The Money Trap | Investor's Guide to Joy — Chapter 5
Chapter 5 of 6 · Taxes and Exits

The Money Trap

Purpose, my journey, and what I've seen from the top of the mountain.

The Investor's Guide to Joy book cover
Chapter: 5 of 6
Read time: 8 minutes
Theme: The money trap, purpose, what wealth actually feels like

If you are on the climb to create generational wealth and temporary income, I would think the stories in this book might resonate with you. Because the idea of hard work equals success comes to mind. What I have found is that hard work is just a precursor. What truly matters is what I have been uncovering through these chapters.

It is not just the things I have been able to do. It is the humans I have been able to do it with.

Here is the trap. You set a financial goal. You hit it. You feel good for about a day. Then the goal resets. The number gets bigger. The timeline gets shorter. And the fulfillment window gets narrower.

I have watched this happen in my own life and in the lives of people with far more money than me. The seven figure entrepreneur who cannot sit still at dinner because he is thinking about the next deal. The eight figure exit founder who sold everything and still feels behind. The nine figure family office patriarch who has everything his grandchildren could ever want and wonders if any of them actually know him.

The money trap is not about having money. It is about money having you.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. — The Serenity Prayer

I have had the privilege, and frankly the weight, of sitting across from people who have made it by every financial definition. And here is what I can tell you from those rooms: the money did not fix the thing they thought it would fix...

What readers are saying

"I've been in the money trap for ten years and didn't have a name for it until now."

— Placeholder, Founder

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Start with the opening chapter instead — belief, identity, and why the truth you accept about yourself sets the ceiling on what you can build.

PG
Paul H. Graham Author of The Investor's Guide to Joy & founder of Taxes and Exits
© Paul H. Graham · The Investor's Guide to Joy
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