Cole StrilerCole Striler

By Cole Striler. 

Dreaming isn't enough

December 23, 2020

I’m no wealthy man, but you don’t have to be to understand logic.

Everybody wants to be rich. Are there counterexamples? Always. I’m not speaking about edge cases, though, I’m speaking about the majority. We all want more money.

The problem I see with most people, however, is that this want for money rarely translates to anything beyond a desire for something they know they’ll never have. It’s merely a dream. A “maybe one day”. Or even, a wish that someday you will buy a lottery ticket — even though you never buy lottery tickets — and win the lottery. “There’s a chance that anything can happen”. Sure, but “there’s always a chance” only means the probability exists between 0 and 1, and says nothing about its distribution.

In other words, your “maybe one day I’ll be rich” is most likely an extremely small chance. For most people, this is far less than 1%. It realistically looks more like 0.000000001%. So yes, there is a chance. Keep dreaming.

The problem with dreams, however, is that by definition of a dream, dreams do not come true.

If you want to make more money, you need to focus on growing the likelihood of you getting rich. Only 1 in a billion get rich with 0.000000001% odds. Sounds impossible, right? If you can increase that number to just 0.01%, your chances become 1 in 100, which is almost the acceptance rate at the top universities (which I believe almost anyone can get into if they set their mind to it).

So how do you grow the likelihood of you making more money?

You need to establish more outlets that have the potential to trickle in more money. If you work a 9-5 and have a fixed salary — or if your salary is dependent on the number of hours you put in — you will almost never get rich at that job.

What do I mean by setting up outlets?

Let’s say you live in the jungle and rely on catching rain for drinking water. Would you rather catch the rain using a narrow straw, or a cone funnel?

Working a 9-5 and having a fixed income source is like collecting water from a narrow straw. The amount of income you can “catch” from the world is limited to a narrow tube. Using a funnel, however, you are able to collect many more water droplets and fill your water bottle much faster.

If you want to be rich one day but you are not building these funnels in your life, you are literally just crossing your fingers and hoping money falls out of the sky.

How can I build a funnel?

Invest. Buy stocks. Watch your money grow. Experiment with crypto. Write a book. Post videos on YouTube. Start a business. Make an online course. Marry a rich person. Do what you gotta do. But if you never open up these channels for you to make more money, being rich will forever remain a dream that never comes true to “average” people like yourself.

What you’ll come to realize, however, is that everybody, on average, begins life being average. Anybody can do anything. The key word here is “do”. If you want something in life, you must take the steps to get it. Too many people spend their entire lives suffering in the form of dreaming, without ever taking that first step.


By Cole Striler. 

If this was helpful or you have any other questions, reach out on Twitter! Happy to help.

© 2022, Cole Striler