You know, the people who say that money
can't solve your problems usually have a
full fridge. Money does indeed solve
most of the problems in your life
because society runs on money and you
are a member of society. Only after
you've extinguished all the fires in
your life and have brought in the level
of comfort you like, you're left to see
the 15 things money doesn't [music]
solve. So, let's break them down.
Welcome to A Lux, the place where future
billionaires come to get inspired.
Number one, money doesn't decide how
much is enough.
The person who's never defined enough is
not pursuing a destination, but running
on a treadmill whose speed increases
with every promotion, purchase, or
social upgrade. The first meaningful
amount of money creates relief because
it solves visible problems, but the next
amount often creates only a more
expensive definition of normal as the
apartment becomes the house, the house
becomes an estate, and the successful
friends are replaced by even more
successful ones. In the words of J. Cole
on the classic Love Yours, there's
always going to be a better house
somewhere, better weapon than the one
you got, some fresher clothes, or a
better lady somewhere else. Which means
contentment [music] cannot be postponed
until the world runs out of people ahead
of you. Enough is not something the
market announces when you reach it. It's
a boundary [music] that you have to
choose before ambition becomes incapable
of recognizing abundance. Then another
problem quickly takes its place.
>> [music]
>> Number two, money does not end
comparison. Most people assume greater
success will finally make comparison
unnecessary, but success often changes
only the group against which they
measure themselves. The person who once
wanted to earn more than their neighbors
eventually enters a room where everyone
else is richer, better connected, or
more accomplished, and the old
insecurity, it's still there. It just
simply receives a more exclusive
reference point. Comparison survives
abundance because it's not measuring
whether your needs are met. No, it's
measuring your position relative to
somebody else. When self-worth depends
on rank, another person's success will
always feel like a reduction on your
own. This right here is how money stops
being a tool for freedom and becomes a
scoreboard.
Number three, money does not transform
[music] admiration into love. We don't
buy the thing. We no longer buy the
feeling of what having the thing gives
us. Right now, we're buying things
because of what others will think of us
having [music]
the thing. So, ask yourself, why would
anyone need a Labubu or a Pokémon card?
We try to position ourselves as
important because we [music] have the
thing. The revelation is that people
don't admire you for having a Ferrari.
No, they admire the Ferrari and imagine
what people would think about them if
they were the one driving it. And even
genuine admiration remains a weak
substitute for affection because it
depends on continued performance. Love
becomes possible when another person can
see you [music] without the costume of
achievement and still find something
worth staying for. Money can attract
attention, [music] create access, and
fill a room, but it cannot guarantee
that anyone inside that room knows you
well enough to love you. The way you get
better at this is by converting money
into wisdom because you can actually buy
advice from people who've done what you
want to do.
>> [music]
>> That's what the Alox app is. We find the
smartest people in the world and pay
them to help you succeed no matter where
you are in your wealth journey. Go to
alux.com/app to download Alox and try it
for 7 days for free.
>> [music]
>> That's alux.com/app.
And you know, this app will be able to
help you with everything else, but it
cannot do this next one. Number four,
money doesn't reveal who is loyal.
Wealth gives you more opportunities to
meet people while simultaneously making
their motives harder to interpret
[music] since generosity, influence, and
access can produce behavior that looks
remarkably similar to friendship. Some
people will laugh more enthusiastically,
answer more quickly, and remain close
for as long as proximity to you improves
their own lives. Now, this doesn't mean
that every relationship around a wealthy
person is false, but it does mean money
cannot perform the test that hardship,
inconvenience, and time eventually
perform, which is why we idolize those
who've stuck together since day one.
Loyalty is revealed when maintaining the
relationship costs something and offers
[music] no obvious advantage in return.
When it actually hurts you to stay
loyal. Attraction can be purchased,
access can be granted, and attention can
be rewarded, but closeness still
requires something that money cannot
manufacture. [music] And you know, let's
expand on that one, okay? So, number
five, money does not create intimacy.
