Are You Building for Rich or Wealthy? The Difference Between Rich vs Wealth Mindset

You're making 50K months. Maybe more. And it still feels exactly the same as it did when you were making 5K.

Same pressure. Same reactivity. Same internal script of "how do I make sure I don't lose this?"

I've seen it happen over and over again working with hundreds of clients across different industries. The revenue grows but the way they hold money doesn't shift. And that's because most established entrepreneurs have never stopped to examine their wealth mindset. They've been building for rich this entire time whilst telling themselves they want to be wealthy.

But the difference between rich and wealthy is massive. And it shows up in every single decision you make in your business.

If your relationship with money still feels like a constant negotiation, if you're still filtering every decision through "how do I make more?" then you're operating from a rich mindset whether you realise it or not.

In this episode I'm pulling apart what rich actually looks like as an operating mode, what wealth feels like when you start building from it, and the two questions that will change how you think about every pound you make. I'm also sharing a story involving a pair of lost Gucci shoes and my husband's reaction that honestly made the whole concept click for me.

 

She's Making More Money Than Ever So Why Does It Still Feel the Same

A client said this to me recently. "I'm making more money than I have ever made, so why does it feel exactly the same?" And I think that one question cracks open everything we need to talk about.

Because if more money doesn't change how it feels then the feeling was never about the amount. It's about the operating system underneath it.

Rich thinking tends to be reactive. Every decision gets filtered through "how do I make more money, how do I cover this expense, how do I hit this number again next month?" And what I've seen working with hundreds of clients is that script doesn't change as the number grows. You could be at 5K months or 50K months running on the exact same internal loop.

The outgoings get bigger. The expectations get bigger. But the starting point is identical. And that's what creates the pressure, the heaviness, the responsibility that makes business feel like something you're managing rather than something you're building.

 

A Pair of Lost Gucci Shoes and Two Very Different Reactions

I went to a beautiful hotel in London recently to host a client strategy weekend. I brought along a pair of Gucci shoes my husband had bought me for Christmas. Around £1,500. And I left them in the hotel room.

I rang the hotel. They said they weren't there. I knew they were. The panic set in. I didn't want to tell my husband because I wanted to sort it out myself. But eventually I had to.

And he was completely calm.

He thought in relative value. Expensive shoes, yes. But relative to everything else in our life, they're just shoes. He didn't collapse into the loss. He contextualised it. Then he went straight into problem solving. He knew our rights around lost property. He considered insurance. He looked at the next steps. There was no spiral. Just "there is always a next move."

That's the difference between rich and wealthy thinking in real time. Rich thinking fixates on "that's £1,500 gone." A wealth mindset puts it into proportion and assumes there's always another move to make.

Now put that into a business scenario. A client doesn't sign. A project falls through. Rich thinking says "that's money I need to make up." Wealth says "that's one opportunity out of many more."

 

2 Questions That Change How You Build Your Business

You've probably already answered "how much do I want to make?" But I want you to sit with two more questions.

The first is what do you want that money to do for your life? The second is does the way you're making it actually allow you to achieve that?

Because those two things can be completely out of alignment. You could say you want more flexibility, more time with your children, more space to create. But the way you're earning right now is filling every hour, running events that drain your capacity, and leaving you each month trying to rebuild recurring revenue from scratch.

If you're making 50K months but don't have the time to enjoy what that money should give you, you can hit every revenue goal, feel rich, and still be negotiating with your health, your relationships, your creativity. That's not wealth. That's not even close.

This is really about how to build wealth that actually supports the life you said you wanted. Not just how to build wealth as a number on a screen.

Luxury brands operate from this exact principle. They leave money on the table deliberately rather than reacting to every opportunity because they're focused on longevity. The way they make money is as important as what they're making. And I think there's something in that for all of us.
 

Key Takeaways

A wealth mindset isn't about how much you make. It's about how you hold the money you have and whether the way you're earning it supports the life you actually want.


The difference between rich and wealthy shows up in how you react to loss. Rich fixates on the number. Wealth contextualises it and looks for the next move.


Rich thinking keeps you in a reactive loop no matter how much revenue grows. The internal script of "how do I make more, how do I not lose this" doesn't change at 5K or 50K months.


How to build wealth starts with two questions most entrepreneurs skip. What do you want your money to do for your life, and does the way you're making it allow that to happen?

 

FAQ

What is a wealth mindset?

A wealth mindset is the way you think about, hold, and make decisions around money. It goes beyond how much you earn and focuses on whether the way you're making money supports the life you actually want. Someone with a wealth mindset thinks in relative value, assumes there is always a next move, and builds with longevity in mind rather than reacting to every short term financial pressure.

