Why Being Good at Making Money Can Make You Poorer

Work, Skill, and Systems

Remember this thought. It’s important

Your first $1,000 is from work.

Your first $100,000 is from skill.

Your first $1,000,000 is from systems.

So I was sitting in this overpriced Manhattan coffee shop yesterday, watching two entrepreneurs have completely different conversations about money.

The first guy is proud. He's telling his friend how he finally hit $300 an hour consulting. He's beaming. And look, he should be — that's not small money.

The second guy, three tables over, is worried. He's telling his partner that their automated course platform "only" made $300,000 last month while they were both on vacation in Greece.

Same coffee shop. Same time. Two completely different universes.

And that's when it hit me: We're not just talking about different income levels here. We're talking about different physics of wealth entirely.

This is the thing about wealth that nobody tells you: It exists in three distinct states.

Like matter can be solid, liquid, or gas, money comes from work, skill, or systems (yes, we’re going back to grade 7 science class).

The tragedy? Most people spend their entire lives trying to optimize the wrong state.

Think about it: The first guy will need to trade more time to make more money. He's stuck in the solid state — the direct exchange of time for money. Better hourly rate? Sure. But still chained to the clock.

The second guy? His system works whether he's sipping espresso in Manhattan or tzatziki in Mykonos. He's operating in a completely different phase of wealth.

But this is the part that keeps me up at night: Getting better at making money from work actually makes it harder to build wealth from systems.

It's like quicksand. The better you get at trading time for money, the deeper you sink into that paradigm. The golden handcuffs get tighter. The escape velocity required gets higher.

Let me throw a question at you: When was the last time you made money while your phone was off?

Because that's the difference between being good at making money and being good at building wealth. One requires your presence. The other requires your absence.

In the next few minutes, I'm going to break down:

• Why the traditional advice about "charging what you're worth" is actually keeping you poor
• The hidden trap of skill-based income that nobody talks about
• The counter-intuitive reason why generalists often build better wealth systems than experts

But first, you need to understand something crucial: The path to your first $1,000 will kill your path to your first million if you let it.

Let's start by understanding why making more money might be your biggest obstacle to building real wealth...

The Three Energy States of Money

Let me share something that's been bothering me about every wealth-building book I've read.

They all treat money like it's one thing. Like water is just water.

But that's not how physics works. And it's definitely not how wealth works.

Water changes completely when it transitions from ice to liquid to vapor. Same molecule, entirely different properties.

Money works the same way. And understanding these state changes? That's the key to escaping the gravity of trading time for dollars.

Let's break it down:

State One: The Solid State (Work)

This is where most people live. It's the direct conversion of time into money.

You show up, you get paid. You don't show up, you don't get paid. Double the hours, double the money.

Simple physics. Clear rules. Limited potential.

Think hourly consulting, salary jobs, freelance work. The math is straightforward but brutal: Your wealth is capped by the number of hours in a day.

State Two: The Liquid State (Skill)

This is where it gets interesting. In the liquid state, you're not just trading time — you're trading expertise.

The rules change:

• Value isn't tied directly to time
• Results matter more than hours
• Income becomes more fluid and flexible

These are your high-end consultants, specialized lawyers, and expert surgeons. They're making more in an hour than most make in a week.

But here's the trap nobody talks about: Being liquid isn't the same as being free.

You're still the bottleneck. You're still the product. You've just increased your hourly rate.

State Three: The Gaseous State (Systems)

This is where wealth takes on entirely new properties. Like gas fills any container, system-based wealth can expand infinitely.

The physics here are completely different:

• Income disconnects from time
• Growth happens while you sleep
• Value scales without your direct input

Think software companies, content platforms, automated businesses. The wealth keeps expanding long after you've stopped working.

But here's what fascinates me about these states:

The skills that make you successful in one state often cripple you in the next.

Being an amazing worker can make you a terrible system builder. Being a brilliant specialist can blind you to leverage opportunities. Being too good at making money can prevent you from building wealth.

I see this all the time with the founders I work with. The ones making $50k/month from their expertise often struggle more with building systems than the ones making $5k/month.

Why?

Because they're too invested in their current state. The energy required to change states feels too risky.

Think about it:

When water turns from solid to liquid, it has to first become less stable. When liquid turns to gas, it has to first become more chaotic.

Your wealth follows the same rules.

Before you can transform from work to skill, you have to let go of stability. Before you can transform from skill to systems, you have to embrace chaos.

This brings us to the real question that nobody's asking:

What state is your wealth in right now? And more importantly — what's stopping you from changing states?

Because the uncomfortable truth is that the path to significant wealth isn't about working harder in your current state.

It's about having the courage to change states entirely.

The Paradox of Progress

Let me share something that messes with most people's heads when they first hear it: Getting better at making money is often what prevents you from building wealth.

I know. Sounds crazy. But stick with me, because understanding this paradox might be the most important financial insight you'll ever have.

Picture a successful lawyer I know. Let's call her Sarah.

Sarah's brilliant. Started at $200 an hour. Worked her way up to $1,000 an hour. Now bills $2,000 an hour for specialized corporate work.

Impressive, right?

But here's the trap she's in: Every hour she spends building a system is now costing her $2,000 in lost income.

The better she gets at practicing law, the more expensive it becomes to do anything else.

This is what I call the Success Trap, and it works in three devastating stages:

Stage 1: The Skill Acceleration

• Your hourly value keeps increasing
• Your expertise becomes more specialized
• Your income grows consistently

Sounds great, doesn't it? But watch what happens next.

Stage 2: The Golden Handcuffs

• High income becomes addictive
• Lifestyle expenses expand to match
• The opportunity cost of change becomes painful

Stage 3: The System Paralysis

• Building systems feels "too expensive"
• Time becomes your scarcest resource
• The gap between income and wealth widens

This is why you see so many high-income professionals who are secretly broke.