[music]
You can buy assistance for almost every
practical inconvenience in life, but
nobody can be vulnerable on your behalf,
admit what you're ashamed of, or listen
carefully to the person that you [music]
have disappointed. Intimacy grows
through attention, honesty, and the
willingness to remain present when a
conversation becomes uncomfortable,
which is precisely why people who can
afford every form of convenience may
still feel emotionally unknown. [music]
We build these onion layers of
protection around us, isolating the core
away from the gaze of the public. A
relationship doesn't become deep because
two people share an expensive lifestyle.
No, it becomes deep when neither person
needs to perform in order to feel safe.
Money may provide the setting for
connection, but connection depends on
what happens after the doors close and
the audience disappears. [music]
And this matters because one of the most
dangerous effects of success is the
temptation to confuse how others see you
with how you see yourself.
Number six, money does not create
self-respect.
Status is awarded by an audience,
whereas self-respect is formed in
private [music] through the promises you
keep, the standards you maintain, and
the way you behave when there is no
applause available. You know you have
self-respect when you would proudly sell
your product or service to your mom,
dad, wife, or kids.
This is the moral problem with OnlyFans,
scam artists, and even a portion of the
big healthcare companies. Does it pass
the mom and dad test? Would you treat
them the way you treat your clients? If
the answer is yes, you've got standards
and a form of self-respect. Money may
persuade other people to treat you as
important, but it cannot force you to
believe you have lived honorably. And
even when self-respect is intact,
financial success still cannot answer
the deeper question of who you are
beyond what you own and achieve.
Number seven. Money does not give you an
identity.
You are not what you wear, you're not
what you do, you're not what you listen
to, or even where you were born. Your
possessions can communicate what you can
afford, and your reputation can reveal
what other people believe about you. But
none of these tell you who you are when
there's nothing left to display. This is
why some people reach financial freedom
and experience not liberation, but
confusion, because the ambition that
organized their lives disappears and
leaves behind a calendar with no
obligations, but also no meaning. If all
of your life was about solving this
puzzle and you did it, you realize
you've been playing the wrong game.
There's a quote that we love that goes
like this, "Knowing how to play chess is
the sign of a gentleman. Knowing how to
play chess really well is the sign of a
wasted life." Magnus Carlsen gave us
at an event about this quote a few
years back, but on a macro level, we
still stand by it. So, what are you if
you take away what you do and what you
have? Actually, a better question is
what wouldn't you change or trade for
money, no matter the amount? Because if
100 million would make you change your
religion, hurt a friend, divorce your
partner, or never see your children
again, you're not as moral or stable in
your identity as you think. You just
haven't been properly tested yet. And
this is why money cannot give you an
identity. It can decorate the character,
amplify it, and introduce it to more
people, but it cannot build the person
underneath. The goal is to become
someone whose life still makes sense
after the applause stops.
Number eight, money does [music] not
create purpose.
Financial independence can remove the
necessity to work, but purpose rarely
comes from removing obligations alone,
because human beings need to feel that
their effort is connected to something
beyond comfort. [music] Simply put, we
feel alive when we make progress, when
we move forward, when we expand. Without
a meaningful direction, freedom turns
into drifting. Every day is pleasant,
but strangely interchangeable. Some
people experience this even without
having a lot of money. When every day is
the same, time feels like it passed in
the blink of an eye. If [music] the past
five years went by fast, now you know
why. You're drifting through the motions
without getting closer to a goal or
pursuing your purpose. Purpose usually
emerges from contribution,
craftsmanship, responsibility, service,
or the decision to care deeply about
something that might fail.
This ending part is important, okay?
There must be a risk of failure to make
[music] a purpose meaningful. Money can
finance the mission and protect the time
required to pursue it, but it cannot
choose a mission compelling enough to
justify your life. [music] And when
purpose is absent, people often attempt
to fill that gap with stimulation.