 

What is the difference between a rich and wealthy mindset?

A rich mindset is reactive and focused on the number. Every decision filters through "how do I make more" or "how do I not lose this." A wealthy mindset puts money into proportion, looks at the bigger picture, and evaluates whether the way money is being made supports long term goals. You can be rich and still feel heavy. Wealth accounts for how the money serves your actual life.

 

What is the meaning of rich thinking?

Rich thinking is an operating mode where every decision is driven by revenue. It fixates on loss, reacts to short term financial pressure, and measures success purely by what's in the bank account. It doesn't change as income grows because the same internal script runs whether you're making 5K or 50K a month. Rich thinking builds for the number. It doesn't account for what that number should actually do for you.

 

How to develop a wealth mindset?

Start by asking two questions beyond "how much do I want to make." Ask what you want that money to do for your life, and whether the way you're currently earning allows that. A wealth mindset develops when you stop filtering every business decision through revenue alone and start evaluating whether your decisions protect your capacity, your creativity, and what you're building long term.

 

Are rich and wealthy the same thing?

No. Rich is a number. It's what's in your account and what you can show on a screenshot. Wealthy is a broader concept that includes how you hold money, how you make it, and whether it supports the life you're building. You can be rich and miserable. Wealth considers the full picture including your time, your health, your relationships, and whether your business is built to sustain all of it.

 

Transcript

When More Money Doesn't Change How It Feels

[00:00:00] It is about time that on a podcast called Rich Work, we dive into what does being rich mean? What does wealth mindset mean to you? Because I think most of us use those words interchangeably, and I don't think they're the same thing at all. You can be rich and miserable. We have seen it. Maybe some of you have felt it.

It goes deeper than that. I think most established entrepreneurs are actively building for rich whilst telling themselves that they want to be wealthy. And that is the reason business can still feel heavy when you are making a lot of money. 40K, 50K months, 100K months. Because it's not really about the money. It's about what the money means to you.

This is what we're going to explore today. I'm not going to hand you a definition of what being rich is or what being wealthy is. It's going to be subjective. But I want to pull it apart, and I want you to start thinking about the difference between rich and wealthy and how it impacts the decisions you're making in your business.

Stay till the end as there is a download for this one. I will be guiding you through how to think about the prompts that are going to change whether you are building for rich or building for wealth.

What Is Rich Thinking and Why Does It Follow You?

[00:01:17] Let's start with rich, because I think rich is easier to recognise. Rich tends to be a number. It is what's in your account. It is those screenshots that we see across the online spaces of how much money people have made.

But what a lot of people don't talk about is that rich is not just the output. It is also the operating mode that you are building from. Rich thinking tends to be reactive. Every decision is being filtered through "How do I make more money? How do I cover this expense? How do I replace that client? How do I hit this number again next month?"

The thing is, working with hundreds of clients across lots of different types of industries, that questioning doesn't change as the number grows. You could be making 5K a month. You could be making 50K a month and be running on the same internal script. The outgoings get bigger. Maybe the expectation gets bigger as you're making more money. But the starting point can be the same. "How do I manage this money? How do I react to what is in front of me? How do I keep going?"

And that is what can create the pressure, the expectation, and responsibility of "I'm making this much money now. How do I make sure I don't lose it?"

"I'm Making More Money Than Ever. So Why Does It Feel Exactly the Same?"

[00:02:30] I had a client say to me recently, "I'm making more money than I have ever made, so why does it feel exactly the same?"

That's a phrase I hear a lot. And I think this question cracks open this whole discussion we're having today. Because if more money doesn't change how it feels, then the feeling isn't about the money amount. It's about the way that you're holding it. It's about the operating system that sits underneath it. It's about your relationship with money itself.

So What Does a Wealth Mindset Actually Look Like?

[00:03:16] So let's think about the alternative. What does wealth look like?

Now, a wealth mindset is harder to pin down because it doesn't fall into a neat definition. It's going to be so subjective based on what your idea of success looks like, what your vision is for your life, what your vision is for your business.

You can feel wealthy in so many different ways that are not just related to how much money you make. And that is one of the key differentiators when we look at the difference between rich and wealthy.

The Gucci Shoes Story That Explains Everything

[00:03:38] I'm going to give you a scenario though. An experience that happened to me recently which really highlighted how rich thinking works versus a wealth mindset.

I went to a really nice hotel in London recently to host a client strategy weekend. We had a beautiful time in a luxury hotel. We did work. We did work, I promise. We did strategy. We looked at a whole business model. We spent two days together. And I thought this is the perfect opportunity for me to take along one of my Christmas presents, which was a pair of Gucci shoes that my husband had bought me. These shoes are incredible. They are beautiful. They're worth around 1,500 pounds.

