➡ Building wealth isn’t about buying low and selling high, but about understanding the power of compounding and avoiding selling assets which triggers taxes and stops growth. Wealthy people often have little income compared to their net worth because they borrow against their assets, which doesn’t trigger taxes and allows their wealth to keep growing. This system rewards collateral, not income, and encourages thinking in terms of balance sheets, not paychecks. The key is to borrow against stable assets, not to consume or survive, but to keep the wealth-growing engine running.
➡ Wealthy people use debt differently than others. They borrow against their assets, not their income, which reduces risk and stress. The danger isn’t the debt itself, but the mismatch between short-term liabilities and fragile income. This strategy works with any appreciating asset, like real estate, businesses, or Bitcoin. The key is to ensure the asset grows faster than the cost of the debt. This approach requires careful planning and management, but when done correctly, it can lead to significant wealth growth.
➡ This text encourages you to build wealth like the rich do, by smartly managing your assets and debts, and growing your money wisely over time. It suggests that by focusing on your overall financial health, rather than just earning more, you gain true freedom. It also hints at a video that can teach you more about this approach to investing.

Most people think the key to building wealth is about buying low and selling high, which sounds logical, but it’s wrong. The people who build real, lasting wealth almost never take profits. And it’s not because they forget, it’s not because they’re greedy, but because taking profits is one of the most expensive financial mistakes you can make. And I know what you’re thinking. If they never take profits, how do they pay for anything? That’s the question. That question is the key to understanding how the system actually works. So let’s go. Okay, so everyone agrees on one rule of investing, which is the law of compounding.

It’s very powerful. And it’s not controversial at all. But what’s misunderstood is what happens the moment you sell. Because when you exit an asset, three things happen immediately. First, the compounding that you’ve been getting, it stops. So whatever engine that you had working for you, it’s now shut off the moment you exit the position. Years of growth potential disappear in a single decision. Okay, the second is that you trigger taxes. And this is where you lose most of your wealth. It’s where most people underestimate the damage here because the system, it doesn’t tax wealth that’s sitting there still sitting idle.

It taxes movement. So the moment that you convert an asset into cash, the government takes their cut before you get any of your money before you get to reuse the capital. So now you don’t have less money working for you, you have less money, period. And third, this part is subtle, but it’s really important. When you sell, the system no longer sees you as an owner, it sees you as a consumer. Again, assets get preferential treatment, cash doesn’t. So taking profits, it feels good emotionally, but financially, it’s usually a complete reset, you’re killing compounding, you’re shrinking your base, and you’re paying a toll to do it all in one move.

If we zoom out for a second, and we take a look at it, right? If all that’s true, then the obvious question becomes, well, if the wealthy don’t sell, how do they actually pay for things? Because of course, houses cost money, vacations cost money, life costs money, right? And that’s where most people reach the wrong conclusion, right? They assume that rich people, they’re sitting on big piles of cash, but they’re not. In reality, many of the wealthiest people on earth, they have surprisingly little income relative to their total net worth. And not because income doesn’t matter, right? But because income is the most expensive way to access money.

You see, the system doesn’t reward income, it rewards collateral. And that’s the most important distinction that you have to understand. You see, selling gets punished, borrowing is rewarded. Debt destroys some people, but it quietly enriches others. And all of it comes down to one single shift, you have to stop thinking in paychecks and start thinking in balance sheets. Now, we’d want this because once you make that shift, once you go from paychecks to balance sheets, the pattern becomes obvious, you start to see why some people can work harder every year, earn more every year, and still feel like they’re running in place.

And why other people seem to be getting richer without ever getting paid, because the financial system isn’t rewarding the income, right? It’s rewarding the collateral, which I know sounds abstract. So let’s break this down. If you earn income, like a paycheck or a bonus or a commission, it’s taxed immediately, right? Before you even get a penny of it, it’s taxed. Before you get to decide what you want to do is it it’s taxed, the system gets its cut first. But if you own an asset, stocks, real estate, a business, Bitcoin, that asset goes up in value, but nothing happens.