Which brings us to number nine, money
does not cure boredom.
Now, we bet a lot of you watching just
thought, "What a load of Put
me in front of the couch and let me put
that to the test." [music]
And we hear you, okay? But let's
actually unpack this one, because it is
unfortunately true, and you'll see why
in just a second. So, the modern-day
average person can access more
entertainment in a single evening than
an emperor could have experienced in a
lifetime. Yet, unlimited stimulation
often reduces, rather than deepens, the
capacity for enjoyment. You have all the
movies, all the music, all the art
humanity has ever made at your
fingertips, and you still watch reruns
of Friends. Buying things is just
another form of the same kind of
consumerism. Once the novelty wears off,
you revert to the same three to four
things that you're familiar with.
Boredom is not always evidence that life
lacks options, okay? Which is why you
keep ordering food from the same three
places, listening to the same three
albums, and hanging out with the same
three friends, [music] if you're lucky
enough to have three friends. When
everything is on demand, we default to
familiarity. So, [music] our brains
never learn how to generate interest
from attention, imagination, or
curiosity. Money can keep novelty
arriving indefinitely, but novelty
becomes less effective each time it is
used as a substitute for inner vitality.
Very quickly, it wears off, and it
actually starts to backfire. Dan
Bilzerian in his prime taught us this
lesson. If every day you eat at the best
restaurants, [music] drive the best
cars, and even sleep with the most
beautiful women, going back even one or
two degrees down on the perceived
quality ladder becomes actually
unpleasant.
>> [music]
>> You can literally shoot yourself in the
foot by skipping to the end of the
stimuli ladder, because the rest of your
life you'll be spending it bored because
nothing will ever compare to it.
Number 10. Money does not give you
self-control.
No, money removes the limits that once
kept your impulses in check. You can
eat, buy, travel, and indulge whenever
you want, while surrounding yourself
with people who are all paid not to say
no. For most people, desire eventually
meets the limits of their bank account.
When that limit disappears, discipline
has to replace it. Money can hire the
trainer, but it cannot make you
exercise. It can pay for rehabilitation,
but it can't refuse the next drink for
you. Wealth exponentially increases
temptation. It gives you more and better
options, greater privacy, and fewer
consequences. The less the world can
control you, the more capable you need
to become of controlling yourself.
Otherwise, freedom simply gives your
worst impulses an unlimited budget.
Number 11, money does not make you a
good parent. Children benefit enormously
from safety, education, and opportunity.
Yet, they also need attention,
consistency, emotional security, and the
experience of mattering to someone who's
not being paid to care for them. A
parent might finance every advantage
while remaining unavailable for the
moments in which a child quietly forms
their understanding of love, trust, and
self-worth. As shocking as it may be,
more gifts do not make you a better
parent. The danger is in believing that
gifts compensate for absence. [music]
When children often remember less about
what an experience cost than whether
their parents were emotionally present
inside of it. You can outsource
transportation, tutoring, and
supervision, but you cannot outsource
the relationship and still expect to
receive its rewards. Money can support
the people you love, but it cannot
perform the emotional work required when
they or you are suffering.
Number 12, money can extend life,
[music]
but it can't purchase immunity from
death.
Money can provide access to exceptional
doctors, [music]
therapists, rehabilitation centers, and
periods of rest that would otherwise be
impossible, which is why financial
resources should never be dismissed when
discussing recovery. Money does buy
health. In the US, the richest 1% of men
live about 14.6 years longer than the
poorest 1% while the richest 1% of women
outlive the poorest 1% by 10.1 years.
Primarily because neither of these folks
need to do any kind of life-threatening
[music] jobs and can afford good medical
care. But Steve Jobs had access to
almost every doctor, hospital, [snorts]
and treatment that money [music] could
reach. Yet he died at 56 from
complications caused by a metastatic
pancreatic neuroendocrine tumor. But at
the same time, Sid Sijbrandij,
multi-millionaire founder of GitLab,
[music] used his money and AI to save
himself from terminal cancer. For the
time being, this argument holds, but we
believe it might not apply for too long.
