As the table clearly illustrates, a debit card fails to build the credit history that is absolutely essential for securing loans for a car, a business, or an investment property at favorable rates. Furthermore, you’re significantly more vulnerable to fraud and are consciously leaving free money on the table with every single swipe. The key to unlocking this tool is behavioral discipline:

Practical Takeaway: Treat your credit card like a debit card. This means only charging what you already have in your bank account and can afford to pay off in full every single month, without exception. This disciplined approach builds your credit, earns you valuable rewards, and provides superior protection for your cash, all without incurring a single cent of destructive interest.

The Four Pillars of Wealth Accumulation:

Cody outlines a powerful, cyclical framework for building wealth that functions like a flywheel, each part fueling the next. It’s a roadmap that starts from nothing:

1. Resources: This is your essential starting line. It takes money to make money, and your first resource is often access to credit, not cash in the bank. You don’t need to be rich to start building this pillar—just financially conscious.
2. Knowledge: This is the great differentiator. The rich pass on how to invest, not just cash. This is the knowledge stack you must actively and relentlessly build through reading, podcasts, courses, and seeking out mentors who have already done it.
3. Wealth Accumulation: This is the stage where you start strategically piling on your own money through smart saving and automated, disciplined investing into proven assets like low-cost index funds.
4. Investment Ability: Finally, you graduate to the ability to move your money cyclically and creatively, making it work for you through various advanced investment vehicles and even owning cash-flowing businesses.

Most people tragically try to jump straight to step 3 without securing steps 1 and 2, leading to frustration and failure. Don’t make that common and costly mistake. Lay your foundation first.

Part 2: The Modern Wealth Mindset – Rethinking “Hard Work” and “Passion”

The old, comforting clichés about wealth are not just unhelpful; they’re often dangerously wrong and can lead you down a path of burnout and financial stagnation. Let’s dismantle two of the biggest and most persistent myths that are holding you back.

Myth #1: Hard Work Equals Wealth

Hard Truth: “If hard work would equal wealth, then the person who runs my laundromat would make just as much as Jeff Bezos.”

Let that sink in. Hard work is a necessary component of success, but it is absolutely not the sole formula for wealth. The laundromat owner likely works back-breaking hours but lacks the leverage, systems, and scale that Jeff Bezos built with Amazon. In the emerging age of AI, this truth is becoming even more pronounced and undeniable. AI will commoditize mid-level execution for everyone. What will truly set you apart in this new landscape?

Cody cites philosopher and investor Naval Ravikant: You don’t want to work like a cow, continuously grazing. You want to be the lion—sprinting and resting. Top performers will be those who can think creatively, diagnose complex problems, and make bold strategic leaps, not just those who pride themselves on putting in the most grueling hours without a strategic outcome.

Myth #2: Follow Your Passion to Make Money

This is feel-good advice often given by people who are already rich and have forgotten their own path. The cold, hard data tells a very different story. Cody references what she calls the “boring-sexy matrix,” which clearly shows that the more “boring” and unsexy an industry is, the higher the potential income and the less competition you’ll face.

Key Insight: “Learn to love the game. Don’t try to obsess on your passions.”

The founders of Airbnb weren’t necessarily passionate about air mattresses on dirty floors; they became passionately obsessed with the game of business—the thrill of solving a massive, hairy problem in the market. Your underwater basket-weaving hobby might bring you joy, but it likely won’t be a viable, scalable business. Instead, find a valuable problem you enjoy solving—a “game” you love to play—and the money will follow naturally as you become exceptionally good at it.

Real-Life Example: Look at the glamour of Hollywood. The reality is that over 80% of SAG-AFTRA union members don’t make enough to even qualify for health insurance through their union. The average income for an actor in LA is a paltry $23,000. Meanwhile, in a “boring” field like finance or plumbing, 99% of people earn 100% of their living from their stable job. The odds of financial success are starkly, undeniably different when you choose the game wisely.

Part 3: The Practical Playbook – From Employee to Investor

How to Make More Money as an Employee

Forget just nervously asking for a raise based on your tenure or feelings. Approach it like a shrewd businessperson would negotiate a contract. Cody’s powerful, step-by-step guide reframes the entire conversation:

1. Diagnose Your Value: Schedule a meeting and go to your boss with this powerful question: “I’d like to understand how I make you money. If you had to quantify the value I bring, could you help me understand that?” This question alone will set you apart from 99% of employees who only think about their own needs.
2. Understand the Business Model: Then ask: “What do you think the profit margins of this business are? If we bring in a hundred dollar sale, what portion of that do we actually get to keep?” This shows you understand the bigger picture.
3. Negotiate Based on Tangible Value: Now you can negotiate from a position of logic and strength. “Okay, I now understand I made you a hundred bucks. We kept 20 of it as profit. If I can consistently do that, could I keep five of that 20 I brought you?” This shifts the conversation from “I want more” to “Here’s how I can generate more for us to share.”

Career Growth: The Bricklayer to City Planner Ladder

To grow your income significantly, you must fundamentally grow your impact and perspective. One brilliant framework is to see your career progression not as a linear path, but as an evolution in scope:

• Bricklayer: You know how to lay a single brick perfectly (you excel at completing a single, defined task).
• Builder: You know how to build an entire wall and paint it (you can manage a project or process from start to finish).
• Architect: You can design and blueprint a new part of the business (you create strategy and vision for new initiatives).
• City Planner: You plan the entire ecosystem and infrastructure (you set the overarching vision for the whole company or division).

More money and responsibility are directly attached to this expanded scope and strategic vision, not just to logging more hours or being more busy. It’s about owning outcomes, not just tasks.

Should You Start a Business? The Side-Hustle Safety Net

The glamorized “all-in” startup narrative is pure survivorship bias, celebrating the tiny few who won while ignoring the millions who lost. The data is brutal: 90% of startups fail within five years. Cody’s advice is therefore brilliantly counter-intuitive and safe:

Strategic Tip: “The way to never have risk in building a business… is you keep your job.”

The data overwhelmingly shows you have a 33% higher likelihood of your startup succeeding if you have an income source while building it. Why? Because we make smarter, more rational decisions when we’re not in a state of financial panic and desperation (the flight-or-fight mode). Use your stable salary to calmly fund your venture, allowing it to grow organically until the venture itself can reliably fund your lifestyle. Only then should you even consider leaving the security of your job.

How to Start a Business with No Money

Mindset Shift: “You never suffer from a lack of money. You suffer from a lack of knowledge on how to get money.”

This is a paradigm shift. The richest people in the world rarely use only their own money; they are masters of using OPM (Other People’s Money). Capital is all around you, waiting for a good idea and a competent, hard-working person to deploy it strategically.

• SBA (Small Business Administration): They offer non-dilutive grants (free money you don’t pay back) and low-interest loans, often covering up to 90% of a business’s purchase price.
• Crowdfunding & Lending Platforms: Modern websites like Percent allow you to get debt financing for your small business directly from a pool of online investors.
• Angel Investors & Venture Capital: People with capital are actively and constantly looking for promising opportunities and ambitious entrepreneurs to invest in.

Part 4: Advanced Wealth Accelerators

The Four-Stage Investment Ladder

Don’t jump into complex, high-risk investments prematurely out of impatience. Follow this logical, progressive ladder to build wealth systematically and safely, minimizing risk while maximizing learning and compounding: