a bigger financial decision than any investment you'll ever make.'
THE PLAY
Have an explicit money conversation with any serious partner: savings rate expectations, lifestyle targets, risk tolerance, debt philosophy, what wealth means to each of you. Do this before you're financially entangled, not after.
Live Dramatically Below Your Income During Your Building Years
Shaan's principle: the window between 'making real money' and 'having a lifestyle that costs real money' is the most important window in wealth-building. Most people close that window within 18 months of their income rising. They upgrade the car, the apartment, the vacations. The ones who get rich keep that window open for years. Lifestyle inflation is silent and permanent. Once the baseline rises, it almost never comes back down. 'The richest people I know spent years looking poor. The people who look rich now are often not.'
THE PLAY
Set an explicit savings rate target — not a number, a percentage. Every income increase, save 50%+ of the delta. The lifestyle should grow at a fraction of the rate income grows.
Concentrated Bets Make Rich People. Diversification Keeps Them Rich.
Sam's observation: almost no one gets wealthy through a diversified portfolio. They get wealthy through one concentrated bet — their own company, one real estate deal, one stock position. Diversification is a tool for preserving wealth, not building it. The mistake is applying wealth-preservation logic during wealth-building years. Early in your career, you should be making the most concentrated possible bet on the thing you have the most edge in. Diversify later when you have something to protect.
THE PLAY
Identify the domain where you have the most actual edge — information, relationships, experience. Put your concentrated bet there. Don't diversify until you've built something meaningful to diversify from.
Subscribers Only
Unlock the Full Protocol
4 more tactics + Action Plan
TACTIC 04
The Salary Trap: Optimize for Ownership, Not Income
TACTIC 05
The Highest ROI Spend Is on Your Health and Thinking
TACTIC 06
The Real Asset Is Your Network's Trust
TACTIC 07
The Comparison That Kills You Is the Local One
Already subscribed? Log in
Newsletter
Get each new protocol the day it drops
One email per drop. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
MY FIRST MILLION · EXTRACTED BY PODEX