No tax bill, no notification, no penalties, your net worth is growing quietly. And not because of some loophole, because the system doesn’t recognize wealth until you exit it. And that’s the key distinction that most people never see. The moment you sell an asset, you’ve told the system something very specific. I’m done owning this. And that’s when the tax man shows up. That’s what’s called the realization principle. Taxes are triggered by sell, not ownership. So as long as the gains stay unrealized, as long as they’re on paper, the system treats them as invisible.

And that’s not like some political opinion. That’s how the accounting system works. So now if we understand that, then look at the incentives that this creates. If you earn money, you’re taxed. If you sell an asset, you’re taxed. But if you hold an asset, nothing happens. And if instead of selling it, you borrow against it, that cash isn’t income either. It’s dead. It means it’s not tax. It’s not tax at all. So you get the same lifestyle access, but different classification. This is why the phrase buy low and sell high breaks down.

Selling feels like winning because it’s in the moment, right? You see the money. But financially, it’s usually the moment that you reset everything that you just built. You stop the compounding, you shrink the asset base, you trigger tax, and then you have to start over. Most people don’t lose money in markets. They reset it and they reset it over and over. And the people who don’t, well, they figured out something simple, but very intuitive here. The system doesn’t really care about how hard you work. It cares about what you own.

It cares about whether you that ownership stays intact, which immediately raises a practical problem. If the wealthy don’t sell their assets, and then they don’t take profits the way that everybody else does, then how are they actually paying for things? Because as I said earlier, houses cost money, and vacations cost money, and it has to come from somewhere. Well, you see, people assume there are only two ways to get money. You either earn it or you sell something. But that assumption, it’s already wrong. The wealthy, they do neither. They borrow against stability.

You see, banks don’t lend based on how hard you work. They don’t lend on how much money you make. They lend based on how predictable your balance sheet is. That’s it. If you own assets that are stable, if they’re liquid, and they’re likely to exist, you know, I don’t know, 10 years from now, the banks treats that as dependable. So instead of selling the asset, they keep it intact. And they use the asset as the collateral. That way, the asset keeps compounding, the cash becomes available, and nothing gets reset at all. And this isn’t some loophole.

It’s how the system is designed. Taxes are triggered when ownership changes, not when the value grows. So as long as the gains stay unrealized, the system treats them as invisible. But again, with debt, debt is an income. So the borrowing gives access to the cash without killing the compounding without triggering taxes. But we get the same lifestyle access. It’s just a different classification. This is why the wealthy don’t think in terms of income, they think in terms of access, access to capital, without destroying the thing that creates it. Now, let me pause here for just a second, because this is the point where most people get stuck by this, they hear this, and they automatically think like, okay, I get it, but I wouldn’t even know where to start doing this safely.

And that’s exactly why I’m hosting the wealth operating system accelerator live event, where I’m going to go live, and I’m going to teach you how to engineer your personal balance sheet the way the wealthy actually do. So that money works for you without having to guess and this isn’t a webinar, it’s not a seminar, it’s a workshop. And so if you want to actually build this out with me in real time, check out the wealth OS accelerator live event, I’ll put a link in the description down below. Now, there’s a very important distinction that we have to make next, because if borrowing is the mechanism, why doesn’t this blow people up? Right? That’s where poor debt and rich debt diverge, the wealthy, they’re not selling, they’re borrowing against the stability they already have, right? This is where most people get really nervous.

Because the moment that you say borrowing, people hear debt. And they assume this is where things blow up because the leverage, but that reaction misses the real distinction that we’re trying to break down because debt isn’t good, or bad, right? Not by itself, context is everything. The problem isn’t the debt. The problem is why you’re using it. And it’s what’s backing it. So here’s a claim distinction. Most people use debt because they don’t have money. They borrow to consume, they borrow to survive, they borrow to fill a gap, right? So they use their credit cards and car loans and personal loans, sometimes student loans, that debt is serviced with their earned income, which means you earn the money, and it gets taxed.

