If you want to make more money — whether as an employee, entrepreneur, or investor — you have to think like a capitalist. You have to learn how to quantify your worth.

Financial markets run on human emotion and decision-making — and those are both directly tied to mental alertness. Researchers have found that when investors experience sleep disruption or cognitive fatigue, their performance in the stock market tends to decline. This isn’t just theory; data shows that investor behavior becomes more impulsive, less analytical, and more prone to bias when mental alertness drops. In other words, a tired brain can cost you money.

There’s no shortage of outrage in America about inequality. Politicians talk about raising taxes. The media talks about “fair shares.” But nobody talks about the difference in mindset between those who build wealth and those who wait for someone else to fix it. The truth is — the wealthy don’t play a completely different game. They just understand the rules.