Let me be brutally honest right from the start: I’m nowhere close to giving you a magical recipe for building wealth. Hell, I’m not even close to achieving my own goals yet.

And here’s the kicker—my definition of wealth might be completely different from yours. So before we dive into this journey together, let me share what wealth actually means to me, and why I believe I’m on the right track (even when it doesn’t always feel like it).

Wealth Isn’t Just Money

For me, wealth has to be balanced across five key areas of life. Sure, finance is one of them, but it’s just one piece of a much bigger puzzle:

Health • Family • Finance • Professional • Freedom

Here’s why I think this way:

Health

We need to be in good shape to take care of the people who matter most. What’s the point of having money if you don’t have the health to enjoy it with your loved ones?

Family

I need to be solid with my wife, kids, and yes—even our dog. They’re the ones who give me the support and motivation to chase everything I aim for. Without them in my corner, none of this other stuff matters. A rich bank account with a broken family? That’s not wealth—that’s just expensive loneliness.

Finance

Look, money doesn’t buy happiness. But it absolutely buys your time back. It helps you solve problems faster and relieves stress in ways that are hard to explain until you’ve experienced both sides. There’s a massive difference between “I can’t afford this” stress and “how do I want to handle this” freedom.

Professional

Everyone wants to feel like they have skills that matter—something they can take pride in and continue growing. I want to know that what I do professionally is relevant, marketable, and honestly? Fun along the way. Life’s too short to hate what you do for 40+ hours a week.

Freedom

This one comes in many forms, and I’m grateful to say I’ve tasted some of it already.

Since 2017, I’ve been working from home, making six figures a year. My typical day? Wake up at around 7 AM, have breakfast with the family, drive the kids to school, hit the gym, and start work around 10 AM. After 5 PM, I’m ready for whatever the evening brings. I can travel for months at a time while working remotely.

But here’s where the financial freedom piece gets real: I receive around $7K in dividends today. I could rent out our house for more than our mortgage payment and still pocket about $600.

So yeah… if my wife and I both lost our jobs tomorrow, we’d still have $7K coming in without lifting a finger. That’s a hell of a peace of mind.

I heard someone say once: “You must reach the ‘f*ck it’ level of freedom.” And honestly? This feels pretty damn close to it.

Where I Actually Stand Today (The Real Numbers)

But let me get real with you about where I actually am in each category, because this isn’t a success story—it’s a work in progress:

Health: 4/10 – This is my biggest weakness right now. Bad habits, terrible eating, sitting at 94kg when I should be lighter. But here’s where the finance category comes in handy—I’m finally using my money to fix this by hiring a personal trainer and paying for a quality gym membership. Sometimes you have to invest your way out of your problems.

Family: 5/10 – Just recently started improving here, and it’s been a wake-up call. For too long, I haven’t been as present as I wanted to be. My wife and I have been out of tune—lots of arguments, lots of stress. But we’re managing it together and actively working to solve our problems. It’s messy, but we’re committed to figuring it out.

Professional: 8/10 – I genuinely love what I do, and the work-from-home perks make me love it even more. This gives me motivation to keep studying and staying on top of my skills. When you enjoy your work, it doesn’t feel like work—and that’s worth its weight in gold.
I’m a software engineer and I make 150k per year.

Freedom: 7/10 – We can travel, we get good vacation time, we can work remotely from different countries for extended periods. We have the budget to hire help around the house occasionally and get babysitters when needed. If you’re in a third-world country, this might sound cheap, but in first-world countries like the US and Canada, these services are expensive and genuinely feel like luxuries.

Finance: 7/10 – Still tons of room to improve and I need to find better market positioning, but given that I’m 38 with a net worth around $700K, I think we’re doing pretty well. Not amazing, but solid.

The Power of Goal-Setting (My Secret Weapon)

Here’s something I’ve discovered about myself: I work incredibly well with goals. And I mean specific, visualized, thought-out goals.

Looking back, every major milestone in my life happened because I set it as a clear target:

• Moving to Canada ✓
• Getting a job after arriving ✓
• Getting permanent residence ✓
• Buying a car ✓
• Getting citizenship ✓
• Helping my wife through college and finding her new job ✓
• Buying our house ✓
• Getting our dog ✓
• Having our babies ✓

I can’t tell you exactly what made everything work, but I can tell you that I was able to really think about each of these things, visualize them, and then work systematically toward making them happen.

And now I have a big goal for the next 24 months.

I’m going to share that journey with you—the planning, the execution, the setbacks, the wins, and everything in between. Working toward goals semi-publicly will help me reflect deeper on my decision-making process, and hopefully, it’ll give you some insights for tackling your own stuff.

Why I’m Sharing This Journey

Most wealth content online is either from people who’ve already “made it” (and forgot what the struggle feels like) or from people selling you courses on how to get rich quick.

I’m neither of those people.

I’m someone in the middle of figuring it out, willing to share the real numbers, the real struggles, and the real progress as it happens. No overnight success stories. No perfectly curated highlight reel.

Just the unscripted truth about building wealth in all the ways that actually matter.