I thought, why not take these shoes along? Until I realised that I'd left them in the hotel room.

[00:04:48] I got back to my home just outside of London. I had that sinking feeling. You know when you feel like you have forgotten something, but you think, no, that's just a niggle in the back of my head? No, this was true.

I rang the hotel straight away. I logged a ticket for the lost shoes, and they came back quite quickly and said, "They're not here."

I knew those shoes were there. I knew I had been nowhere else apart from that hotel room, onto the train, with my one bag. They had to be there. But the panic was really starting to set in. I didn't want to tell my husband because I wanted to figure this out on my own. But I got to the point where I was so distracted I had to tell him.

And he was completely calm.

Rich Mindset vs Wealth Mindset in Real Time

[00:05:33] Now, I didn't expect him to flip. But he was very cool about this. His response reminded me of what the difference between rich and wealthy really looks like in practice. The difference between a wealth mindset and a rich mindset.

First of all, he thought in relative value. The shoes are expensive. They are not shoes that I would wear every day. But relative to everything else in terms of how he spends, how we spend as a family, what we own, what actually matters in our world, they're just shoes. He didn't collapse into the loss of it. He contextualised it.

[00:06:02] Rich thinking is different. A rich mindset fixates on the number. "That's 1,500 pounds gone. That's 1,500 pounds we'll never get back."

Imagine this in a business scenario. If a client doesn't sign that you were hoping would sign, or a client doesn't re-sign into one of your programmes, or you lose out on a project. Rich thinking says, "Well, that's 1,500 pounds I need to make up. That's 1,500 pounds that's not in my bank account this month."

A wealth mindset puts it into proportion. It looks at, "Okay, what are the other opportunities I have in my business right now? This is one opportunity out of many more. This is one person out of an abundance of clients, people, opportunities that I can impact, that I can help, that I can serve. I am not make or break based on this one person saying yes or no."

When you put it into context with a wealth mindset, there is more than enough. There are multiple opportunities for you to access.

There Is Always a Next Move

[00:07:23] Secondly, he went into problem solving. But he knew that there was a solution. Whatever the outcome. He called the hotel back. He knew our rights around lost property. He knew that there was a duty of care that the hotel had around my shoes. But he'd also considered the next steps. Our insurance. Or we could just replace the shoes.

There wasn't any spiral. It was simply, there is always a next move.

That is the difference. With a wealth mindset, you assume that there is always a next move. A rich mindset gets stuck on the loss and tries to fix the problem that has already happened, rather than looking at how we can move on because I know and I trust that there is always a next move.

What the Most Successful Entrepreneurs Know About Loss

[00:07:46] I have been fortunate enough to work for some of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time. In one of my roles, I was head of marketing for a business where the same idea had been tried three years before. It had been attempted three years before, and it had failed. It had failed to the cost of multiple millions.

Three years later, I was heading up the marketing for the same concept in a different market, but with the same proposition. It had taken all of the learnings from those three years prior and was going to try it again.

And this time, because it looked at the market conditions, had made changes, had learned from what had happened before, this business is still around six years later. It is now valued at multiple hundreds of millions and is growing at a rapid rate.

[00:09:00] This is the pattern I see with a wealth mindset. You can sit within the loss of something and make it mean something and create the story. Or you can always assume that there is another move that you can make. The choice is what move you take.

The key difference with people that have this wealth mindset is that they are not looking at "I need to make the money work." Yes, there are realities of business. Yes, we have to make cash flow in our business. I'm not sitting here saying just always have a positive mindset and the money will fall into your lap. That's not reality.

But your intention, how you approach whether you are trying to make money from a rich mindset or whether you are looking from a wealth mindset, will impact how you make that money, how much money you make, and how you hold it.

How Rich Thinking and Wealth Mindset Approach Problems Differently

[00:09:49] Rich thinking focuses on "I need to make the money work." A wealth mindset focuses on "money always works for me." Not as an affirmation, but in the actual way that a wealth mindset approaches a problem and then operates towards a solution.

As you make more money, you will still have issues to solve. Those issues will come with more responsibility. They will often come with managing a team or external circumstances. You still have months that go completely sideways.

If you are looking for solutions because you assume that they exist, then you're not scrambling around because you're afraid that they won't. When you start to react because you're afraid that there isn't another opportunity for you, you are subconsciously capping the growth of your business and other opportunities that could be there, but you're just not seeing right now.

