A book and a podcast by Wesley Harper
Poor is having to ask.
Rich is not
having to.
It took me thirty years, 1,800 closings and two collapses to find the words for that. This is everything I wish somebody had told me at thirty — and everything it cost me to work out on my own.
The book lands DATE. The show starts DATE.
Plenty of books will tell a thirty-year-old to open a retirement account.
Almost none of them are written by somebody who was handed nothing, built a thirty-year career anyway, lost most of it twice, is honest that he's still fighting — and can tell you exactly how he kept his head while it was happening.
That's the only reason this one is worth your time. Not because I won. Because I can show you the receipts on both halves.
Rich and poor were never bank balances.
They're habits — in character, knowledge, money, health, and the people you keep. I had the second kind of poor long after the first kind stopped being true, and then the first kind again, long after I should have known better.
The book
Sixteen chapters. Each one is a story from my life, the lesson it cost me, and three to five things you can do about it this month. Plus a page in every chapter for readers already past fifty.
The show
I'm not the expert in the room on most of this, which is the point. Every episode hands one chapter to somebody who knows more than I do and asks whether it holds up.
The playbook
Fifteen ideas the whole thing keeps returning to. Free, on this site, no email needed. If you never buy anything, take these and go.
The playbook
Most of these started as lines in a notebook I kept for my daughter — written years before I managed to live any of them.
The Window
Your thirties and forties decide the next three decades. After fifty, health and energy and family stage close it faster than anyone warns you.
"Give your efforts time to compound!"
Your Board of Directors
Three or four truth-tellers outside the family. Not the people you pay — the ones who'll tell you what you don't want to hear.
"Have your own Executive Board of 3–4 people who are older & wiser."
Hope Is a Discipline
Not a feeling you wait on. A practice you run on the mornings you don't believe any of it.
"You will have seasons of life… the tuff ones will pass soon."
The 80% Rule
You never get more than 80% out of a person, a plan or a day. Budget money at 80%. Block time at 75%. Two or three real things is a good day.
The Control Trap
The business you start to escape risk usually carries the same risk in a different costume. I found that out twice.
"Take risk, but calculated risk."
Trust the Voice
It's loudest right before a bad decision. And if you listen, you never find out whether it was right — because you listened.
"Never believe what someone tells you until you back it up."
The book · PUB DATE
It started as a notebook for my daughter.
I've been writing lines in it since she was small — how to handle money, who to keep close, how to get back up. Four or five entries a year, in the good years and the worst ones. In 2018 I apologised to her on the page for not being better at it, and promised I'd work harder.
This is me keeping that promise at full length. Every chapter opens with a line from it, and then tells the truth about whether I managed to live it.
Who's talking
I'm not writing this from the top of the mountain.
Thirty years in real estate and 1,800 closings. I've also lost a house, left the industry altogether for two years, and come back — then did a version of it again. I'm still climbing. Earn the advice with the scar; don't claim the trophy.
Start with Chapter 1.
It opens in the street outside our house, before school, with a pair of pliers and the water meter. Free, right now. After that, one short note a week on something I got wrong and what it cost.