The Fastest Way to Increase Your Income
It has nothing to do with working more hours
Most financial advice focuses on cutting expenses. Cancel subscriptions. Brew coffee at home. Spend less than you earn.
That advice isn’t wrong. Spending less than you earn is a fundamental rule of building wealth.
But one of the most powerful financial levers in your life has nothing to do with cutting expenses; it has to do with increasing your value.
Because over time, your income tends to follow the value you bring to the marketplace.
I learned that lesson the hard way when I graduated from UNC in 1997 and wanted to start building a real estate business. There was just one problem: I had no capital. No investors. No wealthy family backing the idea. No easy path to funding the dream. If I wanted to build something, I was going to have to earn the money myself.
So my brother and I started framing houses for other builders. Long days on ladders. Early mornings. Heavy lumber. North Carolina heat. At the time, it felt like we were simply working hard to save money. Looking back, it was the beginning of something much more important. It was the moment I began to understand that the fastest way to build wealth is not always by cutting expenses.
Sometimes it starts by increasing your value.
That experience taught me two lessons that would shape the rest of my career. First, work has dignity. When you are willing to do hard things and show up every day, you develop discipline and resilience that last a lifetime. Second, your earning power grows when you increase the value you bring to the marketplace.
Framing houses with my own two hands taught me how buildings were constructed, but I wanted access to the other side of the equation. I wanted to understand how the deals worked and how properties were valued. That curiosity is what eventually pulled me into brokerage.
At the time, there was no Zillow and no easy access to real estate data. If you wanted to understand what properties were selling for, you either had to go to the register of deeds office and pull the Grantor and Grantee books or have access to the MLS. And even that required dial-up internet. But the MLS had the information. It showed what homes and land were selling for, how prices were moving, and where demand was building. That information was incredibly powerful.
Real estate agents sat in the middle of that flow of information. They saw prices, negotiations, demand, and market trends before most people did. They saw what worked and what didn’t.
Once I started working in brokerage while also understanding construction, something clicked. I was beginning to see the full picture.
Construction taught me how buildings were created.
Brokerage showed me how value was priced and negotiated.
Together, those experiences gave me an edge that eventually helped me move into development and larger projects.
At the time, I wasn’t thinking about strategy. I was simply trying to learn as much as possible. But looking back, those decisions dramatically increased the value I could bring to the marketplace.
The Most Powerful Wealth Lever Early in Life
Early in my career, I noticed something interesting about the people who built real wealth in real estate. They were not the people obsessing over saving a few dollars here and there. They were the people focused on creating more value.
A builder who consistently delivers projects on time and on budget will always have more demand than one who does not. A broker who understands the market deeply becomes far more valuable to clients than someone who simply opens doors. A developer who can see opportunity in land that others overlook can create enormous value.
The difference was rarely about working longer hours. It was about increasing the value of the work they were already doing.
That realization changed the way I thought about money. Instead of asking, “How can I spend less?” the better question often became, “How can I become more valuable?” The first question helps you survive. The second question helps you grow. Many people focus on working harder, but the real shift happens when you focus on becoming more valuable.
Because income tends to follow value.
In simple terms, there are two financial levers you can control. You can spend less. You can earn more. And you can invest the difference. Most financial advice focuses on the first lever. Today we are talking about the second. Because increasing your earning power is often the fastest way to create the gap that makes wealth possible.
There are only two ways money comes into your life. You work for money, or your money works for you. Early in life, almost all of your income comes from the first category. Your time, your effort, and your skills are what produce income. That is why increasing your value in the marketplace is so important during those years.
Your income tends to follow your value, and value tends to grow when you stay curious and keep learning.
Your goal early in life should be simple: become more valuable every year. Learn faster. Build skills. Look for opportunities to solve bigger problems.
Over time, the marketplace tends to reward that progress.
There is another reality worth remembering. If you work full-time, you will spend more time working than almost any other activity in your life. Sleeping may take roughly fifty hours a week. Work takes around forty. During your waking hours, almost nothing else comes close.
Because work occupies such a large portion of our lives, it is worth asking an important question: Is the work you are doing helping you grow?
The most successful people I know are constantly investing in themselves. They develop expertise, study their craft, expand their knowledge, and take calculated risks when those risks create opportunities to grow.
When you become better at something the marketplace values, your earning power tends to increase. And eventually, that increased income creates something extremely important: a gap.
The gap between what you earn and what you spend is where wealth begins. That gap becomes the fuel that powers the next phase of the journey: investing.
Because once your money starts working for you, the dynamic changes. Your income is no longer limited to the hours you work. Your capital begins producing income on its own.
Over time, that compounding can become incredibly powerful.
We’ll spend more time talking about investing in a future issue, but it is important to remember that investing is fueled by earlier decisions: the discipline to spend less than you earn, the effort to increase your earning power, and the patience to put that gap to work.
When those elements begin working together, the path toward financial freedom becomes much clearer.
From Income to Freedom
Looking back, framing houses was never just about earning money. It was about creating the first opportunity. Every board we nailed into place helped generate the capital I needed to take the next step. That capital created options, and those options created new opportunities to learn, grow, and build.
Over time, I began to understand something important: increasing your earning power is not just about income. It is about freedom.
Freedom to choose the work you want to do. Freedom to invest in opportunities when they appear. Freedom to spend time with the people you love instead of constantly worrying about money.
Early in life, the most powerful investment you can make is in yourself. Your skills, your knowledge, your reputation, and your ability to create value.
When those things grow, your earning power tends to grow with them. And that growth creates the gap between what you earn and what you spend.
That gap is where financial wealth begins.
In the coming weeks, we will discuss what to do about that gap, how to protect it, and how to invest it so your money begins working for you. Because that is when the real magic starts to happen.
Your Turn + Start Bold
The simplest way to increase your earning power is to increase your value.
What is one small step you could take this week to become a little more valuable?
Read a book related to your field. Take an online class. Ask someone more experienced to share what they have learned. Volunteer for a project that helps you grow a new skill. Small improvements compound over time. And when your value grows, your opportunities tend to grow with it. That’s how progress happens. Progress equals happiness.
What is BOLD Wealth?
BOLD Wealth is using money as a tool to fuel the life you want to live. It means building financial strength not for status or scorekeeping, but to create the freedom to pursue what matters most. Family. Health. Growth. Generosity. Joy. Money alone is not wealth. True wealth is what you are able to do with it. The experiences you create. The time you spend with the people you love. The impact you make. That’s what it means to build BOLD Wealth. A life that’s rich in money and rich in meaning.
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