What Luxury Brands Know About How to Build Wealth

[00:10:38] Luxury brands operate from this principle. They are the ones that have lasted for decades because they don't react to every opportunity. They innovate. They are aware of what's going on in the market. They're not blinkers on. But they will leave money deliberately on the table rather than reacting to one small change or a shift in how people are buying, because they're focused on longevity and not reacting to "how do I make money regardless of whether it impacts the brand or what we're building longer term."

The key question that luxury brands think about, which is what I see reflected in a wealth mindset, is that the way brands make money is as important as what they're making. And I think there's something in that for how we think about our businesses as well. This is part of understanding how to build wealth that lasts, not just income that spikes.

Bringing This Into Your Business Decisions

[00:11:29] So let's bring it into our businesses. Let's not leave it as philosophy and concept, because this isn't just about Gucci shoes or luxury brands. It's about how you're making decisions every day.

If you are saying yes to every client who can pay, that is orientated around a rich mindset. That's building for rich. And sometimes we do need the cash flow. But if you consistently build like that month after month and you're just taking on any client, even though you know they're not the right client for this offer, then that will lead to inconsistency. You are one quiet month away from it feeling like everything you've built is just held together with string.

[00:12:02] If you are selecting based on whether someone actually allows you to operate at your standard, allows you to do the work that you can fully do, that you really bring to the table, that's a different starting point entirely. And then you will start to build over time. You will start to compound because those clients will get better results because they are a better fit for the work. You will feel more engaged in your work. You will be able to showcase what you do to its fullest extent, which will attract more of those right fit clients. And then the results compound.

The Two Questions That Change How You Build Wealth

[00:12:31] So how do you start building for wealth?

The question you've probably already answered is "How much do I want to make?" Whether you've answered that monthly or over the next five years, you've probably got a target. A figure in place for how much you want to make in your business.

But what I want to ask you is two extra questions. The first is, "What do you want that money to do for your life?" The second is, "Does the way that you are making it allow you to achieve that?"

[00:13:17] Because those two things can be completely out of alignment.

You could say that you want the money to be building more flexibility in your life so that you can travel or spend more present time with your children, or just spend some time on your own. But the way that you are earning it right now, the way that you are making that money, is filling up your calendar. Doing events that actually take a lot of capacity. Then leaving you each month looking at how to build up your longer term recurring revenue.

50K Months Mean Nothing If You Can't Enjoy Them

[00:13:45] If you are making 50K months but do not have the time to enjoy it and what that money should give you, you can hit every revenue goal, feel rich, whilst you are negotiating with your health, your relationships, your creativity. And you won't feel wealthy.

A wealth mindset doesn't ask "How much do I want to make?" It asks, "How much do I want to make, what do I want that money to do for me, and does the way I'm making it support me?"

[00:14:09] I think a lot of women who are at the level where they have created something successful, who are making good money, who have achieved a lot of what they thought wasn't even possible, are now sitting in a place of stagnation. Feeling like something's off. Feeling like they want to burn it down.

Maybe it doesn't require that. Maybe it simply requires that you ask a different question around what are you building this for? Where are you putting your time? Where are you putting your energy?

Building for Rich vs Building for Wealth Changes Everything

[00:14:42] What we are doing with these two questions is changing the filter.

If you build for rich, then you will evaluate everything on revenue impact. "Will this make me more money?" That is a rich mindset filter.

If you are building for wealth, you shift the filter to look at "Does this protect my capacity? Does this strengthen what I'm building long term?" And that will impact the way you're making decisions every single day in your business. How you're spending your time. Where you're putting your energy. What you prioritise. What you let go. What you delegate. What you just don't care about anymore.

There Is No Single Right Answer, But There Is a Better Question

[00:15:20] I don't think there is a single right answer to what wealth means. Like I said at the beginning of this episode, it is highly subjective. But I do think there are core questions that you can come back to whether you are at 10K months, whether you are pivoting your business, whatever scenario you are in.

I think the core question is about what do you want to focus on next? And there is no wrong or right answer. You can continue to build for rich. You can make a lot of money. And there will be seasons where that is exactly what needs to happen.

But if you are a woman who is wanting to build more wealth and is wanting to get more intentional with what that money does for you, then let's ask a different question. Not "How much can I make?" but "How can I make my money work for me?" That is how to build wealth that actually fits your life.

[00:16:11] The download is in the show notes to give you the prompts to sit with and really look at what you want to build next. This is the work part of Rich Work. We love to make money. Yes, we love to make money to be rich. But the work really comes in how we make that money work harder for you.

Until then, I'm Rachel Pearson, and this is Rich Work.