You can have a great job, be making more than ever, and still be going nowhere financially.
High income feels like progress. You get the raise. You upgrade your car. You move into a better home. You start traveling more. But behind the scenes, your net worth is flat.
It’s a trap. You’re playing the status game, not the freedom game.
Your income went up, but so did your lifestyle, your expenses, and your expectations. You look rich, but you’re just treading water.
We’ve been conditioned to measure success by income.
“What do you do?” “How much do you make?” “What’s your title?”
But income ≠ wealth. Ownership is wealth.
Real financial progress isn’t about how much you earn. It’s about what you own. It lives on your balance sheet: assets, investments, equity, hard money savings. Bitcoin.
Your balance sheet is what keeps working after you stop. It’s what eventually buys back your time.
So stop obsessing over how much you made this year.
Start asking:
“How much did I keep?”
“How much did I build?”
“How much did I walk away with?”
That’s the real scoreboard.
And if you’re saving in bitcoin, the balance sheet game changes entirely. It’s a cheat code. Your wealth is now held in the hardest asset on Earth. It can’t be diluted. It doesn’t require permission. It punishes lifestyle creep. It rewards low time preference.
The old game was: Climb the ladder, inflate your lifestyle, flex your income.
The new game is: Build assets, stack sats, create optionality.
Your income is a tool. Your lifestyle is a choice. Your balance sheet is the truth.
Track that. Grow that. That’s how you get free.
—
This idea comes from FIRE BTC 36: “Make Your Job Your Side Gig.”
If you’re ready to flip your financial mindset and build wealth that works without you, you can read and subscribe here:
https://firebtc.substack.com/p/making-your-job-your-side-gig