Would you like a Gucci bag, or perhaps a Chanel? Or maybe you want some Yeezys, a Rolex, or an Audemars Piguet?

My question to you is: why?

If you’re not buying these luxury brands to flip it, what inherent value do they serve you? Their brand can spin a story about how awesome and unique their thing is, but we all know a Yeezy is made of crappy materials and costs $1 in labor to make a pair of shoes. We also know a Gucci leather bag is the same as any other cheaper brand’s leather bags.

So again I ask: why do you want to purchase fancy goods?

Usually the brand “gets” you by subconsciously programming the idea into you that if you get these things, you’ll look “cool.” In other words: buying these things give you social status in the form of compliments.

This means your sole reason of buying luxury goods is only to impress others. You might know this already, but the harder you try to be cool, the less cool you are.

In my opinion, seeing someone who has a complete IDGAF attitude is way more cool than someone who is desperately trying to impress me by buying expensive stuff.

Someone who has an IDGAF attitude doesn’t have to carry the burden of artificial social pressure on their shoulders. And more importantly, someone with an IDGAF attitude would never feel like they have to “keep up with the Jones’.” This means someone with an IDGAF attitude has the added benefit of having a lot more money in their account.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying you should be the “Millionaire Next Door” and clip coupons, all I’m saying in this post is you should carefully analyze what you’re buying and why you’re buying it. You should splurge on yourself it that thing you’re buying has significant impact and value in your life. But an overpriced bag or shoe…unlikely to give you a massive win in life.

And if you’re so rich that a $120K watch is less than 0.1% of your net worth, then this post isn’t for you because you’re very unlikely to buy an expensive watch to impress someone. You’ve already made it and you don’t need to impress anyone. Other people should be impressing you instead.

Looking Like A Big Deal Is Not The Same As Being A Big Deal

I’m not telling you to be a rebellious teenager and go to work completely unkempt. I’m merely saying…you’re a free person and you don’t need to keep up with other folks to feel good about yourself.

Would you rather be free and not feel social pressure?

Or would you rather constantly feel an anxiety with keeping up with someone else’s material possessions (spoiler alert: you’ll never keep up because there’s always someone with more than you out there)?

Would you rather have more money in your bank account to spend on the things you actually want?

Or would you rather waste a bunch of money so you can get a few compliments from your co-workers and “friends”?

Would you rather have the unshakeable confidence of being filthy rich?

Or would you rather get envious glances from strangers that “want to be rich like you,” but deep down inside you know you’re in debt and barely trying to keep up?

I know a lot of rich people that go out in wifebeaters and just carry a strong IDGAF attitude. They’re solely focused on their goals and impressing others isn’t one of those goals. Those people are cool because they’ve managed to get exactly what they want out of life, without any unnecessary distractions. I love these people and I have a lot to learn from them.

I also know a lot of people trying to “keep up” by buying fancy stuff, but I can see right through it and their desperate need for approval feels cringy and weak to me.

I’ve been in a lot of meetings with very successful people and the last thing they care about is impressing me. Their attitude is mostly inquisitive and curious. Depending on who I am talking to, they’re relentless in asking questions to varying degrees. And a lot of these rich folks are surprisingly down-to-earth. You would not know they have more money than most of the population if you didn’t know who they were.

And yet, I’ve been to a lot of meetings with cringy “salespeople” who aren’t rich, but try to come off desperate as a wealth authority. They wear suits and aren’t curious nor inquisitive at all. They dictate the conversation and tell you what to think. But anyone with half a brain can see through these people for what they are: they don’t actually know what they’re talking about due to lack of skill and are trying to compensate with a fancy suit, tie, and watch.

If you wear a Tom Ford suit, collectible AP, and a shiny LV belt, I have nothing against you. Just know I won’t be judging you on what you wear, but the contents of what comes out of your mouth and much more importantly: the outcomes you bring to the table.

Without results, your fancy dress just becomes that much more cringy. At least if you weren’t so well-dressed, there’s a humility to it that I can forgive. But someone sporting a lot of luxury goods and also happens to be worthless (which is most of them) just seems like they’re desperately compensating.

