For 15 years, I’ve managed the money of Silicon Valley’s richest — and here’s the truth no one wants to admit: you can have millions in the bank and still feel painfully poor.
This is the difference between being rich and being truly wealthy, and understanding it will change the way you think about money, success, and your life. ✨
The Real Difference Between Being Rich and Being Wealth
“Rich” stems from a number on a screen —> cool 👍🏼
“Wealth” stems from alignment with core values, relationships, and gratitude —> 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
You can be rich, you can be wealthy, or you can be rich and wealthy –but you should never seek to be rich without wealth. I’ve seen it and it ain’t the vibe.
Let’s start by redefining wealth.
What is Wealth?
Google will tell you that wealth is “an abundance of valuable possessions or money”.
I call BS, well sort of.
To me, wealth is having an abundance of valuable possessions (yes), but valuable to you specifically. And wealth has nothing to do with a price tag– let me explain.
Things That Might Make You Feel Wealthy
- Belly laughing with a friend
- Someone gifting you fruit from their tree
- A hot cup of coffee under grandma’s quilt
- A child curling up in your lap to give you love
- Walking through a wildflower field
^^ see how none of those cost money?
True wealth is linked to the core values of who you are and how you define a successful life.
What makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside?
Let’s uncover what makes you feel wealthy. ✨
Look at the below list and choose the top 3-5 that make you feel warm inside.
- Acceptance
- Achievement
- Adventure
- Ambition
- Authenticity
- Authority
- Balance
- Beauty
- Belonging
- Career
- Collaboration
- Commitment
- Community
- Compassion
- Competence
- Confidence
- Connection
- Contentment
- Cooperation
- Courage
- Creativity
- Curiosity
- Equality
- Excellence
- Faith
- Family
- Financial Stability
- Forgiveness
- Freedom
- Friendship
- Fun
- Generosity
- Gratitude
- Growth
- Harmony
- Health
- Home
- Hope
- Humility
- Humor
- Independence
- Integrity
- Intuition
- Joy
- Justice
- Kindness
- Knowledge
- Leadership
- Learning
- Love
- Loyalty
- Nature
- Optimism
- Patience
- Peace
- Pride
- Respect
- Responsibility
- Security
- Self-Discipline
- Self-Expression
- Serenity
- Service
- Simplicity
- Spirituality
- Tradition
- Travel
- Trust
- Truth
- Uniqueness
- Vision
- Well-being
- Wisdom
Next, let’s make a plan to increase these things.
✨ Creativity → Plan for Art Night Friday this week
📚 Learning → Choose a new skill or topic then find an online course
💕 Love → Call, write, or spend time with a loved one while you’re cooking dinner tonight
⛰️ Stability → Make a budget and money goal, then make a plan for the next month
If you’ve correctly chosen your words from above, you should feel instantly more wealthy at the thought of growing that area of your life. 💰
Then the last (and most important step) to growing wealth, is recognizing it and expressing gratitude for it.
Thank the Universe, God, Goddess, whoever– but send out an energy of “THANK YOU” and watch your wealth increase.
“What you appreciate appreciates” -Lynne Twist, “The Soul of Money”
(aka what you are grateful for grows in value.)
So what is “only Rich” then?
“Rich” is an abundance of money. And money is an amazing tool that buys us healthcare, education, adventure, and safety. So “rich” can be really, really good.
So many people seek riches– but we have to be careful not to seek being rich at the expense of being wealthy.
- I’ve had clients who are rich (multimillionaire rich) but were not wealthy. ❌
- I’ve seen people ultra-devoted to the pursuit of money and clout – at the expense of your relationships with family. ❌
- I’ve seen people with tons of money who turn around to spend it with their kids only to find them grown up and bitter for never being around. ❌
- I’ve seen people insecure about whether their friends (and even spouse) even truly likes them – or if they just are attracted to the riches. ❌
It is a sad reality and it’s one of the reasons there is a massive mental health epidemic in Silicon Valley – one of the “richest” places in the US.
Money without wealth is empty and lonely.
So how can we be rich and wealthy?
Focus on wealth first, and then focus on money second.
You’ve got your nouns from the list above – invest in them, grow them, recognize your blessings in those areas, and express gratitude for them.
Then, evaluate your financial life.
- How’s your spending?
- how’s your saving?
- how’s your investing?
Tweak those areas and come up with some goals.
Consider the following Money Management Areas:
- Build an Emergency Fund
- Open a Roth IRA and learn how it works
- Open a HYSA (High-Yield Savings Account)
- Consider a 529 Account for your kids or a Roth IRA (if they qualify)
The ultimate goal is to build riches upon a solid foundation of wealth.
You can have both, but only if you do things in the right order.
You are sooo in the right place if you’re ready for wealth.
I’ve been managing the wealth of others for the last decade. I’ve seen the inner workings every single day and I see how straightforward wealth is.
YOU can be wealthy. Easier than you realize and sooner than you think.
Sign up for my newsletter if you want to stay connected to this world of wealth building (on a deeply personal level). Then scroll down for your homework. 🤓
Your Wealth-Building Homework
I loved homework as a kid – was it only me? Ok, just me…
Choose one (or all) of the following over the next week and see how it feels.
- Identify your “core values” from the list above, or google a larger list and pull from that
- Make a list of all of the ways your life already has items that coincide with those values
- Brainstorm ways to increase the energy of those values in your life without money
- Assign yourself a task each day in one of your wealth values, complete it, and see how it feels
- Create a gratitude practice – meditation, prayer, say “thank you” to whatever mysterious energy blesses us, start a gratitude journal
Let’s Build Generational Wealth Together
I’m deeply committed to this work of convincing you that you can be deeply wealthy without the hustle culture and without participating in the rat race.
I’m currently in the beginning stages of creating a course specifically about Growing Wealth on Your Terms.
Let’s do this together. Sign up for the Candlelight Collective’s newsletter if you haven’t already, and stay tuned for more resources just like this blog post.
Xx Bri