Morgan Housel

It doesn't matter how well I'm doing.

It matters how well I'm doing relative to you.

It doesn't matter how big my house is.

If I'm trying to signal, all that matters is my house is bigger than yours.

That's true for all wealth.

There's no such thing as you are wealthy once you have X number of dollars.

That does not exist.

Everything is relative to other people.

And the truth is that we live in a world of such material abundance where the majority of people listening to this will have some sort of shelter and a car and can buy clothes and whatnot.

And because relative to a lot of history, we live in material abundance.

The competition, the arms race for bigger, nicer things is extraordinary.

Right.

And it's way more powerful and potent today than it's ever been for two reasons.

One is social media.

So I am now aware of the homes that other people live in, the cars that they drive, the vacations that they take.

I'm now aware of it in a way that we were not 15 years ago.

The other thing is because the internet has democratized

access to audience attention the ability to become extremely rich is much more powerful than it's ever been it's still rare of course but it's it's easier today than it's ever been to become very very wealthy even if only a small number of people are doing it because you're

your potential customer base is now the entire world.

You know, a hundred years ago, if I was a businessman, my customer base was whoever lived in my town.