How to get rich quick in today's world.

We were just joking around.

The startup was still young, and there were only the two founders and three employees, of which I was one. We had a jokey office culture that probably wouldn’t fly today.

One person said, “I’m not sure I like this iteration. " We were in the meeting room, trying to figure out how to make the business more profitable.

“I think I have an idea,” one of the founders said, bending over his notebook. “I’m going to draw an illustration on what will really turn things around.”

“A little bit of money comes in this side, see,” he said, holding up his notebook to show us. “Then it goes through our company and comes out the other side a whole lot of money.”

“Sounds like Enron.”

The world is always looking for a money machine, and never more so than today. The soil is ripe for get-rich-quick seeds, which land in shame and identity crises,hustle culture, the desperate need for attention, and social media envy like never before.

The process, for unethical folks or those who have lost their way and gone all-in on seeing people mostly as potential customers, looks like this:

1. Find a pain point to poke. We are all in pain somewhere, and that, to the get-rich-quick crowd (or even the get sorta rich in reasonable time crowd), is a selling point. You’re not selling to alleviate the pain but to capitalize on it, though you say otherwise. One of the best ways to monetize pain is to monetize your own pain, mental illness, sin, or bad habits. By doing this, you poke the pain while assuring them that you understand and they can trust you not to abuse them and that it’s safe to buy your product or program. Some issues (eating disorders, disordered eating, obsessive-compulsive behavior repackaged as habits, and anxiety about control marketed as time management, etc.) can be flipped enough that people will pay to have the same problem.

   
   

2. Pressure about limited time or space to act. This is the fear of missing out, both time- and exclusivity-related. You might miss out, you might not get to save money, you might lose the deal, you might be excluded and not part of the cool kids’ group.

   
   

3. Create a group of people bound together by the sales similarity. You call it “community” and use the desire to belong (and the in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound mentality once they realize something’s not right) as a control mechanism. There’s some exclusivity to use as leverage, too, and this is the community you’ll sell to and send out to sell to others. To outsiders, it could be seen as a bit cultish.

   
   

4. Control your community. Do this through love bombing, gaslighting, threats of being kicked out of the community, and faux religious fervor surrounding extreme lifestyles that must be adopted. Idealized goals can never be attained outside of the community; only life within the community guidelines will get you there. Follow the program exactly, no grace. No quarter. No excuses. If you fail, it’s your fault for not hustling enough. Emphasize that there is no trying, only succeeding. Failure is not an option. “You go, girl! You’re capable! You got this! (Because if you don’t, you’ll go, girl.)”

   
   

5. BONUS: Automate and reduce the amount of time invested in each person. Time is money, after all, and the point is to make it, not lose it. Do this using technology or a pyramid so that maximum profits are possible. This might be hidden in the language of “scaling,” but because humans are involved, it’s simply dehumanizing and little more. Automated responses, automated videos, automated everything. What you want from human beings is their money and eyeballs (which bring ad revenue). The rest is sent to automation.

If you do this, you can be a completely awful person but successfully monetize your flaws so that others want to be like you, leaving you feeling fully justified in your awfulness.

You think I’m being facetious, but I am not.

It's even worse when faith or something else that people hold dear is somehow entwined with this, because guilt and confusion quickly enter the equation, turning off people's ability to think clearly about the situation.

It is possible to build wealth without chewing up the human race. Probably.

But when the end goal is building wealth, sooner or later, the bottom line becomes the bottom line. Pragmatism will win the day. You will find the best way to make the most money and justify the human or ethical costs. You will lobotomize your message to the lowest common denominator to appeal to the most people. You will move your internal line as to what you'll do and not do inch by inch until you're miles deep into what had been no-man's land.

Building wealth for eternity is a very different motivator, and changes everything. It won't be money, or only money. Eternal concerns will change your entire outlook on how you treat people and what you do in situations. You won't be perfect, but in general, your actions will make very little sense to those trying to build wealth for this short and temporary life.

So the question remains: how to get rich quickly in today's world?

Luck. Sell your soul while selling whatever else. Trade your ethics. Use people. Horrible answers, yes, but it's a horrible question that has one focus only: lots of money as fast as I can.

The better question? How to make an eternal difference in a temporary world.

The answer to that doesn't sell well.