What happens when the rich move beyond
longevity into rejuvenation and you end
up with two completely different classes
of humans? That's for another video if
you think that we should do it. For now,
[music] death remains universal even if
the amount of time people receive before
it arrives is profoundly unequal.
Number 13. Money does not protect you
from grief.
Money allows you to die in comfort, but
the loss of someone dear is universal
and we all deal with that in our own
ways.
>> [music]
>> No level of privilege or net worth can
prevent the chair at the table from
feeling empty, [music] which makes the
present so much more valuable. Grief
teaches the lesson that [music] money
struggles hardest to accept. Not
everything valuable can be [music]
preserved.
Number 14. Money does not repair time
already neglected. Wealth can buy future
time by reducing work, shortening
travel, and delegating low-value tasks,
but it cannot return the years in which
the people you loved needed a version of
you that was permanently busy. There are
ambitions worth pursuing and sacrifices
worth making, sure, but every
achievement has a hidden price measured
not only in money, but in conversations
missed, health deferred, and
relationships assumed to be patient. We
know how this sounds, and this is a
luxury that you can only utter once
you've dug yourself out of the mud. What
you should pay attention to is how long
it'll take you to get out. The tragedy
is not working hard, it's reaching the
destination and discovering that some of
what you intended to enjoy there did not
wait for you. Time can be reorganized
while it's still ahead of you, which
leads to the final and perhaps most
important problem that money cannot
solve. Number 15, money doesn't teach
you how to be happy with the life you
have.
Every life requires choosing one path
and leaving others unexplored. Despite
the decent movie, you can't be
everything everywhere all at once. Too
many options can make commitment feel
like deprivation. You begin judging your
real life against all the lives you
could still be living, and this is why
many of you romanticize working on a
farm, or maybe writing a book in a small
fishing village, or selling ice cream by
the beach. Happiness starts when you
stop treating every unopened door as
some kind of loss, and fully inhabit the
room that you chose. Money can expand
the menu, sure, but it cannot make you
stop reading the menu after dinner
arrives. A happy life is not one without
alternatives. No, it is one that you no
longer abandon mentally for them. A
happy life is one where you don't
constantly wish you were somewhere else.
[music]
We feel like we went a little bit deeper
here than you maybe expected on this
one, but we do have a question to end
this.
Option one, you get extreme wealth
immediately today.
Option two,
>> [music]
>> as you progress in life, your wealth
builds up until you get to the top. Now,
which of these options do you think
you'd be more pleased with if you looked
back on it on your deathbed? Now, we
structured it like this because we know
that option one is kind of the default
answer until you hear the full question.
So, let us know in the comments.
>> [music]
>> And now, let's do the bonus. The bonus
today is
the fear.
Because wealth gives fear collateral.
When you have nothing, failure threatens
the future. When you become rich, it
threatens the life you already [music]
built. It's fascinating how much of life
is influenced by fear. We build wealth
because we're scared of a miserable
life. We try to become successful
because we're scared of not
self-actualizing. [music]
You get to the mountain top and assume
that you're done, only to find out
there's a whole different ladder with
much different rules. The fear shifts
focus to losing what you have. You
become more private. You build bigger
walls. You buy things that support the
narrative only to now have to maintain
them. The stress was about making it
early in the journey. Then the stress is
still there in the form of I don't want
to lose it. You wanted money for
freedom, but eventually freedom requires
risking [music] the money. The poor are
trapped by necessity, and the rich can
become trapped by preservation. And
eventually, freedom might require
risking the very wealth that you
accumulated to obtain [music] it.
>> If you made it to the end of the video,
please write the word top in the
comments. Thank you for being here.
>> All right, that's a wrap for today,
Alexer. We'll see you back here next
time. Until then, take care.