They're making too much to quit, but not enough to be truly free.

Think about the math:

If you make $500/hour, spending 100 hours building a system that might fail feels like risking $50,000.

If you make $50/hour, those same 100 hours only risk $5,000.

The people most capable of building wealth-generating systems are often the least likely to try.

But here's where it gets really interesting:

The real toll isn't financial — it's psychological.

Every year you spend getting better at trading time for money, you're actually:

• Strengthening your dependency on active income
• Weakening your system-thinking muscles
• Making the leap to true wealth creation more terrifying

I see this with founders all the time.

The ones making $30k/month from consulting struggle way more with building scalable businesses than the ones making $5k/month from a day job.

Why?

Because the successful consultant has more to lose. Their identity is more wrapped up in their expertise. Their golden handcuffs are tighter.

So what's the solution?

It's counter-intuitive, but here it is:

IF POSSIBLE… You need to start building systems while your opportunity cost is still low.

Before you get too good at making money. Before your lifestyle inflates. Before the golden handcuffs click shut.

Because the path to wealth isn't about climbing the income ladder. It's about building the elevator while you're still on the ground floor.

Ask yourself, are you building systems that will make you wealthy? Or are you just getting better at being expensive?

Because one leads to freedom. The other leads to a very expensive trap.

The Hidden Cost of Skill

So I'm at this dinner party last week, sitting between two tech founders.

One's a brilliant engineer who spent 15 years mastering cloud architecture. The other dropped out of college and barely knows how to code.

Guess which one built a $40 million company?

The dropout did.

Not because he was smarter. Not because he worked harder. But because his lack of expertise was actually his greatest asset.

I call this the expert’s curse.

The Expert's Curse

Think about experts you know. What do they all have in common?

• They see complexity others don't
• They spot potential problems instantly
• They know all the ways things can go wrong

Sounds good, right?

Wrong.

Because while the expert is meticulously planning the perfect solution, the amateur is already building, launching, and learning from real feedback.

I call this the Expert's Curse, and it works like this:

The more you know about your field:

• The harder it becomes to simplify
• The more you overthink decisions
• The less willing you are to experiment
• The more you fear "doing it wrong"

Think I'm exaggerating?

Watch what happens when you put an expert developer and an amateur in the same room:

Expert: "We need to consider scalability, security protocols, database optimization, and build a robust infrastructure..."

Amateur: "Let's launch a basic version next week and see if anyone even wants this."

Three months later:

• The expert is still architecting the perfect system
• The amateur is already getting real customer feedback

Expertise doesn't just slow you down — it actively blinds you to bigger opportunities.

The Specialist's Blindspot

When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When you're an expert, every problem looks like it needs your specific expertise.

I see this happen constantly:

• The brilliant coder tries to solve everything with code
• The marketing expert thinks every problem is a marketing problem
• The finance whiz reduces everything to numbers

Meanwhile, the generalist is free to:

• See patterns across industries
• Borrow solutions from other fields
• Focus on what actually moves the needle

The Wealth-Building Paradox

Now how does this tie into our main idea?

Building wealth isn't about being the best at what you do. It's about building systems that work even when you're not at your best.

Example:

• Expert writer: Crafts perfect articles that take weeks
• System builder: Creates a content framework others can use

The expert is playing a game of diminishing returns. The system builder is playing a game of multiplication.

So what's the solution?

It's not about becoming less skilled. It's about becoming less attached to your skills.

The New Expertise Model:

1. Learn enough to be dangerous
2. Build systems while you're still flexible
3. Use expertise to optimize, not to create

Because here's what nobody tells you about getting really good at something:

The better you get, the harder it becomes to build something bigger than yourself.

Ask yourself: Is your expertise making you wealthy? Or is it just making you expensive?

Because there's a world of difference between being valued for what you know and building value that works without you.

The Future is Coming…Fast

So I'm at this tech conference in Vegas last week, and something keeps bothering me.

It's not the fancy AI demos or the slick presentations. It's this 22-year-old kid I meet between sessions.

He's built an AI system that's already making more money than most doctors. But here's what's fascinating:

He's never had a "real job" in his life. Never traded time for money. Never even learned the rules most of us are trying to break.

He went straight from thinking in systems to building systems that think.

And that's when it hits me: We're watching the greatest wealth gap in history unfold.

But it's not the gap between rich and poor. It's not even the gap between skilled and unskilled. It's the gap between system builders and everyone else.

Let me show you what I mean...

The Great Divide

Here's what's really happening:

While most people are trying to:

• Get better jobs
• Raise their rates
• Climb corporate ladders

System builders are:

• Creating autonomous businesses
• Building scalable platforms
• Designing wealth machines

Think about the math for a second:

The worker's equation is linear:

More hours = More money

Better skills = Better pay

Higher position = Higher salary

The system builder's equation is exponential:

More systems = Multiplied output

Better leverage = Compound returns

Higher automation = Infinite scaling

The gap isn't just growing. It's accelerating.

And here's the part that keeps me up at night:

Most people don't even realize which game they're playing.

The Final Thought

Remember what we talked about at the beginning?

Your first $1,000 is from work. Your first $100,000 is from skill. Your first $1,000,000 is from systems.

In the future, these transitions will happen faster. The windows of opportunity will be shorter. The cost of waiting will be higher.

So let me ask you one final question: Are you building the systems that will make you wealthy?

Or are you just becoming the most expensive cog in someone else's machine?

Because in a world where systems eat expertise for breakfast, the only unforgivable sin is thinking too small.

Your future self is watching. Make them proud.

Scott