I've been listening to a lot of successful founders recently—Samir Vasavada, Aravind Srinivas, the people building the future. Do you know what they never talk about? Coupon clipping. They don't talk about skipping the avocado toast.
They talk about one thing: Obsession.
Yet, when we look at personal finance advice for "regular" people, it's all about shrinking. "Don't buy the coffee." "Cancel Netflix." "Save $3 on gas."
I'm calling it out: This is a poverty mindset disguised as financial prudence. You cannot save your way to a legacy. You have to build it.
The "Deep Work" of Money
Aravind Srinivas (founder of Perplexity) said something that stuck with me during a recent interview:"The only bet you can make is on your own obsession."
Most people treat their finances as a passive activity. They set up auto-pay and forget it. But building wealth requires Deep Work—the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task.
Applying this to your finances means shifting your focus from "How do I spend less?" to "How do I build more?"
Consider the Math:
If you cut out coffee, you save ~$1,800 a year. That’s your ceiling. You cannot cut more than 100% of your expenses.
but your earning potential? It has no ceiling.
If you spent those same "coupon clipping" hours learning a high-leverage skill (AI prompting, coding, sales, copywriting), you could add $20,000, $50,000, or $100,000 to your income.
That's a 10x ROI. The coffee cut is a 1x ROI.
Where "Grit" Fits In
Amjad Masad (CEO of Replit) talks about grit—not quitting after 6 hours, but pushing through for days. He describes it as maintaining enthusiasm despite repetitive failure.
In finance, grit isn't about suffering. It's about consistency in the boring things.
It's easy to be motivated about money when you get a bonus. It's hard to be motivated when the market is down 20% or when you have an unexpected medical bill. That is where grit lives.
- Grit is tracking your spending every single week for a year, even when the numbers look bad. Facing the reality of your balance sheet is painful. Do it anyway.
- Grit is keeping your old car for 5 more years so you can invest the payment interaction-free. Social status is the enemy of wealth.
- Grit is having the uncomfortable conversation about a raise, or firing a bad client, or asking for the sale.
It's not sexy. It doesn't look cool on Instagram. But it compounds.
The 3 Levers of Wealth
There are only three levers you can pull. Most advice focuses on the weakest one.
1. The Output Lever (Earnings)
Unless you are earning $500k+, this is your highest ROI activity. Don't just "upskill". Learn to prompt engineering. Learn to deploy a React app. I spent 3 weekends learning to automate my spreadsheet data entry with Python. That one script saved me 200 hours a year. That is wealth.
2. The Input Lever (Spending)
Important, but limited. Don't focus on lattes. Focus on the "Big Three": Housing, Transport, Food.Negotiate your rent. (I knocked $100/mo off just by offering to sign an 18-month lease). Drive a Camry, not a Tesla. If you nail those, the lattes literally do not matter.
3. The Multiplier Lever (Investing)
This allows your past grit to work for your future freedom. But you need capital (from Lever 1) to make this work.
Why We Track at All
So if I'm saying "focus on earning," why did I build an expense tracker?
Because you can't manage what you don't measure. You track expenses not to beat yourself up over a small purchase, but to ensure your spending aligns with your obsession.
If you claim your obsession is "health," but your spending is 40% "Uber Eats," you're lying to yourself. The data reveals the truth. Finly is the mirror. It doesn't judge you; it just shows you what you're actually doing.
Use Finly to audit your values, not just your wallet. Look at your last 30 days. Does your spending reflect the person you want to become? If not, use your grit to change it. Then go back to work building something great.
