Lifestyle is visible. Wealth isn’t. (Trading lesson) Most profitable traders don’t build wealth because they treat variable trading income like a salary and expand their lifestyle with every payout. Then a drawdown hits and there’s nothing underneath. Key points - Profit ≠ wealth. Making money and keeping money are two different skills. - Lifestyle creep kills traders. Bigger months lead to bigger spending, then one bad month breaks the system. - Social media lies by omission. You see spending, not savings, investments, or net worth. - Trading income is variable. If you spend like it’s guaranteed, you’ll eventually over-spend. - Different mindset needed: Trading = aggression, risk, speed, execution Wealth building = patience, consistency, boring systems - - What actually works for traders (simple structure): Cash buffer: 6–12 months of bare minimum expenses (not invested) Lifestyle ceiling: keep monthly costs fixed even after good months Deploy profits: put surplus into assets that can work without you (principle > product) - - Start before you’re profitable. Build habits and structure now, while the account is small. Bottom line: Trading is the engine. Wealth is what happens when you capture profits and deploy them instead of spending them.