It’s like this one time I went to this scammy Grant Cardone “free real estate” conference, where Grant Cardone didn’t actually show up and it’s just his lackeys trying to sell you on some bullshit courses.

This guy was wearing an LV belt and a nice suit and bragging about how he made $50K on a deal or something (I don’t recall the exact number, but it definitely wasn’t in the high six-figures). And he’s wearing an LV belt which costs anywhere from $600-1000.

That’s surprising, because I make mid-6 figures per year and I would never get an LV belt. The reason for this is because I only use belts to secure pants that are now too loose because I was on a diet for a prolonged amount of time. Why do I need to spend $600 on a belt when a $20 belt from Uniqlo will get the job done? Makes no sense to me.

But all the signs of this guy points to someone that doesn’t know he’s talking about. He just kept selling the course but never really talked about anything of substance. It took him an hour to explain what “wholesaling” is at a high level when a cursory google search would have yielded the same understanding in 30 seconds. The entire thing had no substance and was just a sales pitch, despite the fact that on their website it would use this language:

The only thing you really could expect from these seminars is a lot of selling, and a lot of peacocking in the form of fancy suits and belts.

You Don’t Need “Friends,” You Need Allies

I don’t have a high quantity of friends, but the ones that do respect my IDGAF attitude deeply. And if your attitude is that of “IDGAF” as far as keeping up with other people goes, you’ll have people that respect you deeply as well. The reason for this is simple: not everyone can carry that confidence with them.

I’m not talking about being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. If you’re doing that, you’re still doing it to impress others. I’m just talking about an IDGAF attitude where you stay true to yourself and your own path.

And while some will respect you for following your path, a lot of people won’t approve of you and expect you to conform.

But that’s why you don’t need “friends.” Friends are just people that compliment you any time you’ve done something to patronize their lifestyle habits. An ally is someone that’ll compliment you when you do something good for yourself. A “friend” asks you how your weekend was. An ally will tell you not to waste money on stupid things over the weekend and don’t care if you hate them for it. A “friend” has normal conversations and gossips about people and the news. An ally asks you for advice on productive things, and answers productive questions meaningfully.

You don’t need “friends” (though they’re nice to have as a stress reliever) – you need allies.

Having allies is about having high-quality people in your life and not optimizing for quality. Having friends is more about winning a popularity contest where you pander to everyone so you end up with a high-quantity of low-quality people in your life.

And guess what your reward is when you win that popularity contest? Nothing.

Yep, that’s right: there’s no award for having a high quantity of shitty friends. Conversely, having a few high quality allies that care about your financial and mental well-being has a deep satisfaction to it that a large number of low-quality friends can’t ever provide.

So again I ask: are you buying fancy things to impress your low-quality friends, or are you buying fancy things because it makes sense for your own individual path?

And would you buy these expensive things if you had 1) zero social pressure, and 2) no friends at all? If the answer is “no,” then you’re buying things to impress people.

The Coolest Thing

At the end of the day, the coolest thing you can do is to have the confidence to live for yourself and to make your own choices.

It’s not cool to have your purchasing decisions dictated by others. Think about it: if your expenses is predicated on others’ opinions, that means there’s less money for you to spend on things you actually love.

Maybe you wanted to go on a nice vacation, or do some investing, or want to pay off debt. Now you have a lot less money to do any of those things you want in your life because you let other people’s opinion dictate your spending. In other words: your resulting lack of life choices is because you let others tell you how to spend your money.

Stated another way: you’re letting others tell you how to live your life and you’re their slave.

Breaking out of this is simple.

Your real friends should be your allies, and you should not be a slave to their approval. If your friends are pressuring you to do things you don’t want, your ticket to freedom is to just ignore them or drop them.

P.S.: This is a new blog and if you’ve found this helpful at all, it would mean the world to me if you were to share this post to someone that you think this post might benefit. It would also be immensely helpful to me if you could give me any feedback on the content at hello@goodmoneygoodlife.com