What’s left goes to the lender, and then there’s nothing on your balance sheet improving. That’s why this kind of debt feels heavy, right? It’s really fragile. It depends entirely on you having to continue to work. If your income stops, the whole thing collapses. But now let’s contrast this with how wealthy people use debt. You see, they don’t use debt because they need money. They use debt because they already have it. Just not in cash. Their wealth is sitting in assets, in businesses, in real estate, in equity, in long duration holdings. So when they borrow, they’re not borrowing against hope.

They’re borrowing against the stability, right? The asset exists. It has a track record, it has a value to the bank, a value that the bank can model. And importantly, the asset is doing something without their labor, right? That’s the line that most people miss here. Poor debt is serviced by you. Rich debt is serviced by the asset, sometimes through cash flow, sometimes through appreciation, sometimes through time and refinancing. But either way, the payment is not coming from your next paycheck, right? That’s why wealthy people are calm when they’re using debt.

That’s why everyone else is stressed when they’re using debt. It’s not because they’re reckless. It’s because the risk is somewhere else. And this is where I want to be very precise here. Debt itself is not the danger. The mismatch is the danger. You see, short term liabilities funded by fragile income. That’s risky. Long term assets paired with flexible liabilities. That’s how the system is designed to work. This is also why telling someone with no assets to just leverage debt, it’s irresponsible. That’s not strategy. That’s how people blow themselves up. But wealthy people earn the right to use debt after they build collateral.

The order matters. And once you see this distinction clearly, a lot of things snap into focus. It’s why banks treat different people differently. It’s why interest rates aren’t moral slowly drains it. Now, once you understand that difference, and you understand that rich debt is backed by assets, not effort, you realize the danger isn’t the debt. The danger is the mismatch. And here’s where this starts to get really interesting. Everything we’ve talked about so far works with any appreciated asset. This framework works with real estate, it works with businesses, it works with equities.

Bitcoin is not the strategy, but Bitcoin is the accelerant. Here’s the clean way that I think about this, right? Everything in this video, it comes down to one relationship. Is the asset growing faster than the cost of the debt? That’s it. If the answer is yes, then selling it doesn’t make any sense. Paying the debt off early, it doesn’t make any sense. With something like real estate, that relationship usually exists, but it’s slow. Maybe the asset grows at say, five or 6%. Maybe the debt costs four or 5%, right? It works, but it takes time, leverage, and management.

But Bitcoin changes the timeline. Not because it’s magic here, but because of its rate of compounding. Over the last three years, Bitcoin’s Kegar, the compounded annual growth rate has been about 50% per year. Now this doesn’t mean that it goes up in a straight line. Of course, it’s volatile, very volatile. But over the full cycle, the math holds up, right? The growth has been fast enough to overpower the cost of capital. And once you see that the question I get asked more than any other question seems to be, so then when do you pay off the debt? And the answer is you don’t, right? As not as long as the math continues to work, as long as the asset is compounding faster than the interest rate, than paying the debt off early, it’s not conservative, it’s inefficient.

Because the moment you do it, you shrink the balance sheet, you interrupt compounding, and you pay the taxes, right? This is where people get uncomfortable because they’re still thinking in income terms. But this is balance sheet logic. The question isn’t, is debt scary? The question is, what’s the duration of the asset? And what’s the duration of the liability? You see, Bitcoin’s duration is long. Historically, there’s never been a point where someone bought Bitcoin and was underwater four years later. And unlike real estate or businesses, you have no tenants, you have no employees, no operating costs.

And that makes Bitcoin unusually clean as collateral. Now, that doesn’t mean that you’re, of course, going to lever it recklessly, volatility matters, position sizing matters, survival comes first. But when designed correctly, Bitcoin allows appreciation to do the heavy lifting, which is why people who understand this don’t think in terms of taking profits, they think in terms of staying in position, not because Bitcoin is special, which is, but because it magnifies the same system logic that we’ve been talking about this entire time. And that brings us to the final practical question, which is, even if you don’t sell, and even if you don’t pay the debt off, how do you actually make the payments, right? Well, that’s the last piece.

And this is the part that most people get uncomfortable about this, because up to now, everything we’ve talked about, it sort of makes sense conceptually. But this is where most people think it breaks practically, they hear all this and they say, Okay, fine. I understand now I understand why borrowing beats selling, I get why collateral matters more than income, but debt still has payments, right? So how do you actually afford those payments? If I have no income, right? If I’m not getting paid the normal way, that question makes sense. And it’s exactly where most people reveal the mindset that they’re still stuck in, right? Because a poor person asked that question, assuming the debt comes first, and then the money comes later.

But that’s not how the system works. Wealthy people don’t take on debt hoping future income covers it. They only take on debt after the asset already exists. The asset is the starting point, the borrowing is secondary. So when a wealthy person borrows, they’re not scrambling to make payments, they’re engineering certainty. Here’s what that means in real terms, when they borrow against an asset, they don’t pull out just enough money to cover the purchase, they pull out more money than they need. And that excess doesn’t get spent, it gets parked. Think of it like this.

If I borrow against an asset, and I know that loan will have interest payments, I don’t treat those payments as a monthly stress event, right? I treat them as a design variable. So I create an interest reserve account, and that reserve sits there. And it’s doing one job, it’s covering the cost of the debt. So now the asset keeps doing what it was doing before appreciating, producing cash flow, strengthening the balance sheet, and the payments, they’re already accounted for, right? Nothing is tight here, nothing is reactive. This is the part people miss.

Debt payments aren’t an expense problem. They’re an engineering problem. They’re a structure problem. If the payments feel heavy, it’s usually because the debt was taken on the wrong way, or against the wrong thing, or without reserves. That’s why consumer debt feels suffocating, right? You swipe the card, the bill shows up, and now you’re chasing income to keep up with the payment, which is backwards. Asset backed debt works in reverse. You already have the asset, you already have the stability, you already have the balance sheet strength, the borrowing just converts that stability into liquidity.

And when you design it properly, the payments stop being emotional, right? They’re just math. And they’re running in the background. That’s why wealthy people don’t obsess over paying things off. They obsess over keeping the system intact, at least as long as the asset is doing its job. And the cost of the debt is lower than the growth of the asset, right? If that’s happening, there’s no urgency. There’s no pressure. There’s no countdown clock. And most people spend their entire financial lives chasing income, right? They chase the better job. They want to get a raise.

They want the bonus. They’re trying to put in more time, more effort. And then they wonder why it still feels tight. The reason why is because income is fleeting, right? It shows up, it gets taxed, it gets spent, and then it disappears. The people who actually build wealth don’t optimize for income, they optimize for control of the assets. They think in balance sheets, not paychecks. They care about what compounds, not what pays them today. They don’t ask, how do I make more money this year? They ask, how do I structure my assets? So time works for me.

Now, once you see that a lot of things start to click. That’s why selling feels really good, but it leaves you smaller at the end. It’s why debt scares people who don’t understand it. And it empowers people who do. It’s why the system seems unfair until you realize it’s not emotional at all. It’s mechanical. It rewards people who don’t exit, who hold appreciating assets, who use the balance sheet instead of paycheck as their engine. And it’s not a loophole. That’s how capital markets actually function. Now, none of this means that you should go out and copy what billionaires do blindly, right? This only works if it’s engineered correctly.

Asset quality matters, debt structure matters, risk management really matters, timing matters. And that’s the part that most people miss, right? They hear the idea, but they don’t have the framework. And that’s exactly why I built the wealth operating system, not to sell you tactics, but to teach you how to design wealth from the balance sheet up the same way the wealthy do, how to think in layers, how to structure assets and liabilities safely, how to compound intelligently instead of resetting every cycle. And if this video changed the way that you think even just a little bit, that’s the signal.

Because once you stop chasing income and start designing your balance sheet, you don’t just make more money, you stop needing permission from the system. And that’s where real freedom actually starts. Now, if you want to learn more about investing through layers, getting $1 to multiple jobs, you might want to go watch this video right here. And I’ll see you over there. [tr:trw].

See more of Mark Moss on their Public Channel and the MPN Mark Moss channel.